We left our anchorage at Sugar Island and head over toward Endymion and Camelot Island.
Unable to Find a Mooring Ball
As we approached the South side of Endymion. We saw one mooring ball open next to three rafted house boats. Kids were jumping off the roof. Looked like fun, but would probably be noisy at night. We pressed on to see what’s available at Camelot. No mooring balls were available but there was one available slip on the dock. We turned toward the dock and noticed a large motorboat speeding into that dock. Ahh well, they’ll get there first. So we turned and headed back to mooring ball we saw on Endymion. Another powerboat headed into that anchorage and passed the available mooring ball to talk to another boat. I was anxious to take it, but Lori didn’t want to budge in there in case the powerboat wanted it. We hovered and wait. Sure enough, a few minutes later the powerboat circled around and grabbed the mooring ball. Sigh. I was frustrated, but Lori was right. We are out here to relax and not fight over a mooring ball. We turned back to Camelot and saw that the slip is still open! I rushed there as fast as a sailboat under motor can go.
Heading to Dock
Quickly set up for Starboard fenders. It wasn’t our smoothest dock. The stern line got all caught up after I had set it up on the life ring hook. Lori stumbled a bit coming in and we were both giggling at our mistakes.
We saw that the park charges $0.92 per foot at the dock. There’s a paper form that is filled out with your information and credit card details and then deposited in the metal box.
The park rangers come by regularly to check and collect the forms. We explored with a quick walk on the trails around Camelot Island. It’s beautiful!
Dock Life
Dock life is very different from anchor and mooring balls. Many of the boaters setup chairs on the dock and and hung out in packs. After spending time by ourselves it was fun to hang out with people again. And we met some really nice people!
We met Rob & Alexis for the first time, they have a beautiful CS30 named AmaDeus. Yes, this is the same boat I hailed on the VHF near Kingston a few days earlier. We find out they are from Toronto and they also did their first over night passage. It took them 24 hours to get to Confederation Basin. There wasn’t any wind so they motored the whole way. Of course we had to tour and admire each other’s boat.
Back to boat for snacks. Crackers, cheese, humus, olives and sausage.
Lori goes for a swim. I still can’t swim so I take a nap. After, I notice another CS36T sail by. Sail number 2159 it heads North at 5:35pm on Sunday. Yes, I have a problem. I like to photograph and keep track of all the other CS boats out there! Later there’s a boat that looks a lot like a CS anchored on the North side of the island.
We met a few friendly power boaters. Tony and Manon aboard “Loon a Sea”. And Elliott and Sheryl aboard “Point Zero”. They both have very similar looking 35 foot Carver power boats. We hung out and learned about Elliott’s 70’th birthday and shared a few laughs. OK a lot of laughs. Elliott could easily become a stand up comedian and was the first to welcome any newcomer to the dock.
We find out Elliott has been riding an outboard powered surfboard almost forever, I think he’s on his third one and now fixes it up himself since they are no longer made. He did a quick run around the neighbourhood and I created the following video.
The next day Elliott lent us his kayaks and Lori and I went out exploring Endymion Island. It was a nice adventure. Thank you Elliott!
There’s a small passage through the middle of the island, just big enough for the kayaks to squeeze through.
We spent another night on the dock. The next morning we woke up to see that the fog has rolled in.
Except it had a brown’ish hue to it. We later find out it was from the forest fires in Western Ontario.
We were running a low of supplies, aka out of alcohol. We decided it would be a good time to head to Gananoque. We really enjoyed our time on dock and made some great new boating friends. I’m sure we will see them again on the water!
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