Sainte-Therese-Du-Gaspe / Petite-Rivière Est

[Kyle]The morning after the Summer Solstice, we were underway before the sun broke the horizon again for the day-and-a-half sail to Ste. Therese/Petite-Rivière, just at the entrance to Chaleur Bay on the south side of the Gaspe Peninsula.

Various lighthouses and rock features as we sail on

We had a fast run under spinnaker along the coast as it slowly curved southeastward. The winds were forecast to die off quickly to where we would be drifting/ghosting along by midday, but they held all of the way to Rocher Perce, which is the must-see tourist attraction on the eastern side of the peninsula. We had expected to be passing it at night, but our extra speed had us there mid-afternoon, sharing the spot with tour boats making the rounds.

Rocher Perce, or "pierced rock" is a big chunk of rock with a big archway at one end. It's very photogenic and we were lucky enough to have good light for our sail-by.

Rocher Perce, or "pierced rock"

On the other side, the wind shifted to light headwinds, which were enough off the direct line that we were able to sail close-hauled the last few miles to Ste. Therese-Petite-Rivière before sunset. We had made it fifteen hours earlier than our original estimate! Best of all, we had saved ourselves a night at sea.

Siante-Therese-Petite-Rivière, which I'm going to call PR from here in because that other name is longer than the town itself, is less of a town than a big fish processing facility. We chose it because its high breakwalls offer excellent protection, and because it's not too far out of the way for those of us trying to head more due south. It is home to more big commercial fishing boats than houses and, I'm pleased to say, it only smells slightly fishy at the lowest tides.

When we arrived, we went straight from the well-protected outer harbor through a narrow channel between moored fishing boats to the even better-protected inner harbor, with hopes of finding a spot there.

As we crept up to the one candidate spot remaining, our depth sounder's reading dropped far enough to tell me I was about to hit the keel. A man came out to catch our lines. As we were backing away, we apologized for not needing his help. We spun around and returned to the much deeper outer harbor, where we found a spot far away from any foot traffic.

After we were secured, we took a walk to go find the man and thank him. When he saw us wander past, he came out to greet us. It turns out he wasn't a commercial fisherman at all. He was a freelance journalist on vacation with his wife. He was originally from Ontario, but met her, fell in love, and and moved to Quebec City. They were doing a big lap of the Gaspe Peninsula with their RV. They had stopped for the night in PR because it was free and right off the highway. They invited us in and, in the way that happens when cruising, we became fast friends and spent several happy hours together laughing and telling stories.

By the time we emerged the next morning, they had moved on and we only had the dry rectangle on the otherwise wet parking lot to remember them by. It was a shame they weren't on a boat. I wouldn't mind sharing an anchorage with them again someday.

Maryanne and I then went for an explore of the area. There wasn't a whole lot to see. We walked to the local, threadbare gas station/convenience store and occupied ourselves comparing landscaping at the houses along the way. By far, the most interesting 'attraction' was the commercial fishing fleet with all of their robust, ocean-clearing equipment.

Since it was the only place in town, and it was recommended (as the only place in town), we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the restaurant. It was indeed the best place in town, but may not have been if there had been another. Don't get us wrong, it was perfectly okay, like a clean truck-stop diner, but it had probably been a bit oversold as "amazing".

They did, however, have live entertainment. At first, I was relieved by this, because it meant they turned off the country music. Then it started.

A very elderly lady, who was dressed as a very elderly lady, started belting out tunes. That would have been fine, I guess, but the volume on the sound system was turned up so high - thumping dance club high - that when it first came on, we thought something had exploded. Had Roger Daltrey then jumped out on the stage, that would have made some sense. Instead, we had an octogenarian singing standards. Worse, still, was that there were only three occupied tables in the restaurant. As the singer wandered through the tables, we sat in terror of making eye contact with her for fear that she would take it as an invitation to come to us and do a serenade. Why not? After all, it was too loud for us to be able to converse with one another. We had no choice but to put our heads down and try to finish our plates as quickly as possible. It was soooo cringy. After that, we were happy to return to the familiar comfort of our own home as we waited another day for tailwinds to push us onward.

The harbour was definately NOT a tourist center, but had some charm

---

Dock location >> On google maps

Continuing North-East along the St Lawrence Seaway

[Kyle]After our time at Boldt Castle we spent a few days anchored at Elephant Back, which I later realized was same anchorage found on the cover of the 1000 Islands Visitors Guide.

