Brighton, Murray Canal and Belleville - July 18

Departed Coburg YC at 9:15am, sunny with lite winds out of the SW. Another good motor/sail into Brighton, through the Murray Canal which takes us in to the Bay of Quinte by Trenton, on to Belleville where we stayed the night at a Marina, Myers Pier Marina…I vow to never do that again - $83 for the night and a cold shower in the morning; not worth the half a tank of water to top up. Once we arrive in the Bahamas in December, we will turn on our water-maker/desalinization system and not have to worry about stopping again to fill our tank (128 gallon tank).

The Bay of Quinte is nicely protected from the lake. However, as it is very shallow, narrow and long, locals say that the waves can pick up and become fairly large. Most of the way we needed to stay in the channel marked by the buoys gawking at the beautiful homes along the shore.

Myers Piers has a very narrow entrance to their harbour and the wind was blowing fairly strong on our beam (side of the boat) so Julie (we always have her at the helm when docking) had to steer for the green buoy as we moved the boat along diagonally into the entrance. The Marina directed us to the end of B Dock which was right there in front as we entered and Julie brought Boomdeyada nicely to the dock at 4:15pm. I think she really has the feel for manoeuvring the boat.

We poured our dock/anchor drink (a ritual for boaters) and relaxed with our thoughts of the day. Then threw some shrimps on the Barbie and had another drink. The habour master provided direction to the nearest grocery 15 minutes away…that must have been the time if we took the bikes they had to offer…we walked for 45 minutes, and carried a back-pack with a case of coke, jug of juice, fruits and more shrimp with bags in our hands…we decided needed the exercise anyway!

The Marina had a band playing, and since we were docked right next to the facility we stayed aboard and listened to this guy pound on his keyboard playing Beatles, SuperTramp, Elton John, Billy Joel…anything with a piano. We did a little more organizing of the boat and had an early night.