Leaving Hay Bay

Alan and Meagan are now in Ottawa.  Adell has headed out.  I believe she’s meeting up with Andrew and Tanya, Finn and Elliott there. Laura is in the shower, her bags packed.  I’ve loaded the Hyundai Sonata Avis Rental, a nice car.  Thankful for the roomy trunk.  Graeme is manning the fort here with the two dogs, Eva and Pepper.

It’s been a whirlwind of activity since arrival.  

I enjoyed walking round the property despite jet lag.  Long walks with Madigan feeling the presence of my brother.  Adell was gracious and beautiful in all her care. She even made pear desert with the pears off the tree Ron planted. I was there. We had such hope and yes life carries on.

I slept. Wonderful dreams despite jet lag or covid or the soul exhaustion from work.  I read novels and slept.  We talked. Family talk.  Talk of weddings. Talk of new horns. Talk of jobs and homes.

I’m winding down.  Laura was a brick filling in.  We had to watch Madigan. He had diarrhea and it cleared with Adell’s rice and chicken but came back when we introduced wet foods.  He’s been a going concern. Not unhealthy.  But laying out puppy pads and getting him outside to poop.  

Emptying the boat of the personal things was a day. Graeme made it possible . He kept me on task as nostalgia threw me up on lee shores or I would take off soaring on tropical trades.  Everyone talked of the diesel smell.  For years I lived it but now I noticed it too.  Sweet and acrid.  

I was going to solo the Atlantic, down to the Caribbean , maybe take the inside passage as I discussed with my brother.  But the shift depth of the channels and my deep keel concerned me.  

“I’m getting old and my boats too big.  I’m think of selling and getting a smaller boat. ” I said.  

The young man from Loyalist Cove Marina said “That what I hear from 85% of the folk with yachts here.”  

It’s the white hair.  I’m of an age where people are always asking if I’m retired yet.  I’ve no real desire to retire. I like the work.  I enjoy the false sense of security that incoming money brings.  Work appeals to me. I’ve changed the nature of my work several times in my career.  I enjoy the patients and the people I work with today.  Virtual work has appealed to me with Covid.  Reminded me of my early radio phone days working in the sub arctic as a fly in doctors consulting to isolated reserves.  I left my Hamm radio and everything that could be used on the boat.  It was all set for off shore sailing with $20,000 in spare parts and new engine and new radio and chart plotter and new genoa.  

All the life threatening moments, the hurricanes, the night terrors came back to me.  I just couldn’t see myself pulling sails up and down like I needed to do in face of the weather.  I suppose I could. I’m not ready to sell yet. But my personal belongings are now off the boat, my journals, my underwear.  If I do sell it this year it’s viewable but it needs a new paint job and a little sanding to clear the rust. I used to bottom paint every year or two and it’s just been bottom painted a couple years back. I painted the deck about 5 years ago. I’ve had the boat sand blasted and painted three times in her life.  I imagined how I’d enjoy working in a boat yard painting again. Those were good days, good memories.

I’ve packed the car with my bags.  We’ve gone through the house looking to see nothing was left.  I heard Laura leave the shower so it won’t be long.  Madigan is excited. 

The sun is shining,  We’ve had the best meals,  I loved the dinner on the deck under the stars listening to the lapping of the lake at Hay Bay.  Graeme had barbecued beef medallions and Adell had made several salads.  It was wholesome and family.  Relaxed.

I am afraid of people these last years.  So easily offended and the authorities corrupt and in everyone’s affairs.  Backing the play of the victim culture.  Who ever cries first wins.  False allegations are the norm and the mainstream are so far behind the cultural wars as to only know when they or their family fall before the legal political machines.  Fringe politics.  

It was easy here,  The only agitators and yapping dogs were the dogs.  Eva is the most vocal, Likes to lie on the couch in the sun and bark at a squirrel.  Pepper then starts running around and barking not knowing yet what’s got Eva going. Madigan took a day or two before he joined in. I don’t think he every figured out what they were barking at but he was glad to join in with Pepper running around in circles complaining and warning and agitating.  I’m so glad that Madigan got to play with his cousins.  I call them aunts or cousins. Seeing them run together on the great lawn was one of my dreams.  I looked forward to watching the dogs cajole in the great expanse of green.  Madigan even took to chasing the ball even as far as I could throw it.  Reminiscent of good times with my brother and the dogs.  Mom and dad now long gone used to love our playing with the dogs.  Sonny, the springer spaniel was part of the family growing up. Then Ron and Adell had Tartan and Rainy before they moved on to kids.  

I feel so alone at times. Then I pray and it’s okay.  There were decades when my life was thick with friends and family.  All young.  This last two years three of my closest friends have passed pretty much taking with them their extended friends and family.  I’m of the age,  

Laura is coming down the stairs pulling her suitcase, Time to take it out to the car and make the last check before leaving Hay Bay for Kanata,  Kanata is another sources of memory and nostalgia.  This week we made new dreams.  Adell’s cooking, the kids and the dogs, and Laura all such a good time.  The boat. I would have liked to have visitted Nick but it was too busy with family.  Wedding preparations and boat work.  

Thank You Jesus. 