We moved on once we had two days of direct tailwinds in the forecast.

Clearing Back into Canada on our way to Skeleton Island - a beautiful sunny day

After a short upwind motor to Rockville to clear in with Canadian Customs, we turned down river, shut down the engines and slowed down a lot. Then we hoisted the spinnaker and got half our speed back.

Going slow was no big deal. We had all day to get only twenty miles, and with the current helping us, we wouldn't even need to go that far through the water. It was lovely to glide down the river on flat water through the islands and past the shore, barely making a sound, as if we were on a big inner tube.

At the far end of our sail, just short of the town of Brockville, we rounded Skeleton Island and anchored in the nook between it and the Ontario shore. That side was lined with tidy houses on the bank, while Skeleton and adjacent Mile Islands were municipal parks. It looked like it would be a nice place to spend a few days, but everything in the forecast after tomorrow was going to be headwinds, so we would be better off if we kept moving.

It rained heavily overnight and the next morning, we woke to drizzle and thick fog. It was exactly the type of weather that makes a day of sailing sound not so fun.

We left the anchorage, shut down the engine, and coasted to a stop. We did have about five knots of tailwind, but the current was keeping up with about a third of it. We raised the spinnaker. It filled very slowly and we accelerated to almost a knot. That decreased our wind by a knot. The sail collapsed. Begonia decelerated. The wind caught up with us again, filled the spinnaker and then accelerated us back to a knot again. Rinse, repeat.

Since, like the day earlier, we weren't in a hurry, we decided to be patient and just enjoy the ride.

A bit later, some more rain came, which brought with it some more wind. The spinnaker filled nicely. Then the rain made it so wet and heavy that it couldn't support its own weight anymore and it collapsed again. Still, even with it draped over the front of the mast like a theater curtain, we were able to make two knots through the water. That gave us enough steerageway to keep out of the way of the ships going either way.

Despite the rain, it actually ended up being a very pleasant sail as we ghosted along the Canadian side of the border. Since the wind was so light, the rain fell straight down, which made it easy to keep dry under the cover of the bimini.

As the last overtaking ship, a Dutch one bound for Rotterdam, came up astern, the wind picked up even more. The spinnaker filled, and for a brief while, Begonia started pulling farther ahead. They weren't able to close the gap again until we doused the spinnaker in preparation for anchoring.

The ship pulled up alongside of us as we were warming up our port engine and slowly adding power. They were simultaneously slowing in preparation for the Iroquois Lock. When we were about abeam the ship's bridge, we started to overtake them again.

That's when the pilot came out and told me to get out of the way, motioning backwards with his arm. We were on their port side, and they would need to tie up on that side to wait for an up-bound ship to clear the locks.

I suppose I can forgive the guy for not being up on his pleasure craft bulletins. The Iroquois Locks are the end of the road for us and our season doesn't open for three more days, so we would have no reason to go there with them. {Maryanne:Normally when we are in close quarters with a big ship, I give them a call on the VHF radio to let them know our plans - i.e. how we will keep out of their way, in this case Kyle assumed they would know we were heading for the anchorage and were not trying to beat them into the lock}

I told him we were just going to anchor on the other side of the island to port and we would be out of their way in a minute. I hardly had to raise my voice, the two vessels were so close. To this, he gave me a blank look and then re-entered the bridge, shutting the door with what seemed to me a bit of a slam. Perhaps he was in a hurry to go get that "please" he had left out earlier.

Nope, nothin'.

Our anchorage behind Toussaint Island didn't offer much in the way of diversions, apart from watching the bridges of the big ships as they glide over the island a few times a day. Still, we were in position to be the first ones through on Opening Day.

Sailing by Brockville, and sharing the waterway with larger boats

Sunset while anchored off Toussaint Island

Incidentally, Toussaint Island was the site of the Battle of Matilda, where the Canadian militia soundly defeated five hundred American militiamen, who eventually bid a hasty retreat back to the American side of the St. Lawrence.

---

Anchorage location >> On google maps

So Much for Lake Ontario

[Kyle]We'd waited out at Frenchman's Bay for a weather window to proceed eastward to the Lake Ontario exit at the St. Lawrence River, the forecasts for the next two weeks only had a single one-day spell of light tailwinds. If we were going to have any chance of making it to the eastern end of the lake before the end of the month, we were going to have to make use of it and do the whole thing non-stop.

I looked at the various forecast models over and over and, unfortunately, kept coming back to the same conclusion that making the whole thing work was going to require us to leave before the start of the window so that we already had some miles in by then.

