CS34 Cobourg to Whitby

Sunday morning breakfast was our traditional trip to the Butter Milk Cafe in downtown Cobourg.  They make the BEST eggs benedict EVER.

There were several Whitby Yacht Club boats in Cobourg:

Kalona (Aloha 34)

Sandpiper (Tartan 31)

Bottoms Up (Catalina 34)

Phil on Kelona used to be at WYC and moved his boat to Cobourg last year.

Les on Sandpiper was coming back from cruising east and parked right beside us.

Bottoms Up was on the wall (more on them later).


We left the dock right at 11am.  Winds were forecast for NW 8-12 knots, so a close reach all the way home.  However, when we got out the channel and past Peter Rock, the wind were less than that and from the west (RIGHT ON THE NOSE).   We tried to sail for a while, but could only muster 2 knots of boat speed with the 5 or 6 knots of wind.  Plus we would have to sail WAY out into the lake.  I guestimated that it would have taken 14 hours to get home sailing.  Tried to motor sail with just the main, but took the main down after a while.

As we approached Newcastle, there was a MAYDAY call on the radio.  Bottom's Up from Whitby sent out a distress call that they may be sinking.  They were near Darlington GS, about 9 miles from us.  COMRA from Oshawa was dispatched to get them and would be there within 15 minutes.  We radioed them and they had some kind of leak and and had water over their floorboards.  They were pumping it out and were still underway, and limped into Whitby.

We toured along the waterfront at Newcastle in about 20 ft of water.  We motored over to Bowmanville to look a some of the waterfront homes there.  Coming out of west side of the bay near St Mary's Cement, we kissed a rock in a little over 8 ft of water.  We were going about 2 1/2 knots at the time.  The boat shuddered and slowed to 1 knot VERY quickly.  I looked  behind and saw a BIG boulder.  It was a glancing blow on the bottom edge of the keel that is 4 1/2 ft below the water.  Quickly checked the bilges for any damage; no issues.  We will probably have a mark on the leading bottom edge of the keel come haulout.

Got into Whitby around 5pm, did a pumpout, and had a nice BBQ.

Looking at the fuel gauge, we used 20L of diesel (about $26 of fuel).  Not bad for 70 miles (12 hours) of motoring.

GREAT WEEKEND

Trip Odometer: 35.80 miles
Moving Average: 5.6 knots
Moving Time: 06:20:00

Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2014/20140817.kmz