Napanee Autumn

Gobblers on the road last night. V’s of geese honking in the sky.  Sounds of shot guns duck hunting early morning. Leaves changing colours.  Gold, yellow and orange splashes paint the woods.  Pumpkins by the side of the road. Halloween costumes in the store.  Witches and goblins.  The northern nip scents the air.  White morning mushrooms spoke the forest floor on walks with the dog.  Black and brown squirrels gathering nuts run across the lawn and tarry beneath the bird feeding station.  A rabbit stares from beneath a bush. Osprey and raven circle above on thermoclines. 

I’m visiting family for the wedding of nephew Alan and Meagan later this week. Adell, my truly accomplished sister in law has been making family meals each night, haute cuisine. Such variety. Last night pepper steaks with local grilled mushrooms and mashed potatoes with dill and peas.  Simple but elegant. I look forward to her meals.  Dessert of walnut stuffed pear with maple syrup and ice cream.  

I visitted my yacht yesterday. The paint is lifting and spots of rust are showing. I ‘ve not been doing maintenance a few years. I had it trucked here from Vancouver and sailed it on Lake Ontario a few years past.  Paid family to sand and bottom paint. I did that myself every year or two at most. Sand blasted the boat every 5 to 10 years. So much maintenance. Now it needs a couple of weeks of loving care.  I am of two minds about the work.  I borrowed a step ladder to climb up into the cockpit.  That was a trial and the effort left my back sore in the night.  I didn’t have a key for the main lock. While I was climbing up into the cockpit Laura had held the ladder and watched Madigan who tried to climb the ladder after me.  

 On the way back to Hay Bay we drove through Napanee and I picked up a skookum bolt cutter and lock replacement at the Canadian Tire. I’m due to return today.  Just standing in the cockpit causes an ocean of memories.  I shudder to think of them. Being knocked down in the 40 foot seas and high winds after the hurricane.  The night of anchor running the engine full open throttle to assist the anchor in the hurricane force winds of the exposed harbour rode full out and the seas smashing the rocks behind.  Trees plucked out of the earth flying through the wind.  Climbing the mast after the safe harbour in Astoria with 60 knot winds in harbour only to have the antenna the antennae dislodge and smash about at the top of the mast. I climbed it on autopilot with 20 foot seas the boat flopping back and force so I could have touched the sea on either side. Bungee cording the antennae to safe the mast.  Juan de Fuca channel mouth, 40 foot steep seas 50 knots winds, crossing, knocked down three times.  

I was thinking of keeping the boat. Remembering drinking coffee below in the cozy cabin with the diesel flame.  Making love in the v birth at anchor.  Fair winds and following seas, tropical trade winds.  Manta rays jumping in Sea of Cortez.  80 foot whales swimming alongside off the California coast. The rich loam scent of the Hawaiian Islands.  

Dolfins dancing off the bow waves.  Catching tuna and salmon and ling cod.  Great barbecue. Nights of guitar and song under the canopy of stars.

A love and fear relationships with the GIRI.  

“I’m getting old and thinking of selling my sailboat. It’s two big for solo sailing.  I’m thinking of a smaller lighter sailboat I can handle more easily.”  I told the young man working in the Loyalist Cove Marina.

“You and 85% of the other yacht owners here,” he laughed.  

The dogs, Eva and Pepper are barking at the squirrels outside.  Madigan is in dog heaven. He’s convinced Pepper to chase him round and round the sun room.  Dogs will be dogs.  Eva the oldest likes to watch and bark. 

Graeme just came in and said he would be ready to go back to the Marina.  

“If you’re even thinking of selling it, probably a good idea to make sure there’s not underwear lying about.”  he said last night.

I thought I would unload personal items and things that I wouldn’t want to go with a sale just in case. I thought I could come back next year and how I’d enjoy working in the boat yard for weeks repainting and outfitting the boat. I could carry on with the plan of sailing down to the Caribbean.  Get a crew.  Have the boat as a southern home away from home.  

The happiest days of a boat owners life though are the day he buys it and the day he sells it.  I’ve and RV and land and prefer a low maintenance life these days.  It’s a challenge I must face.  I really don’t have to do anything but look today.  Bolt cutters as back up keys. Memories.