I had really been hoping this wouldn't be necessary because our wind shift was going to be coming after the passage of a cold front. Getting an early start would mean departing in cold rain, fog, and headwinds, instead of the nice, clear skies behind it.

We pulled up anchor in a cold drizzle and departed Frenchman's Bay through a small group of Dragon boats. This was our only indication that it must be a weekend. Dragon boats are narrow boats that are paddled dugout-canoe style by teams. The occupants of each boat looked miserable in the rain, which must have been made even worse by the torrents of abuse coming from the screaming mouths of their coxswains. Perhaps they were in the Army. Perhaps they were Canada's Olympic team. Whatever it was, it was made crystal clear to them that they were not here to have fun, they were here to dig however deep they had to to beat the other boats.

Through the breakwaters and into Lake Ontario, the yelling faded and the fog thickened. We put up the sails and started tacking eastwards. Both the air and water temperatures dropped which, combined with the wind chill, made it so very cold at the helm.

Later, I was enjoying the cocoon of the warm bed, assisted by two hot water bottles, when Maryanne woke me with icy fingers, telling me it was my turn. Oh, I was so comfortable!

I donned three layers for my legs, six for my torso and four for my head before venturing outside. The first thing I noticed was that the wind had shifted! We were no longer tacking at a crawl. Maryanne had us pointing east on a broad reach. The reach was so broad, in fact, that it seemed like now might be a good time to switch to the spinnaker!

After digging it out, I went on deck to douse the other sails. Looking up at them, I saw that the fog had become so thick that my headlamp couldn't penetrate far enough to see the top quarter of the sails. If I turned it off, I could see the multicolored glow of our tricolor nav light, but when I turned it back on, all I could see was a sea of white.

Putting up the spinnaker actually warmed me to the point where I was unzipping layers to keep my outfit from getting clammy. I had about fifteen minutes of perfect comfort before the chill had me zipping back up again. From there, I just gradually lost heat the rest of the night. At least it kept me awake. When it was time for me to use my icy fingers to wake Maryanne, I hadn't been able to feel them for an hour. Summer cannot get here fast enough for me.

The skies had cleared completely by then, and we both got to enjoy watching the sun break the horizon and almost immediately start evaporating the dew that was coating everything.

Sailing eastward across Lake Ontario

The wind, and thus our speed, picked up enough in the afternoon that it started to look like we just might be able to avoid a second night at sea. The wind was forecast to turn on us again, but if we could go fast enough, we might just beat it to our anchorage.

We were passing by Kingston, Ontario, with only about ten miles to go, when our luck ran out. Our spinnaker, which had been pulling us along beautifully, suddenly collapsed and started luffing wildly, like a kid having a tantrum in a store. As we coasted to a stop, we realized our tailwind hadn't turned to a headwind after all. We had just plowed into still air.

Since Begonia is not so fast under motor, we changed our goal to a closer bay to anchor for the night. We entered in the very last of the light and dropped anchor. Our first attempt failed, so we moved farther in for a second. By the time we had it set, we had to use lights on shore as ranges to see if we were dragging. Still, we were both glad to have escaped spending another night watch each in the cold.

Tranquility at Cassidy's Bay

Our anchorage at Cassidy's Bay didn't offer much, apart from solitude and long views along the St. Lawrence River. There were a few unoccupied holiday homes along the shore, but no sign of any people. Apparently, during the height of summer, this place can be chock-a-block with rafted boats, jet skis and water skiers. While we were there, I counted us, two swans, three Canada Geese, and about five loons. It was a nice place to wait out a spot of rainy weather before moving further downstream.

---

Anchorage location >> On google maps

Welland Canal (and into Lake Ontario)

[Kyle]After watching the first upbound boat exit the canal the afternoon before, we were up nice and early in anticipation of being the first downbound vessel of the season. When we called the canal control office at 6am, the woman who answered seemed initially to have no information on file for us. Maryanne persisted and all was straightened out. When she was done, we were told we would have to wait until 7am; they were expecting another boat to check in. NOOOOOOO!!!!!

I mean, "Oh, that sounds fun."

