630 Nautical Miles!

Just a quick blerb here, as we are in the midst of CELEBRATION!  We arrived in Port Whitby safe & sound around 16:00 hours. What an awesome, awesome experience, the weather was great, thank you Poseidon for calm seas, Thank you to Christine & Terry, thank you to all of our Family, especially Meg & Dea for looking after their "brother" Brisket, Our sister Deb for all she's done, and for Mom & Dad for meeting us as when we sailed into Whitby.  Thank you to SPOT, for showing everyone our whereabouts, we felt with everyone being able to see where we were, that we were in safe hands. 

Continuing to Live the Dream....

Becoming Crew

Hanging the dingy

We joined Zingara in Port Stanley with enthusiasum and excitement. After a 2 hour train ride, we were anxious to meet the MacDonald's and get on the water. We meet at the train station, happy to relive the trip from Georgian Bay to Port Stanley. The excitement mounted. We decided to stay an extra night to catch up with the crew at "Port" and we were off early Tuesday morning to catch the 6 am bridge. Dressed in our foulies, we headed out. We were on watch all morning looking out for fishing nets, gas wells and logs. By 2 pm, we were stripped down to our shorts and t-shirts, by 5:40pm we landed in Port Dover pulling in to the Harbour Marina and greeted by the staff that went that extra mile to make us comfortable. Not only did we get a great spot but we were also provided a ride to the LCBO as it closed at 6 pm. They also provided laundry soap for us the next day. Port Dover Rocks!! We stayed 2 nights to reprovision and to have the World famous Perch dinner at the the Erie Beach Hotel. We left Thursday morning heading to our next adventure being the Welland Canal. Stay tuned......
Terry and Christine Vos

Port Stanley - Fog & Fish Nets

Hello All, 
We left Erieau after staying one nite, and set off for Port Stanley.  The weather was hot & sunny until we got away from the harbour when it turned like pea soup!  Doug thought he would be fishing and I thought I'd be scrubbing the deck, making her all shiny for arriving in Port.  However, plans change, we sat our buts down, Doug on the starboard side, and Myself on the Port side, and took watch.  We saw several fish net flags which was very irritating trying to figure out in the fog as they are marked by a black, green, and sometimes red flag, between the flags are buoys, white, green, orange, any colour, and then you see a second set sometimes which you have to go inbetween, it's a gateway to go thru, however, it's still scary knowing that you prop & keel could easily get entangled. 
We finally saw the Port Stanley Lighthouse as it eventually cleared up. We sailed in as the sun was going down, beautiful!  All of our friends met us on the dock, helping us with our lines, just like old times.  We were presented with a glass of red, and sat by the fire after giving the grand tour of Zingara.  Good Times.
Brian & Lorna made us a delicious champagne breakfast the next morning, very nice.

Later in the afternoon, we picked up our good friends, Christine & Terry in London, as they have joined us for our next exciting week of sailing Zingara home.  We all had a big dinner at the Marina, it was a Pork Chop Potluck!  Thank you Mike & Margo for joining us for dinner also. The weather has been hot, hot, hot, and we are all getting brown as berries! Thank you everyone in Port Stanley, it was nice to get together again.

LIVING THE DREAM

Hello All, We are doing well so far bringing Zingara home.  We have experienced so much during our journey.  We are currently docked in Erieau on Lake Erie, shortly heading to our old home Port of Port Stanley, where we have our friends' Christine & Terry joining us for the second week.  We have travelled 401 nautical miles so far, that's over halfway!  We've been from Georgian Bay to Lake Huron, St.Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie.....Wow, lots of water, love it!
Dougie just purchased a fishing pole, he is reliving his youth! Well, better get our ship together and press on.

Tobermory or Bust!

We made it!!!  We pulled up anchor at Christian Island at 5:15 am and headed Northwest for Tobermory.  After 12 hours of motor sailing, we arrived safely. : )  Beautiful weather, Georgian Bay was calm, thank the Lord! We had opportunity to do some jobs that needed doing, such as, putting in the reef lines, etc.  Both of our faces are red, it's cool out on that water!  We pulled into the fuel dock at Tobermory and the dockmaster asked how big our boat was, Doug answered 40 feet, he answered "ah, looks like 20 feet to me" and gave us a deal, sweet!
We are getting up before sunrise again to get a head start on the day, we are heading to Bayfield.  Let's hope the weather stays in our favour for the rest of our trip.
Meg & Dea, we are at the same dock as the ChiChiMan, remember we took that when you girls were just little farts, and Brisket too?  Ahh, the memories : )

Zingara back to 16.......

FINALLY!!!

Just a quick note, we are finally ready to let the dock lines free.....it's 1:30pm Sunday afternoon, skies are blue & we are applying sunscreen!  We took so long to get ready, get last minute stuff....but we are Sailors, and on holidays, so I believe we are officially on "Island Time" , we'll keep in touch, ciao!

Spot Tracker

Hello all, I have purchases a Spot Tracker ,which is a GPS navigational safety aid.  You will also be able to follow out trip and know where we are at any given moment.  Just click on the Spot Tracker web page located in our Links.  I have also added two weather sites that I use to track the weather, have a look.
The weather is looking good for our trip back to Whitby Ontario.  The plan is to leave Midland on Saturday in the early PM and anchor out at Christina island overnight.  This will let us leave early Sunday morning, around 4 am, and give us a straight rum line to Tobormoy.  I figure we will be under power most of the way across G/B but once we get around Tobormory it will be a slay ride down to Sarina.  We hope to be in Port Stanley for the long weekend to visit with old friends and crack open a few bottles of wine .  Next stop will be the Erie beach Hotel in Port Dover.  If you ever get to Port Dover you have to have the fish dinner at this Hotel.  After that its on to the Welland Canal and then a short sail to Whitby.
The hardest part of any sailing trip is letting the dock lines go.
Doug

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go......

Well, we are just about ready to go on Friday, whew, what a whirlwind of activity there has been in our house during these last few weeks!  I am just so thankful that we have been gradually downsizing over the years.
We have checked the Wind Guru site, and the weather looks favorable for us for a few days anyway.  We might even have to use the iron genny....shhhh....


Keep track of us everybody, we'll keep in touch, ciao!

Doug & Vicki

Moving Our Belongings Aboard

This past weekend, we moved our loot onto the boat.  Everything has it's place, we just have to remember where that is!  You certainly learn very quickly what you really need on board & what you can do without, having said that, there really  wasn't much brought back to the land yacht.

Doug got the GPS all hooked up & the antenna as well, took longer than he anticipated, but a job well done in the end.
We got all the wood seats restored, but could not apply the teak oil, as it kept pouring rain in Midland.  However, it did stay nice & warm & we are thankful to have a dodger & bimini, which we didn't have on Zephyr.

We have one more weekend before we sail on towards Lake Ontario to our home Port of Whitby. We are taking 2 weeks to sail her home, and we are very much looking forward to our adventure.

We had a visitor on Saturday night while we were bbqing & enjoying a glass of wine, a beaver came swimming toward our boat!  He was big!  I said to him "keep on swimming, we are not a wooden boat" LOL!

/)       We will report soon on our way home...until than...smooth sailing!
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