Friday, June 13, 2008, 2031, Oakville
Yep, we went back to Oakville. This time, on bikes and we got to see some more of the city. Bike trails? Well, yes and no. Lots of sidewalks you are not supposed to ride on (which we did anyway) but nothing following the Sixteen Mile Creek.
Still, though, Oakville downtown is so doggone pretty. We eventually rode our bikes all the way back to Port Credit. (Yes, our butts were sore for days!)
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Friday, June 13, 2008, 2022, Oakville
We got up this morning to blue skies and a mirror sea. No wind. Jude pulled me back down from my peeking out the forward hatch and we went back to sleep. Jude's cold was making her miserable. Soon, I slept only to wake to the sound of a motor going by. Somebody was leaving the marina and curiosity drew me back to the forward hatch. A motorboat.
Later, before lunch, Jude and I caught a "GO" train from Port Credit to Oakville. We wanted to see just why they couldn't take a transient. It was hot once we stepped off the train. The sun was scorching and the slight breeze was adding to the flames. But we caught a transit bus to the downtown area to see...
Gorgeous trails along Sixteen Mile Creek, beautiful greenery lovingly hugging the shoreline on both sides. Fifty million sailboats, motorboats, skiffs, launches, dories, tugs, and geese were choking the little creek from a mile up stream to the river... ahem, creek.... entrance. This was why we couldn't get a temporary berth. There were none.
Well, it was understandable, then. So we walked about the downtown area and drank in the views as they flowed from one eden to the next. The Tannery Park on the east creek bank was indescribable. I took some photos but my mastery of the digital camera wasn't exactly a mastery. Much was out of focus or over exposed or underexposed. But the memory embedded in my mind, and I suppose Jude's as well, suffices to draw us back, next time on bicycles. Even the people in Oakville were great. We took a cab from downtown back to near the GO train station to a [fast food restaurant which shall remain nameless]. Jude dropped her cell phone in the cab while the cabbie was giving us a wonderful history course as we drove. When we got out and watched the taxi drive away, Jude discovered the cell phone's escape and started to panic. We found a pay phone to try a call to the taxi company only to hear the taxi driver tap his horn at us from the middle of the street... with a passenger. The driver was waving Jude's phone at us and I ran into the middle of the street to retrieve it. "If you can make it back here after you let that go off, we'll tip you well for returning this," I grinned. No, he smiled, no problem. He drove off.
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Friday, June 13, 2008, 2016, Port Credit
Fog. Not much rain but fog again. At least we were in our slip and didn't have to worry about navigation by instruments. Jude and I walked about the waterfront at Port Credit counting birds and yammering at each other about random things. We were together and not at work. That was fine with us. We are getting close again. Too close for Jude; she caught my cold. For me, it wasn't a bad one and short lived. Hopefully, hers will be too.
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Friday, June 13, 2008, 2014, Oakville/Port Credit
Well, we finally made it back to Port Credit. Yes, I said "back" because we left in MYSFIT on a two week cruise of Lake Ontario, Western Division. We headed southwest for Oakville on Monday morning with a nice northern breeze, clipping along at about 3 knots. We got to Mississauga's oil refinery to find the winds got scrambled and flukey. The smoke stack from the refinery showed winds (about 100 feet up?) coming from the north yet we were just past it all with winds from the south! The meeting of the two air masses sure got us going in circles. A sailboat, behind us, also from Port Credit, had tried to do what we were doing but gave up and motored past us about a half hour after we spotted them in the distance. Also in the doldrums was a working tug called Annie M Dean. The crew were logging leaks in the submarine sewage line from Mississauga. It should be noted that we were a couple miles off shore when we met them. We semi-circled them once then struggled to leave.
Eventually, the winds steadied and we left our hour long dancing marathon in front of that refinery. Soon we were just a half mile offshore of Oakville harbour (Sixteen Mile Creek). We tried the VHF radio for anyone in Oakville Harbour but nobody answered. Jude checked the charts for Oakville and got a phone number for the Oakville Public Docks. It seems that they were not actually public but they did suggest we try Bronte Outer Harbour Marina. We set sail for it and, an hour later we were hailing them on channel 68. Sure enough, they had room for a 30 foot transient. As we made our approach, just behind us was the Annie M Dean, also making an approach. We got in, registered, docked, and went into town for a "re-tour" of the area. (We had been here a couple years before.) I was getting a cold which was going to add to things.
As we walked about, we notice that heat was slowly being covered by deep gray storm clouds above and we returned to MYSFIT to check the WX weather radio. To our chagrin, rain was planned for the next week. Even worse, winds were going to back to easterlies which would give us choppy seas. Hamilton was slated for some rain and thunderstorms. The easterlies had me concerned, though. Jude and I debated it carefully and decided that, dammit, we had to give up our two week cruise and scoot back to Port Credit the next morning to beat the nasty easterlies.
Rain. Drizzling gray skies greeted us as we pulled out of Bronte Outer Harbour Marina. We had decided before we even left that we would probably have to motor all the way. The probably turned into "did". As we got a couple miles out to our first waypoint, the sea mist turned into an encompassing fog with cloudy blue above us. That, too, eventually turned to solid gray and we spend most of the day motoring in pea-soup fog. We passed waypoint two and headed towards Port Credit, some 6 miles distant, still blind except for the water about 50 feet around us. Each mile, I called out GPS lat and lon to Jude and then the time. She marked our fix on the chart and we continued on. At about 3 miles out, we could hear a power boat off in the what we hoped was the distance, exiting Port Credit. We stopped to listen and track it's apparent passing. We never saw it.
At one half mile from our waypoint just at the bow of Ridgetown, the scuttled bulk freighter serving as breakwater for Port Credit, we stopped to recheck out navigation. Slowly we eased towards the waypoint. Even in the fog, we should be able to see the flashing red light of the Ridgetown. Jude was below scrambling to calculate approach bearings from the Ridgetown waypoint. It just 25 feet away and we were ghosting along at just over 1 knot when I called to Jude, "Ridgetown off the starboard bow!"
We quickly got the docklines affixed, the fenders adjusted, and NUDGE tied up to out starboard side as we slid into Port Credit Harbour Marina. There at the end of O docks was a 40 foot Trojan backing out into out path. We circled each other and separated. We eased into our slip, still in thick fog, tied up and headed to get some much deserved pizza.
The WX weather radio indicated rain all week. Dammit!
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