Visitors and kayaking

Its been a busy couple of weeks with first Chris, Jason's family and her friends visiting and  then Brit and her family. While they were here Pam, Sue and Heather came for a day of hooking and/or knitting. 

Then Eve visited for a couple of days and we shopped Port Dover and Port Rowan and ate lunch at a couple of patios with views. This photo is a new mural in Port Rowan.

Sailing has been great with Spellbound still doing very well in the races.

These shots were taken with my phone after we had finished racing and others were still on the course.

Feeding frenzy (gulls and Cormorants) in front of my place.

With an Eagle scoping it out too.

Rick grabbed some seeds from a plant beside a trail he was on, a couple of years ago. I tossed them on the bank and got one plant last year. Took the seed heads from that year and tossed them around. Brit used her phone App and they are Split Leaf Cone Flowers.

This year I have a ton of them.

The bees and

and the butterflies

love them.

Today I kayaked Black Creek.

Saw tons of turtles of all sizes (about and inch up to about 18 inches),

an Egret (photo using my phone so not great), a Blue Heron (let me float to within 3ft but I didn't want to scare him off by reaching for my phone) and a Weasel came to the edge of the river and took a drink.

I went all the way to the Lighthouse

and then made my way back. It was a beautiful, warm but not too hot, day. I don't usually kayak on the weekend as there is a lot of boat traffic but I was early enough today that there wasn't much. Lots of other kayakers though, including a group down from Kitchener Waterloo.

Bailed on the Chaos Race

I was mentioning to Rick that my little "Point and Shoot" camera was no longer taking photos with the clarity that it used to. I have had one of my cameras repaired/cleaned in the past and it is nearly the cost of a new camera. He kindly offered me his "travel camera" for when I go away this winter. I have started experimenting with it and photos in this blog post are mostly to see how it performs in different conditions.

 

For the last couple of years PDYC Race division has held a 2 handed Chaos Race. There are 4 buoys found around Long Point Bay and you have to sail around each one but it does not matter which direction you go or in what order. Rick and I did well the when we participated (I think it may have been the first time we raced Spellbound) and he and Gord won last year. Rick and I were registered for this year.

I watched the weather as race day drew near and, 2 days ahead, I texted Rick and said I didn't want to do it. The wind was forecast at over 15knots and gusting to 26. That didn't sound like fun. So we didn't race. I took this picture at about 8am, already whitecaps. The camera has a much better telephoto capacity than mine.

Later in the day I took these photos of some of the boats who had chosen to sail counter clockwise, coming past my place. Water was even rougher.

According to an email that came out after the race there were 20knot sustained winds for about 2 hours and gusts up over 25knots. Not for the faint hearted (that's me)

Instead of sailing I was hosting Christine and Jason's family and friends. It used to be a normal summer weekend occurrence at the cottage - 10 or more at a meal, but not any more. Chris later took a photo of everyone at the table but I forgot to get it from her.

Checking how it performs with flower closeups. I planted flower seeds in amongst the vegetables this year. I love the Cosmos but didn't realize that they are an Annual.

The Rose of Sharon are beautiful this year. They must like the hot, wet humid weather.

Recently, some evenings the back grass hosts a flock of birds all digging in the grass. (This photo was taken through the window as they all fly off when I step outside)

I think they are young Starlings. The camera takes really clear pictures of their feathers, even through the window.

Not as many as the Starlings

but regularly, in the Rose of Sharon.....

young Baltimore Orioles.

Still taking photos through the window.

July catch-up

 Not sure what happened with blogging this month. There were no major events to trigger a blog post but lots of lovely summer activities to keep me busy. So this is just a round up of those and a catch up on what Chris and Mike are up to.

For our birthdays this year Chris and I went out to dinner (great Thai restaurant in the theatre district) and to see Wicked.

First balcony, a few rows back....good seats and a fun show.

