You know Canada day is approaching when you start getting calls from the marina confirming if you will be around or not. And like all previous years it was another great weekend to be in Cobourg. Despite all my grumblings about the marina, I’ll leave these until the end, it’s our favourite weekend in Cobourg. With a lot of things going on.

All of the food trucks are setup on the pier.

The artisan market is setup in the parking lot with lots of great locally made goods. We stocked up on shortbread cookies and Lori quickly burned through over $100 on various things within first hour. Too many great things to see and buy.

Of course we had to go to the midway and go for our annual family bumper car ride to get all our frustrations out.

And then there is the parade.

Lot’s of great deals at the local shops. My favourite coffee shop is The Rustic Bean on King Street.

And of course, there may have been a few drinks on the docks. And a few great conversations with other visiting boaters. Met an interesting couple with a Freedom boat named Freedom that were getting ready to sell everything and live on their boat. Looking forward to hearing more about their stories! I’m hoping we take the same path in our near future! Also, lots of great music but information about when/where was a bit sporadic.

We enjoy taking the boat out of the harbour and anchoring just off the beach. This was our first test of our new Mantus anchor. It worked perfectly (conditions were very light).

It’s too bad the water was still freezing cold! Normally we spend more time jumping in the water but our swims were all less than 15 seconds. And I admit, I didn’t even go in.

Overall, it was another great weekend in Cobourg!

Now on to the bad stuff

This is my rant for the weekend. Feel free to ignore. But I’ve hit my limit with the marina and need to share my frustrations. Unfortunately, like most places on Lake Ontario, the water levels have affected the services in the marina.

After the power systems were flooded in 2017, the city spent the summer updating the electrical system and moving it up. But it wasn’t high enough. As you can see from the picture above the stainless box is still under water. And like 2017, we are struggling without any power in our slip. So much for me spending a few weeks working from the boat this summer.

This weekend we heard more about the details of the pump outs. We received an e-mail that because of the water levels they couldn’t do pump outs. A truck would be brought in but didn’t hear the cost. We heard that only two other boaters paid the high cost of $100 to have their boat pumped out… once. We are now using our head as little as possible. We are planning to take the boat to a different marina to have it pumped out.

So… here’s what’s bugging me. We paid for a slip in Cobourg and these are the services we are getting and not getting:

  • A solid slip to tie up to. Yes, our dock is decent some of the others are needing repairs.
  • Electricity. Nope, I’ve resorted to pulling a battery and charging from home each time we go. Solar panels are on our wish list for next year. I’m expecting same thing as 2017, we were given a rebate of $70 since they didn’t supply any power all that year.
  • Pump outs. Nope, not paying $100.
  • Wifi. Technically it’s there, our phones can see the wifi router but can’t get any data from it. No.
  • Bathrooms. Yes, always thought they did a good job at this but quality is going down. The toilet floor is always wet as one of the toilets is leaking.
  • BBQs. They used to have briquette BBQs but these are nowhere to be seen this year.
  • Ice. Yes they are willing to continue to sell us ice for $3 a bag since we can’t run our fridge.
  • Fuel. It’s on the same dock as the pump out but they are still able to charge us for fuel.

Doesn’t feel like we are getting much for our money. It’s unfortunate, we really like Cobourg and the staff there. It’s also close to our home. But I think we are going to start looking into marinas to the East.

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