Navy Bay (2013-08-04)

N 44° 13.794', W 076° 27.838'

The weather finally settled down enough for us to make a run to Kingston.  The wind was blowing from the northeast, which is a pretty good direction for travelling on the water near Kingston.


 We made Confederation Basin our first stop today.  I had read about there being 'day docks' at Confederation Basin, so we thought we'd check it out.  If it worked out it would give us a good spot to go in for a few hours to do shopping, laundry or just run miscellaneous errands.

When we got to the marina we hailed the marina on VHF channel 68 and asked about the day docks.  They directed us to two docks west of the Delta hotel.  Well, when we saw them our hearts sank.  The finger docks on the day docks were barely 20 feet long.  We could have backed in and tied up if it weren't for the fact that our dinghy hangs off of our swim platform.

I hailed the marina on 68 again and explained our situation.  They then directed us to what they called their 'accessibility dock'.  This ended up being the wall in front of the Delta.  While this worked marvellously for us, I'm not sure what is 'accessible' about this spot as there's a steel fence in the way of getting on and off the boat.

Confederation Basin day dock

After getting tied up we saw about paying for the day dock.  They use a system that is just like a parking lot pay kiosk, where you make a payment and then leave a printed receipt on your dash.  The day dock usage is from 0900 to 1730, and as we had arrived there just after lunch we decided to pay for the rest of the day.  It costs $1.50 per hour up to a maximum of $8.00.  A good deal in our books.

After paying we headed up into the city.  We poked about in a little flea market for a bit, buying a couple peppers from a produce vendor.  We then started asking around about the nearest laundromat.  We followed the directions we were given and found it.  We scooted back to the boat and gathered up our laundry and headed back to the laundromat.  Heaven for a cruiser is looking like an inexpensive place to wash your clothes. :-)

After taking care of our laundry we headed back to the boat, had a nice supper while we were still tied up and then headed out of the marina.  Thinking we might have some luck we headed over to Cedar Island to check on the docks, but unfortunately we found them full.  It looks like a pretty nice place though, so we'll definitely come back for a visit.

We then headed around the corner to Navy Bay.  This had been our primary anchorage plan as we left Amherst, with Cedar Island and the Kingston harbour north of the bridge as backups.  As we pulled into Navy Bay we found there was only one other boat anchored in there.

Our first attempt at setting the anchor didn't work out, and we dragged as we were backing down on it.  We retrieved the anchor and relocated a little further out in the bay and tried again.  This time we got a good set.

Here's how we do our anchoring.  We first motor around where we want to anchor, checking depths and distances to objects and the shore.  The depth, plus the height of our anchor platform from the water, gives us the number we need to calculate our scope, or how much anchor rode to let out.  If we can manage it, I like to have a 7:1 scope, but if we have to we can make do with a 5:1 scope, but no less.  If we can't do a 5:1 then we'll find someplace else to anchor.

Then we try to visualize where we want the boat to end up and motor upwind about the distance of the scope we'll be laying out.  This will be the spot where we drop the anchor.

We drop the anchor just until it hits the bottom and then slowly drop more rode as the wind blows us back to where we want to end up.  This way we lay out our chain on the bottom, rather than creating a big pile by dropping it all at once.

Once we have the scope out that we want we tie the rode to one of the cleats on our anchor platform.  We have 75 feet of chain backed by 250 feet of nylon rope.  As we won't anchor in less than 5 feet of water we'll always have at least all of our chain out with a 7:1 scope, so we don't bother with a snubber, but instead just tie the nylon rode off, removing the load from the windlass.  We have noticed some twisting of our nylon rode though, so it looks like we will have to switch to using a snubber even with the nylon rode.  Some experimentation will be needed.

Once we have all the rode out we want, and have it secured to the cleat we just leave it alone and go about whatever tasks we have getting the boat ready for the night.  After about a half hour to 45 minutes we'll then restart the engine up and put it in reverse at idle and back down on the anchor.

The reason we do this is that we want to give the anchor time to settle into the bottom, and the action of the boat moving in the wind and waves gently digs the anchor in deeper.  If you back down on the anchor with the engine too soon pretty much all you're going to do is plow a furrow in the bottom.

With the boat in reverse we'll look for landmarks on both beams (90 degrees to either side) to gauge if the boat is moving or not.  Usually the boat sits solid as a rock.  Tonight however we weren't so lucky on the first attempt and we could easily see we were moving in reverse.

Once the anchor was set we could take the time to admire where we were, and the amount of history we were surrounded by.  On the east side of the bay is Old Fort Henry, and on the west side the Royal Military College.  We tried to imagine what it must have been like to be on a British warship in the 1800's anchored in this bay with the guns of Fort Henry watching over you.

Royal Military College

 

Old Fort Henry

As much as we are thrilled with the history and the scenery of the anchorage we're not so thrilled by how rolly it is.  There's a lot of waves coming in from the Kingston bay, and as the wind is blowing in the opposite direction the waves aren't from the wind.  We're hoping that the bay will settle down after dark.

Tomorrow we're planning on hooking up with Nick and Wendy on M/V Corvette Conversion IV, who are vacationing on their boat, and travelling with them for a bit.  We're hoping the lake will cooperate and we'll manage to make it to Waupoos tomorrow.

The windmills on Wolfe Island - maybe *that's* where the waves are coming from... :-)