CS34 2020 East Cruise Day 02 - Belleville

We were up at 8am, got cleaned up and walked into town for breakfast at the Buttermilk Cafe.

Always great!

I bought a nice pair of Sketchers running shoes for the boat.

We both had a shower in the excellent Cobourg facilities.

We left the dock at 11am

See ya later Cobourg

Winds were forecasted light 8-11 knots from the NW, so full main and jib once out of the harbour.

We found the wind was more from the west (almost dead downwind).
The main was blanketing the jib, so we poled the jib out (wing on wing).
Worked well, but we could only do between 3-4 knots of boat speed, so we motor sailed at low RPMs to get out boat speed up over 5 knots.

Also rigged a gybe preventor on the main.

Winds were supposed to build, so no spinnaker.

Motor sailing at almost the speed of the wind meant the bity flies were out in full force!

Very comfortable, but hot!

As we were getting close to PresQu`ile, the wind had diminished to less than 5 knots, so we dropped the pole and furled the jib, as it was doing NOTHING.  Brought the RPMs on the motor up to keep our speed over 5 knots.

All of the sudden, were were hit with 18 knots of breeze from the SW!
The main backwinded and held to starboard with the preventor.
I had to get that preventor off, so I drove the boat downwind, and unhooked the preventor, and safely gybed the main over to the other side.  

Turned the motor off and enjoyed sailing almost dead downwind with a full main over 8 knots.

All of the sudden, we got blasted with over 30 knots of wind.
The dog was freaking.
Rita was freaking.
The unbalanced sail plan (full main no jib) caused the boat to round up into the wind.

On with the motor to keep us from rounding up as we flew towards Brighton Bay.
Had to steer in the puffs and waves, as the autopilot could not keep up.
Plus we had to clear the upcoming island to lee.

Major rain and lightning all around us!

Where did that come from?

It was not in the forecast!

On with the life jackets, and I got together a ditch bag with a handheld radio and GPS.
If we got hit with lightning, the boat could possibly sink, so it would be into the dinghy.

Flying along, our max GPS speed was 11.1 knots!

To prevent an uncontrolled gybe in the building waves, I set the autopilot to sail to a wind angle of 165 degrees.

There were two sailboats coming out of Brighton bay, motoring west into the breeze POUNDING into the 6-8ft waves.  At one point, the blue hulled boat was almost completely out of the water (we could see most of its keel)!

As we got closer to the entrance to Brighton Bay, I knew we could NOT carry the mainsail going into the narrow channel.  If you get on the wrong side of a marker, it is very shallow and hard granite.
Rita came up from below, and we rehearsed dropping the main.

We used the autopilot to motor us directly into the wind, Rita tightened the mainsheet to control boom, and released the main halyard, while I was at the mast bringing the main down.  We did it in less than a minute.

Great Teamwork!

And we motored around the marks of Brighton Bay

...and into the Murray Canal.

Approaching Brighton bridge

You hail the bridge operator on VHF channel 14, and he swings the bridge open for you.

Here is Rita paying $5 to the bridge operator:

Approaching the Carrying Place bridge:

Here the bridge is closing behind us:

Just past here, we pulled up to a government dock to pee the dog:

Shadow doing "the pose"

Lots of weeds in the canal, had to backup a could of times to clear them off the keel/rudder.

Then off into the Bay of Quinte.
You have to stay in the marked channel as it is very weedy and shallow outside of it.

We did make a detour to see some WYC friends who moved to a waterfront home on the south shore:

Cam and Sue Berry chatted with us as we came close to their dock.

Unfortunately, we turned away when the depth got to 5ft.

It was nice to say hi and see their place from the water.

The rest of the way was a pure motor all the way to Belleville.

Only 5 knots of wind from behind us.

We got rained on and yet another rainbow (a double one at that):

We motored the rest of the way passing a coast guard ship past Belleville

Then on into Sandy Cove.

Anchored in 10ft of water

We had to dinghy about 200ft to shore to pee the dog.

There were 5 other boats anchored in the bay.

Great spot to anchor after a long day on the water!

Trip Odometer: 47.09 miles

Avg Speed: 5.8 knots

Max Speed: 11.1 knots

Time on Water: 08:11

We enjoyed watching the stars and were in bed by 11pm.