Overnight

The weather looked nice, so I biked to the boat and sailed or motored to the sandbars, where I spent the night.  Next morning, there was still no winds, so I drifted back and motored to the gut and back to the club.

Overnight at the Sandbar

On Thursday, I biked to the club.  I dropped by Canadian Tire and picked up some diesel conditioner for Voilavie.

Tidy up the boat, and at 6, I took off, motoring to the Gut and sailing to the sandbar where I anchored and made another pork tenderloin.  Nice evening.  

On Friday morning, I sailed around and returned to the club at 2PM.  I installed the new baby stay with a turnbuckle and fixed the windex, which had become loose.

I was supposed to race on Voileavie, but her sons were too tired, so we cancelled.

Andrew cancelled the FFR at 16:48.  Coincidentally, Andrew went out to fly the Spinnaker on a shark. The race was cancelled too early, and the organizers had ulterior motives.

I decided to clean the dinghy which had not had a deep cleaning since I bought it in September 2024

St Jean to PCYC

I took Bellum without her Mast to PCYC with the plan to see the St. Jean Baptist fireworks.

Walked through Alexandre-Bourgeau Park, which was rather lame.... I came back to the PCYC club, had a beer with Lorezo and then had supper with Bruce and Ron.

Bill came by to invite us to his boat to see the fireworks.  I took him up on it, and we rafted up to Genesis and Lorenzo for the fireworks.

Return to the Pointe Claire Club and stay overnight there at the dock.

The next morning, I lingered over a free PCYC coffee and eventually returned to the Royal, where I worked to tidy up Bellum some more.

Single Handed to Pointe Claire

On Monday afternoon I loaded the car with mast frame and other stuff to the club in the afternoon to work on the boat.  

I ended up helping Northern Sun whose Yanmar 3GMD was not turning over.  She was stuck at Dowers and ended up sailing back to her dock. The problem was a weak connector to the panel.  Quel Surprise.

I set off motoring in a West wind to the Gut, checking out the new drive chain.  She worked flawlessly.  I anchored outside the Pointe-Claire church.  BBQ my pork chop, slept and got up the next morning to sail back to the club.  I decided not to testify at Jessica's TAL hearing. She was poor at communicating about the issues in the case.  I was not clear what I was going to be witnessing. 

I got back to the dock at 10, changed the sails,  inflated the new dingy, organized the boat and locker and went out to test the dingy.

On Wednesday, I biked out to Boathouse, Home Depot and the new Addison's in Pointe-Claire to get screws, cables, fuses, clevis pin, plumbing for water filter.  I biked back to the club, intending to bring the Argon 24 bike back home, but the U-lock no longer worked.  It had been there all summer.

FFR - NOT

The FFR was cancelled.  

Most crew had cancelled and I was a bit raced out.

Luc was out before the race.  I went out single-handed intending to stay overnight.  I made the radio call for the race cancellation and Luc called me on cell to ask me why.  There was reasonably good winds.

I sailed to BYC and sailed back and decided to return to the club to listen to Peter K and Richard F play.

Went to bed 

Sunday SH to Dowkers and anchor at Sandbars

sunset

sunrise

Sunday I set sail after Kobus and Marcelle sailing at 4 and had a nice sail one one tack to Dowkers and then anchored at the Sandbars.  Kelley and Mike were sailing too.

The winds forecast for the night and Monday was dead. Monday morning was windlass so I cancelled with Andreanne and came back to the club, delivered the delayed tax papers to Leslie, did Boathouse, Access got a new fuse holder for the DC-DC converter that overheated.

Biked to Rachel for supper and pick up Honda.

Single handed to Grande Anse - Full Moon

At about 6, I left the club single-handed tacking in a west wind around the shallows between the lighthouse and the gut and a single tack to Grand Anse.

Zero carbon anchored in the middle of the bay.  Tired, had a drink, and cooked the leftover pork chop.  Nice sunset, a fabulous full moon.  Lots of chat on messenger with Kelly Jason Mike about the day.

The next morning  I chatted with Leslie on SMS and phone calls about the WPW file and IG fund.  

At 11, I did a zero-carbon departure in a broad beam reach back to the club.  

Went home to pick up the new water detectors, Insta 360 and new HP computer

Came home to find a solvent smell that has been there since Friday.

was windy

Nautical Meet UP

I packed up the dinghy and towed her to Valois Bay for a meet-up.

Dingy worked okay.  Torqeedo was fine.

After anchoring, I tested its holding, the dinghy painter got caught in the propeller shaft.  I was able to unwrap it and safe the rope.  The shaft does not seem as "light" to turn by hand as previously.

Meet Up was not so interesting.  

I returned to the club to leave the dinghy behind.  The dinghy got swapped - floor board broke.  Some more tabs became undone.

I hung around the club, chatting with Sylvie and Denise and picked up the Dingy Tow from Nick and Heather.  They refused to accept the 80 for their help.

First Overnight Race - SINGLE HANDED

I missed the Maud race so I decided to do the Overnight race - Single Handed.  I intended to resign since I was not physically prepared to do this race.

Race was basically from AD14 to AD30 back and forth from 8:30 to 6AM.  

