Kerr Bay (still) (2013-08-03)

We're still in Kerr Bay.  We had planned to relocate, but Mother Nature had other plans.  Yesterday we headed off to Collins Bay back to Marine Outfitters.  I had a cable waiting for me and also had to get ourselves Transport Canada legal.  I needed to pick up a radar reflector and had to get some up to date flares.


After Marine Outfitters we took a walk to pick up some groceries.  When we got back to the boat we noticed that the wind had picked up.  After a trying time getting off of Marine Outfitters dock we stopped at Collins Bay marina to top off our water tanks again.

We were planning on heading over to Kingston and checking to see if there was any room on the docks at Cedar Island.  Cedar Island is part of the Thousand Islands National Park, and our mooring permit is also good for the park.  However, as we were leaving Collins Bay we encountered southwest winds and waves of between 1 - 2 feet.  Now, we don't have a problem with a couple feet of waves, but southwest winds are a problem in Kingston due to the orientation of Lake Ontario.  Southwest winds sweep in over the length of the lake, creating large waves, and those waves are channelled right into Kingston through the gap between Wolfe Island and Amherst Island.

We decided not to bother with chancing the gap in southwest winds and headed back to Amherst Island.  We had wanted to check out another anchorage there named Stella Bay, but when we got there we found that it was very small, and quite deep.  There was a sailboat already anchored there, and whatever space was left was taken up by a bunch of mooring balls.  The weather was starting to close in on us, so we decided to head back to Kerr Bay.  There were already a lot of boats here when we got back, but it's a very large anchorage so there was no problem finding a spot.  In fact, we're in almost the exact same spot we were anchored in before.

Kerr Bay (2013-08-02)

By the end of the night there were 20 boats anchored here.

This morning we checked the weather forecast and the winds were still up so we said screw it and decided to spend one more day here.  It really is a very nice anchorage, so it wasn't much of a sacrifice.

At least it wasn't until some yahoos decided they needed to water-ski through the middle of the anchored boats.

Here they come...

They just missed this boat's anchor marker float

Right between these two boats on mooring balls

They lapped through the anchorage for about half an hour before finally moving on, waking everyone that was still here on every pass...

Around noon the last boat left the anchorage and we were alone again.  We knew we wouldn't be alone for long, and sure enough within an hour or so the boats started rolling back in.

Some weather rolled through just after supper.  We spotted a cool double rainbow, with one of the rainbows ending at a sailboat.

Double rainbow

There were also some nasty looking clouds rolling through, but nothing hit where we are, and just before sunset the skies started to clear up.

Glad this passed us by...

Tomorrow we'll probably head over to Kingston.  Cedar Island will probably be full, but we'll likely give it a look anyway.  Another option we're thinking about is the inner Kingston harbour north of the bridge.  We're thinking about anchoring in there and then taking the dinghy to Kingston marina and then running some errands in the city.  There's also a couple friends of ours from our (old? :)) marina that are going to be in the area, so we're going to try to coordinate a rendezvous with them.