My worries were twofold: First was that we were hoping our slightly early check-in would encourage Welland Control to let us go early. Ships have priority. There was an up-bound ship that was estimated to get to Lock 8 (the first in our direction) at 8:00. My hope was that we might be able to get through the lock and be out of its way by the time it got there. We were then hoping we could turn that into an early finish at Lock 1. If we couldn't sneak in early, we might have to wait for the ship to exit. {Maryanne:Kyle was so hopeful, but they actually permit boats to register for the day's locking up to 7am, so we'd always have to wait until then to start.}

My other concern about having another boat with us had to do with the line handlers. It was pretty clear that they were short-staffed this early in the season and I was worried they would want us to raft up with the other vessel so they only had the two lines to deal with on their end. Also, we were sure to be motoring more slowly than anybody else, so I didn't want to be the reason for somebody else's all-day grumble.

At twenty to seven, a sport fishing boat came around the corner and headed for the dock next to us. When they spun around, we couldn't help but notice that it had FOUR 350hp engines mounted on the stern. Here we go...

We helped them tie up. The skipper was wearing a polo shirt with the name of his delivery company on it. He had been called late the night before by the owner. The boat had been in the water for less than twelve hours and he and a yard guy were taking it to the other end at Port Weller. Knowing Welland Control would never let us split up, he started the conversation by saying he would go whatever speed we went, and to make sure, he was going to stay behind us the whole day, even if it meant he had to shut down three of his engines. That would cement Begonia's position as the first downbound boat of the 2024 season.

When 7:00 came and went and we had not heard anything, Maryanne gave Welland Control a call. They told us there was no time to get to Lock 8 before the ship. We would have to wait until after it passed us on the way out of the canal. Doh!

It wasn't too bad. The ship was running early. We started engines at 8:04.

Downbound, the Welland Canal starts off gently. The first lock, Lock 8, is really only there to remove whatever excess height the eastern part of Lake Erie is experiencing at the moment - generally 0.5 to 3.5 meters. It is about half again as long as Locks 1-7, which seems to be so that it can be transited at dead slow without stopping for the short water level change. After that, there is a two-hour stretch of long, straight nothing before Lock 7.

Our drop at Lock 8 was right around half a meter. Once our companion was in the lock, the upper doors were shut and both boats motored at idle down the middle of the lock. By the time we got about two-thirds of the way, the lower doors opened and the green exit light came on. That was easy.

The only ship we had to deal with as traffic was on the long, wide, flat part between Lock 8 and 7. There, the canal resembles a decent-sized river and passing was not the least bit unnerving.

The nice, and also the weird thing about the Welland Canal is that it is really for big ships and the whole thing is meant to be done in one go. The nice part about that is that once you enter, everything happens automatically. Welland Control follows your progress on CCTV and prepares all lift bridges and locks as you approach without the need for those of us on the vessels to say anything. All that is required of us is to obey the light signals telling us where to stop and when to go. The weird thing is that it feels strange to be traveling such a long distance and requiring the movement of so much heavy machinery and to not be able to bid "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon" to our lock keepers or bridge tenders.

At Lock 7, since it is so near the other end of the canal, we got our first look at Lake Ontario over the far doors. It was pretty far down there. That's where Maryanne conjectured that we were about to do our fastest drop ever in a canal - 100 meters in only a few hours. Quickly running through it in my brain, I think I agree. I don't think we've ever managed half that altitude change in a day.

At lock 7, we also met our line handlers for the first time. They had four neat coils of polypropylene line waiting and handed two to each boat. Whew, no rafting! From them, we learned that most line handlers are students who do it for a summer job. They are still being trained at the moment. Our two guys seemed to be mechanics or engineers who got reassigned for the day. That was about as far as we got into the conversation before we dropped out of sight behind the lock wall. For safety reasons, they aren't allowed to stand at the edge of the high wall and lean over the edge to chit-chat. When we had dropped the full fifteen meters, the lower gate cracked. We let go our lines and they retracted upward and over the edge, pulled by unseen hands.

The next three locks, 6,5 and 4, are two parallel flights of three each, one set for each direction. This is where the canal traverses the Niagara Escarpment. It was here that we encountered our second ship, going the opposite direction. As we entered Lock 6 at the top, the ship eased its way into the adjacent lock at the bottom. Once we were tied up at the far end of ours, I spotted the Captain on the bridge, just three floors above me. I gave a smile and a wave. She did the same in return. Her ship started slowly rising. Then, as if someone else on my elevator remembered to press "Lobby", we dropped out of sight behind the wall and her whole ship disappeared.

As we started down in Lock 4, the up bound ship was just starting to leave Lock 6. Lock 4,5 and 6 have basically the same combined drop as Niagara Falls. Seeing the whole stern of a big ship way up there was quite unnerving as it sat just a few meters from the edge of the cliff made up by the big doors behind it.

