CS34 Whitby to NOTL

We were up at 6:30am, had breakfast on the boat, and noticed a weird haze around the sun:

We later found out that this was from the forest fires in Northern Ontario.
We would see this for the next couple of days.

By 7:30am, we went for a quick pumpout, and wash the black steaks off the sides of the hull.

We moved the boat over beside Walter and Colleen on dock 4:

We left the dock at 08:18.

Forecast was for 2-4 knots of wind from the south.
TWS 3.2 knots.
The bearing to Niagara is 190, so almost on the nose, so we didn't even bother with the sails, just motored along at 6.2 knots @3,000 RPM.

We heard a VHF call on 16 of a large 3' diameter log just south of the Ajax Weather buoy, so we sent the ladies to the bow to keep watch for it:

But Colleen had a better idea:

We past the Ajax weather buoy:

...and continued motoring toward Niagara

The Beckoning

We would normally just point the boat right to the mouth of the Niagara River.

However, this would take us into US waters, and with the Covid-19 border restrictions, we did not want to get into any trouble, so I set a waypoint to stay in Canadian waters:

Once we turned the corner, the winds had picked up to 10 knots on a close reach, so up with the sails!

...and off with the motor!  

When hoisting the mainsail on Still Time, something hard fell out onto the deck.
IT WAS GROSS

Some kind of hard cocoon made of mud with larvae in it and tons of spiders.

We later Googled it as Mud Wasps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_dauber

Here you can see the mark it left on the sail:

We sailed along at 5.5 knots for about 12 miles until it was time to drop the sails near the mouth of the Niagara river.

Yellow is where we dropped the sails.

We got two slips on the visitors wall just in front of the lighthouse:

Our Shadow after a pee

We got hooked into shore power and had our first beverage!

Trip Odometer: 41.8 miles

Avg Speed: 4.9 knots
Max Speed: 9.4 knots

Start: 07:21am
End: 03:47pm

Moving Time: 08:26 (this includes the pumpout)

Click for BIGGER

Engine hours start: 1047.1
Engine hours end: 1053.8

Motoring hours:6.7 hours