Captain Mark was up early because he had to make a more permanent repair to the throttle, which he had duct taped the afternoon before. He fixed it with zip-ties this time (not permanent, parts will need to be ordered) and after a quick test by Sidekick Sue, they set off. They left Kingston Mills early enough to catch the 9:00 opening of the LaSalle Causeway bridge in Kingston. In fact, they left too early, having to slow down to a crawl in the last mile to avoid having to “hover” in front of the bridge. As they have experienced throughout Canada, no one responded to radio calls, but the bridge opened dutifully at 9:00, just as the guides said it would. There was one boat passing in each direction, and, just like that, the Explorers were back on the St. Lawrence River, the last leg of their journey.
Unlike when they picked up the St. Lawrence in Montreal, this time the current was in their favor instead of fighting them. They traveled at speeds up to 7 knots (yes, that is still very slow, but an improvement over the 4 knots they experienced in Montreal). It was a wet, dark gloomy day, but the scenery was still amazing as they wove their way through the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands. Dotted along the shore were some of the most amazing waterfront mansions they have seen on this entire trip. They guessed that when multi-millionaires in Canada want to build mansions as far south as they can, the St. Lawrence is as far south as they can go.
They stopped in the little town of Gananoque for lunch at the Gananoque Inn. The food and the service were fantastic. The only thing that could have made it better was cooperative weather so the Explorers could have sat on the outside patio overlooking the water, but they were actively outrunning oncoming rain on the radar which never materialized into anything substantial.
Captain Mark decided to stretch his legs and walk around town a bit. He noted a few historical museums and a lot of new development. Sidekick Sue is still nursing the knee she somehow twisted the day before, and didn’t want to aggravate it any more, so she settled in to one of her favorite lazy day activities… a jigsaw puzzle.
After Gananoque, the Explorers continued on down the St. Lawrence with more of the same scenery… lush green coastline, dotted with houses and cabins, islands large and small, and circling birds like osprey and seagulls. They crossed under the Thousand Islands bridge (Interstate 81) and made their way to East Grenadier Island Park which, as its name suggests, is on the eastern tip of Grenadier Island. As they pulled up to the island, they noticed they could see the bottom of the water, and while their depth indicator was reporting 16 feet, Captain Mark later measured it with their boat hook and it was less than 4′ (just about the limit on the Wayward Explorer). They were lucky to have not grounded. The “park” is basically a small camping site with a picnic table and an outhouse, but it was a nice quiet place to spend the night. Captain Mark went out for a row in his dinghy and rowed around Adelaide Island. He also put the mast back up, as there are no more low clearance bridges between here and Massena, NY.
While he was out, Sidekick Sue came to the realization that their cell phones were now picking up a tower in the US so there was no more data throttling which had required internet conservation during this entire trip. She rewarded herself by looking at pictures and watching movies of their granddaughters that she had avoided looking at earlier, in order to conserve data. The Explorers enjoyed a night of streaming news and music. With any luck, they will stay connected to towers in NY the following day so they can work on getting another batch of pictures uploaded.