After tidying up following our transit of the flight, our two line handlers took a while to get to Lock 3. Then even more time passed with nothing obvious happening and the lock gates wide open. Everything looked ready, but there were three sets of flashing red lights telling us to wait. Perhaps something broke. Yet another twenty minutes passed before the lights extinguished and the green lights came on. The line handlers handed us each a neat coil of line, which we set on deck, ready to pay out. Then, just as we started to go down, they went to their pickup, pulled out a bunch of take-out food containers, and then spread the feast out on their hood like it was a table. AAAAHHH HHAAAAHHHH!!!!!! {Maryanne:Of course the poor line handlers were entitled to a lunch break, but it hadn't occurred to Kyle, and he was really hoping we could get out onto Lake Ontario and get sailing as soon as possible.}

The last two locks went smoothly. When we were clear of Lock 1, we pulled to the side of the channel and slowed down a little so I could have time in the flat water of the last of the canal to get the sails ready for the sail across Lake Ontario. There is no good anchorage on this part of the southern shore, so we were planning an overnight sail to the northern shore, where we could anchor while waiting for favorable winds for the push to the northeast corner.

{Maryanne:We've been lucky enough to traverse a host of canals, in a host of different countries (Scotland, USA, Greece, France, Australia, Panama, etc) and several locks not even associated with a canal in other countries too (like Wales), but this was the first time we would adjust our water level by 100m in a single day!}

An early start on the Welland Canal. 8 locks and multiple lifting bridges, it was an amazing effort of resources for just us and the one other small 'pleasure' boat transitting on the day. A big thank you to the delivery captain (Peter R.) on the other boat for snapping some pictures of Begonia for us

We were soon sailing again, and were able to enjoy the skyline of Toronto in the distance with a backdrop of a beautiful sunset

Toronto was the obvious choice to wait, but we chose Frenchman's Bay because it is further east and would give us a head start during a short weather window. {Maryanne:We've been lucky enough to visit Toronto several times in the past}.

We made such good progress sailing that we ended up making it to Frenchman's right at midnight. The bay has a nice patch to anchor in three meters depth, but to get there, you have to traverse half a mile or so of 1.2 meter soundings. With Maryanne at the bow with a spotlight and me staring at the depth sounder, we crept into the bay in idle forward. When the number on the sounder finally climbed through two and then three, we dropped anchor. Whew, it had been an over sixteen-hour day.

In the morning, we were in bed when we heard the sound of something hitting the boat. Uh oh!

I emerged to find Begonia holding fast and nothing around but a couple of Mallards. I went back to bed and then we heard it again. As I was getting out of bed, we could clearly hear footsteps paddling along the deck this time. The ducks are back?

Webbed feet stepped on the hatch glass over Maryanne's head, then another pair of feet, then a tail.

"It's an otter!" Maryanne yelled as I reached the top of the stairs. I looked forward and didn't see anything. Then I looked back into the cockpit and there it was, sitting at the table like it was waiting for breakfast. Then it started poking around under the table, clearly looking for any leftovers from our last fishing foray. Good luck with that, Buddy! I shifted a bit to try to follow its explorations, but it heard me. It popped a furry, wet face up, made eye contact and then scurried away. Oh, this anchorage might be fun after all.

We rested-up and hunkered-down over a couple of days of foggy and rainy weather in Frenchman's Bay - and had an otter visit us a couple of times. The locals were a bit tougher than us and didn't let a bit of rain stop them from their dragon boat practice session (we stayed inside with the heating on!)

---

[Maryanne]The Welland canal is primarily used by large commercial boats plying grain, copper and more back and forth, and those boats barely fit in width wise. There are 8 locks and multiple lifting bridges to traverse. Each lock is over 24m (80ft) wide, and at least 233.5 m (766ft) long. Locks 1-7 drop/lift an average of 13m-15m (43ft-49ft), and lock 8 (the guard lock) just adjusts for the slight extra distance to match the current hight of Lake Erie. It is all a HUGE feat of engineering.

For pleasure boats planning to transit the Welland Canal, there is a lovely web page and downloadable booklet full of all the information you might need (like what side to tie up at each lock, speed limits, how to make the reservations, etc). Everything you need to know (Welland Canal). Like most locks, downbound is always much easier than upbound. For upbound a crew of 3 is the minimum permitted (for down we were able to travel with just the two of us). It is advisable to plan for a 10-12 hour transit time. You can track the individual ETA times for boats at each lock (for the Welland Canal and the whole of the St Lawrance Seaway) here as well as via Marine Traffic and other web sites for those boats with AIS (all the commerical boats and some of the pleasure craft).

