Up at the crack of dawn and saw Chris and Justine off, fueled up and pumped out the holding tank and were on our way at 8:15 am. With the exception of 1 other sailboat that crossed our path at approx. 9 am, (he probably did a night time crossing of Lake Huron judging from his course), we saw no other boats all day! Our destination was Port Elgin, a trip of 54 miles. Since the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, once we got outside the shoal zone at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, we set a course straight down the lake.

We were almost 12 miles off shore at 1 point and almost out of sight of land. The lake was close to millpond status so another day under power courtesy of Yan, who seemed to enjoy his new oil and filter. During the trip we had a visit from a small songbird that circled the boat a couple of times. We were well off shore so I thought he was looking for a place to take a breather, but he eventually headed off to places unknown. . Early in the afternoon our friendly neighbourhood flies made their appearance once again and it was battle of the fly swatters as Sam and I took turns defending our home from the phantom menace. Finn did his usual Molly Maid routine and kept the decks clear of the carnage.

We arrived in Port Elgin at approx. 4 pm and got a slip in the marina. We had our customary “we cheated death once again” celebratory drink for making it yet again to our destination intact, followed by a quick BBQ dinner. We then got the MEC Oragami bikes out and set out on a ride to try and recover some fitness. You don’t get a lot of exercise on a boat aside from hoisting sails and, seeing as we haven’t done much sailing since leaving Lake Ontario, we getting a little soft. We rode up to South Hampton and caught part of a live concert in a nice little park by a pond just east of town. This is probably one of the nicest towns we have visited. It reminded us of Niagara On The Lake but without all the commercialism. It doesn’t appear to have its best days behind it like so many other resort communities we have seen on both sides of the border.

We had to cut our visit short as we wanted to get back to the boat, take the Insect InFinnerator for a walk and catch the world renowned sunset. We’ve seen better but the guy in the sailboat did a really good job being in the right place at the right time for tonight’s photo.