Confederation Basin - Day Dock Wall (2013-08-11)

N 44° 13.658', W 076° 28.761'

Yesterday was the day we had visitors; Dar's friend Monica and Monica's sister Theresa.  They were going to go to Confederation Basin and I would dinghy over and pick them up at the day docks.


Of course, my outboard decided to take the day off, and I couldn't get it started.  Chuck, one of the people we had met the day before, graciously offered to let me use his dinghy to make the run over to the day docks to pick up our guests.  Score one beer coupon for Chuck. :-)

The water was still pretty rough, but I made the trip over and back without any problems.  After a delicious lunch supplied by Monica the girls all decided to have a swim.

Waves in the waves

While they were swimming I took Dar's inflatable kayak out and set it all up for her.  This was the first time we'd used it.  I was happy that it only took about 15 minutes to set up, even with it being the first time.

Dar and Monica took it for a spin and proclaimed it great, although they were a little leary about taking it too far out into the rough water.

Maiden voyage of the new kayak

While Dar was having her visit I tackled the outboard.  I stripped it down again and recleaned the plugs.  I noted that the primer button (looks to be sort of a cross between a choke and something that increases fuel flow) pulled out further than I had been pulling it.  With the primer button pulled out all the way I gave it another try and low and behold the outboard came alive.  As I did the day before I took the dinghy for another run around the bay in front of Cedar Island and it worked great.

Of course, Murphy works in mysterious ways.  When it was time to take them back the outboard started okay, sputtered a few times before stopping again, and no amount of finagling would get it to behave again.  Once more Chuck came to our rescue and offered his dinghy again for the return trip.  Score beer coupon number two for Chuck. :-)

It's obviously going to take a bit more to get this outboard to co-operate.  I know it needs new plugs, properly gapped, so I'll start there.  It could probably use a new fuel filter as well.  I also got a couple recommendations for places to take it in to get a tune up.  Probably a prudent idea.

Today Monica was coming back for another visit.  We decided to take the boat over to Confederation Basin to pick her up, as we needed to charge the batteries.  When we got there we were a little dismayed to see that the wall by the Delta was full.  There was only one spot open, way back at the end of the day docks.  It looked do-able, but I was a little hesitant to try it.  It all worked out in the end though.  I brought the boat in to the end of the day docks, turned it around and shoe-horned it in between a sailboat ahead of me, and a couple of Sea-Doos behind me.

Confederation Basin day-docks

I was pretty pleased with how well this docking went.  The guy on the Sea-Doo chuckled and praised my docking and said that he couldn't even dock his Sea-Doo that well. :-)

While we were waiting for the Sea-Doos to leave so we could relocate the boat slightly for a better tie up, we were treated to a very comical scene as a couple ducks tried to invite themselves for a ride.

Stowaways!

With Monica there we took advantage of the fact that she had her vehicle and had her shuttle us around for a bunch of errands.  After the errands we took her out for a boat ride.  We decided we'd go out towards Milton Island, with the thought of anchoring in the lee of the island to have a swim.

We didn't realize it, but the wind had picked up quite a bit while we were doing our running around, and the water was very rough.  We made it out to Milton Island without too many problems though, and dropped the hook in the lee of the island as planned.  I dropped the dinghy and got it out of the way so the girls could have their swim.

Dar dove in and came back to announce that there was quite a current washing her away from the boat.  I checked later on and found that in the main channel on the other side of Milton there was almost 1 knot of current.  I got one of the heaving lines out and tied it to the boat so Dar and Monica would have something to hold on to.

Looks like I'm trolling for mermaids..

After the swim we pulled up the anchor and started heading back to Confederation Basin.  We were heading into the wind now, which was throwing up waves of about 1 metre.  We were riding hard on the waves, with many breaking up over the bow, and a couple even reaching me up in the flybridge!

When we had left Confederation Basin the Delta wall was empty, but now it was full again.  Even the back area where we had docked before was full.  Making a quick decision I headed for the south side of the Delta.  I hadn't seen anyone tie up there before, but considering there was no where else to go I didn't see much of a choice.  I took the boat slightly past the south wall, turned around and dropped her on the south wall as gentle as a feather.

After getting beat up in the waves out in the bay we decided that enough was enough and that we would stay here for the night.  Talking to some of the other boaters that were tied up on the wall there was some confusion as to who was responsible for this location.  Some thought that because it was physically next to the Delta that it didn't belong to the marina.  That was cleared up a short while later when a couple of the marina staff came by to ask if we were staying for the night.  When we were told that it would cost $1.55 a foot to stay on the wall I was a little upset.  I could see paying something like that if we were in a slip (which they wanted $1.75 a foot for) but this was a wall with a huge fence in the way of us getting on and off of the boat.  We discussed it for a few minutes with them and the marina guys decided to take pity on us and waved the fees for the night.  I guess we probably looked as beat up as we felt. :-)

Not long after dark I started to find new appreciation for the solitude we have while anchoring out.  The area next to the wall where we are tied up seems to be quite the busy little path, with many people walking, biking and even skate-boarding by here.  It's past 2300 as I'm writing this and a group of people have decided to have quite the loud conversation very close to the boat.  It's a good thing Dar can't get to the flare gun right now... :-)