 As I was in Toronto I took Rasta to introduce him to Chris, Jason and Cigi's new kittens. The intro did not go well. He hissed and puffed up and gave every indication he was terrified. Chris and the family were going to Europe and their cat sitter cancelled so the kittens are at my place. Hoping, again, to get Rasta to accept them. They are in a bedroom in the basement and I bring them up, every day, to the sun room where he can see and smell them but doesn't need to interact. He still occasionally hisses at them but tends to eat his snacks (hoping for a positive association there) and watches them.

Introducing Donny (they wrestle a lot)

and Marie.

Rick sent me this when they arrived....."to the crazy cat lady"

We have been racing Spellbound in the Spinnaker fleet for the month of July. Not doing as well as we do in the JaM fleet but only came dead last once. We broke the spinnaker pole in one race and this picture is of the repair job. Rick bought another (used) pole, cut off the clasp at the end and replaced the broken one with it. Quite a process involving cutting metal, a lot of hammering things into place, screwing through metal, re-attaching lines and crimping them into place. Then the gas hose sprung a leak............

Sometimes the only solution is an ice cream. While there I had to take a picture of this little girl with an ice cream the size of her head (asked her and her mum for permission first)

Meanwhile Chris, Jason, Cigi and Jason's nephew, Luke are in Barcelona. Swimming in the Med every day as it is very hot there right now.

Luke is a fan of the football club so they did a tour of the stadium. Chris said the best souvenirs were the cups the drinks came in.

Cigi likes to chase the Pigeons but sometimes the flocks contain Parakeets. George and I and Aimee and I also saw them in Barcelona, nesting in the Palm trees.

One of the Florida Panthers comes from St Albert and held his Stanley Cup party at the restaurant Mike manages. Mike got to drink from the cup.

Mike and the family are currently camping in B.C. According to Mike, the 8 person tent is as big as their original condo.

Lots of hiking

and water activities (they have the paddle board and kayak with them)

Uh Oh.....Bear track.

Hewson Regatta on Spellbound

 The Hewson Regatta is held every year, named after a family that helped found the yacht club and start racing in Port Dover. We had a good turnout of boats and some fabulous racing weather. Rick, his daughter, Jen, and I sailed Spellbound in the Jib and Main (JaM) class.

Saturday was a race around Long Point Bay and was quite windy. Rick vacillated on which head sail to put up but in the end we were glad he chose the smaller one, as even that was sometimes difficult to control

Redhead overtaking us as she was in the Spinnaker fleet.

Islay in hot pursuit

and she managed to overtake us on the second leg. We ended up finishing just behind her but beat her in the standings due to the handicap system.

"The Witch" passing us.

We took turns helming (5 hours on the water is too long to stay as focused as you need to be to helm)

while the other 2 spent time trimming sails, commenting on other competitors progress and, of course, taking pictures.

I got to test out the drink holder that I had picked up at the Sailing School Garage Sale.

The wind built during the course of the day

and the last leg was a wild ride.

After tidying up the boat we went to the Yacht Club for a meal, drinks and a live band. We were wind blown, sun burnt but invigorated. Even more so when we learned that we had come first in our fleet of 6.

Sunday was totally different. There was little wind when we first motored out and Rick had no trouble deciding to use the biggest head sail. 

We started racing at 10am, just around the race marks in the Bay, that we race around every Wednesday night.

As soon as one race ended the next would start. Very little time between to recover, snack, strategize, take pictures.....

We got 3 races in before the event ended at 2pm.

There was a lot of close racing. We are pretty evenly matched with Nexus and Islay and jockeyed with them frequently, but sometimes we were racing beside, and doing well against, much bigger boats. According to the handicapping system, Spellbound is the slowest boat in the fleet, but she was consistently proving that wrong. We haven't seen the results for Sunday yet as there were various protests between boats that need to be heard, and judged, by the protest committee, before they will be posted, but we think we won all 3 races on Sunday.