Port Colborne (Back in Canada, again)

[Kyle]The time had come for us to stop goofing around and go sailing again. As seems to happen often, the best time for us to leave to get the maximum out of our short weather window was at 3am. Partly due to anticipation and partly due to worries about how It wasn't going to be possible for me to get a good night's sleep, I tossed and turned most of the night. By the time I realized I didn't even have time for a quick nap before my alarm went off, I gave up trying and got up anyway.

During our last night in Presque Isle, a slow-moving warm front went through that dumped a lot of rain on us. As I crawled out of our comfy bed, it was still coming down pretty hard. I was not really looking forward to going out in it.

By the time I had made a big cup of coffee and checked the weather, the rain had stopped. I was surprised when I went outside to find that it was warmer than inside the boat, which was backwards. In fact, it was so warm that, for the first time since getting here, I was perfectly comfortable in my t-shirt.

The anchor came up without issue. Not surprisingly, as we passed the Erie skyline, we were the only boat out there. We even beat the keenest of the fishoes. We shut down the engines and unrolled the jib for the transit of the narrow channel to the lake. Once we were out there, we turned downwind and switched to spinnaker for the rest of the crossing to Port Colborne, at the southern end of the Welland Canal, which acts as an alternative route to the Niagara River for a way to get to Lake Ontario. During the sail, we were fast enough to catch back up to last night's front, and sail back into the cold, rainy air that had passed us the night before.

We tied up at the free town dock, just upstream of the first lift bridge. By then, a cold, steady rain caused me to send Maryanne inside, since I was the only one dressed to be out in it long term. Maryanne called the Canadian Border Services and had us officially cleared in by the time I was done tidying the lines.

We crossed the lake to clear in at Port Colborne (South end of the Welland Canal)

In the morning, we popped out to have a proper look at Port Colborne. It's pretty industrial, as would be expected, so it's not the kind of place you would sail for the view. The town is a bit run down and many parts seem to be teetering on the brink of dereliction. It does have a few pockets, though, where small businesses are fighting hard to keep the place vibrant and a little touristy. Plus, it has an excellent little museum, complete with reconstructed 19th Century buildings like a school house and a blacksmith shop.

We visited the lovely Historic and Maritime Museum (twice)

On either side of the canal, there are a few quiet paths and parks, which we could cobble together to make for decent-length daily walks. There are maybe half a dozen big ships per day going through the canal in each direction, and watching them go by can add a little bit of entertainment to our perambulating.

The giant ships are pretty much the size of Welland's locks. When they are inside, there's no room for them to do much bouncing around. For us little guys, the canal corporation hires seasonal workers to throw lines down to us. That means the transit season for pleasure craft is shorter than the one for commercial shipping. The first available slot for locking up is May 1st and locking down is May 2nd, which we scooped up within two minutes of the reservation system coming online. Our weather window from Presque Isle got us here with four days to potter around. I'm not competitive at all, but for some reason, I would be pretty chuffed if we could be the first and only down-bound boat that day, particularly since canal regulations prohibit us from locking with a ship greater than 100 meters long, which is pretty much all of them.

We checked out the nearest lock to see how it all works, and (of course) the ice cream store (not the best to taste, but great to see with a treasure trove of modern and bygone candies)

[Maryanne]Colborne is a good size town, and on first viewing really seems a bit on the run down side, but we soon learned to LOVE it. It has vintage-style ice cream parlor/candy store, accessible (just a short walk) supermarkets, or the laundromat; it has a great (and free) historical and maritime museum, and plenty of places to eat out; from cafes to bars. One bar has a regular trivia/quiz night (we always look out for these) so we made the time to spend an evening there (we came very last, but to be fair most teams were groups of 10-12 people and there were only two of us, and we know nothing about Canadian sports or pop culture!). The town also had a great second hand store right across from the dock where I was able to replace my well worn jeans at last. The free dock we were able to use is normally full (in season) but we were the only boat there for the whole of our stay (another hint to how early we are for this neck of the woods). Colborne does have a large marina also (Sugarloaf Marina), but it it is a little further out of town and, of course, comes with a nighty fee.

---

Dock location >> On google maps