We saw the sunset, rain, clouds, and a bit of an almost full moon for about 15 minutes before ducking behind clouds.  We had several rain cells ... drizzle to light.  Wind shifts of 180 degrees.  

At 1AM, I abandoned, since I was quite distance behind Slow Dancer II.  I anchored in Valois Bay near the GUT.  I left the VHF on 77, but did not hear any traffic.

Sunday morning I hauled anchor and motored to the club sheer legs and checked the main sail sheaves which were fine.

Chaos won by a long shot

3 days bliss at Soulanges

I did my Yoga at 9 ish.  Tidy up the boat and at 1PM, I left the harbour, turned off the motor and tacked to the gut, then towards Grand Anse and with a west wind I decided to do the windmill point channel and head west.  Though of dropping in on Beauanhois club but there was still wind and I ended up tacking to Point des Cascade at 6PM.  That is 5 hours sailing and 10 minutes motoring. Wind instruments stopped working on the sail.  I tried to clean the depth sounder transducer.

It was crowded and I picked a nice hole to drop the anchor and stayed two nights and three days ... studied the Chesapeake Bay area.  It was hot, over 30 C.  Winds were still good.  Sunday I decided to stay.  No dinghy, I was stuck aboard.  

Monday morning I weighed anchor at 10:30 with another boat who motored towards Beauhanois Club.  I sailed back in a dead run through the seaway taking a shortcut before the zig-aag channel on a beam reach arriving at the club at 12:40.  I docked at the sheer legs and reseated the masthead anemometer and that solved the wind instrument issues.  However, I had forgotten to check the main sail sheave which had been giving me problems.

Had a beer with Norm and MLM and drove home.

S2 R2 - Scarlett and I

I biked to the club on Monday afternoon with lots of groceries.  

The house batteries were not fully charged from last week's hiatus 

I departed the dock at 4 and sailed from the club channel to Grand Anse when the winds died and I motored the last mile in and anchored

Supper was a lousy steak that could have been better but I had the smoked pork chops from Price Chopper's.

Nice sunset.  The next morning I organized my work stuff and at 2PM, I pulled anchor and rain to PCYC where I met up with the PCYC racers. Chewed the fat.  Mark was a standby crew if Louise could not make it.  She did show up.  

I made a friendly standard bet with Chiheb if they would beat us.

Scarlett showed up at 5:45 and we raced a very active race. It was a tight start.  Scarlett helmed.  She did very well.  

The start was fast, we had an excellent start, playing with an Eschell at the start and Tocade on the first windward mark.

Winds picked up at 7 and died slowly during the race.

Tocade

Wind instruments acted up a little but the windex was well aligned with Maud and Norm's help at the Strathcona. Winds were high at the beginning of the race.  We raced well passing Genesis just before the first windward mark.  Never looked back. We won the bet by 5 seconds.

It was a good race.  Great Crew.

11 out of 20 

Ignore the squall warning

I removed the floorboards, deep-cleaning the bilges and other difficult-to-reach areas under the fridge and behind the batteries.  Nasty work.

 At 4PM, I set sail to spend the night at anchor.  The VHF gave a squall warning.  I was going to ignore it.  Shelby passed by telling me about the squall warning.  Okay, I turned back.  I passed the word to Liam who was heading out.  

Squall building up

Tied down at the dock.  Liam came back too.

There were a few drops of rain and not a noticeable amount of wind.

Had supper at the club with the gang. Slept aboard and the next morning I took drone shots of the tennis and pool

Supper with the gang

I rode downtown to visit Musee MAC and MaCord and came home.  35km on the bike.  It was hot in the apartment.

Fireworks with FB Singles - REPEAT

Olga Misha and Roger joined us encore sans Violetta.  We rendezvous at PCYC, sailed around, anchored and swam in 21-degree water with lots of current well outside BYC.  Surprising the current there.  Had a late lunch or early supper. 

Set sail through the sandbars, doing a flyby with Zig Zag.

Sailed to the Pointe-Claire church and anchored for the fireworks.

I came back to PCYC to drop off Pax at 11 and spent the night at PCYC.

The next morning, I lounged around the club, and set sail at about 1, not paying attention, I almost ended up on the rocks south of the GUT.  I had not intended to even head for the GUT.

Sailed around until the winds died, I met up with ZigZag at the sandbars.  They've been there since Monday.

Me and Rizwan

They departed and I stayed the night.  The next day, I set out for PCYC to meet Rizwan but with the south winds, we decided to meet at St. Anne's where I met Allan from Nautically Hip.  Rizwan and I reminisced about the old days.  We had supper and afterwards, I sailed to IPYC and took at the dock there.

On Thursday morning I set sail through the Dowkers channel and sailed around the lake until 4 when I docked at PCYC and chewed the rag with the local racers.

Shortened course

At 6:15, Maud and Rachel showed up and we had a nice race with a shortened course ... probably due to low winds or an ominous cloud from the North West.

Last !

We had the crew supper and I spent the night at the dock plugged in with Bruce's extension cord.  The batteries were running low after four days.

The next morning I got a pump out at PCYC, motored to the Royal, had another pump out and fueled up.  Came to my dock and cleaned up the propane locker.  Will came back to look at my deck.

Five days on the lake