Sailing with Andrew and Tanya, Loyalist Cove Marina, Lake Ontario

I actually thought the SV GIRI  motor trip and anchoring in Kerr Bay with Alan would be the last time I took working yacht out. However, Tanya who had painted the boat in the spring asked if she and Andrew might go sailing.
So off we drove from Hay Bay  to Loyalist Cove Marina. We backed the sailboat out of the marina then drove into the wind to raise the sails.  Once they were up I let Andrew take over. He was keen on sailing. Lots of gybing and tacking while I explained wind and sail positions.  We really were doing well making quite the clip in the light winds.  I even had a single reef in the main because my autopilot handles best that way. The genoa was all out.
Tanya and I liked the flatter pleasanter (hear Sailing, Sailing song in back ground) downwind sailing. But Andrew liked best heeling and racing close hauled into the wind.  Gilbert loved being part of the whole affair and especially loved Tanya who recognized his importance as Admiral.
I enjoyed drinking coffee, reminiscing about off shore adventures and wanted to keep on going.  We were out a few hours tacking back and forth across the strait.  I just want to go on forever when I get in my sailboat and put the sails up.   I’m not a day sailor but love expeditions.  Pacific offshore sailing has ruined me.   Sailing all day and ending up anchoring at an island then sailing all day again is okay. I loved sailing around Vancouver Island each time I did that, and sailing to the Queen Charlottes. Sailing in the Sea of Cortez with anchoring at night was also a lot of fun. I like being able to anchor at night and I love sleeping at anchor.  It’s really is a whole lot more exciting though when you just continue day and night at sea. But this was just a little sail.  It was a whole lot of fun even if it was  a bit of  tease.  Next year I hope to sail island to island for days on end, getting in some fishing and swimming and forgetting about all the landlubber concerns that accumulate. These are great sailing waters and remind me a bit of the Gulf Islands and even Desolation Sound. The difference is that while they’re both protected waters, these are fresh water.
Tanya and Andrew were terrific companions.  Fun and laughing and quick learners. I have the smartest fastest nephews, the oldest being Graeme who is an engineer and knows his way around boats, where as Andrew is into robotics and the youngest Alan first went boating with me as a teen and now is well on his way to being a psychologist.  Tanya is into computers and web design so understood the chart plotter and electronics immediately.  They’re all natural sailors and keen boaters.
It was all fun. Adell, my sister in law,  had even packed a lunch we enjoyed.   I was glad to get back without mishap.  This was the last sail for the Girl  I’d hoped my brother would have been able to get out again but he was really just glad to be out of the hospital and home at that time.  He’d had a lot of fun with the family sailing in the summer when I was down earlier and he was still doing well.
Now the boat is up on land bundled in it’s winter parka, thanks to Dave at Loyalist Cove Marina. I really love the care my boat gets here. 

Sailing with Andrew and Tanya Hay - SV GIRI - North Channel, Bath

I love Loyalist Cove Marina.  They’ve taken such good care of the SV GIRI. I’d thought they were going to pull it out and store it for the winter as they did last fall but Tanya asked if we could go sailing one last time.  Loyalist Cove Marina will haul the SV GIRI out next week and prep the engine for winter and wrap her up to protect her from the snow.

Tanya had painted the bottom and deck so wanted to enjoy the fruit of her labour.  Andrew is just a madcap sailor who wanted to race and tack.
I was happy to take them out. They are a terrific couple, loving and supportive of each other as well as being lots of fun.
The skies were overcast but as the day progressed we got blue sky and sunshine.  The wind was SouthWest.  Once we’d got out of the harbour I pointed the GIRI into the wind and put the autopilot on.  Andrew, Tanya and I brought in the bumpers in then Andrew took off the main sail cover and  we  raised the main sail. I showed Andrew how to look up the sail and see it taut against the mast without the scalloping of cloth that means the halyard isn’t winched up enough. .
I left one reef in the main sail  knowing from experience that my autopilot is fussy if I have the whole mainsail up.  With one reef there’s lots of wiggle room.  What a sailing racer deplores but that which appeals to the cruiser in me.  My racer friend Tom likes to get maximum speed by aligning the sails perfectly for most efficiency.
Once that was done ’sufficiently’,  we got the lines sorted out for the roller furling genoa.   That I let out  opened that sail almost fully.  Then we weared round to a lovely broad reach.
I am a solo sailor so it was with some effort I did everything using the correct nautical terms.
“More Nautical Terms!” Andrew called out to Tanya whenever I introduced another.
They are both quick studies and I’d been through the various reaches and close haul positions with Andrew when we’d last sailed with Ron and Graeme.  We were actually doing 6 knots with rather light winds, maybe 10 to 15 knots at most.
Tanya and I loved it while Andrew was wanting to tack and heel.  I think he’d be most at home with an alien space ‘flitter’.  Because of my sail configuration I had the maximum heel at around 12 degrees whereas if I had put all my sails up fully I’d have probably heeled 20 degrees.  10 degrees is less work.  20 degrees is enough and more heel in cruising doesn’t really gain a whole lot.  I liked the easiness of it all. Tanya said she really liked this ‘comfortable sailing’ as well , having envisioned a lot more ‘grunt work’.
“I actually rather like this sailing since you and Andrew are doing most of the work while I’ve been enjoying the ride”
 The sailing grounds around Loyalist Cove are truly lovely.  Great reaches and rather well protected from the worst of the Lake Ontario weather. Lots of bays to explore.  I really look forward to more sailing here in the coming years. There’s even the famed thousand islands further along which everyone tells me has so many picturesque anchorages..
The fall scenery was magnificent, the leaves just beginning to show autumn colours, reds and gold.   It was glorious.  I made coffee and we all had a cup sitting in the cockpit with the sails doing the work and the boat on autopilot. While I love my Volvo engine I love the quiet when we are just sailing like this.  Fair winds and following seas.
Almost to Collins Bay we gybed round to close haul back the way we came, tacking a couple of times , more to please Andrew.  We were past Loyalist Cove when I decided to turn on the Iron Jenny and pull down the sails.
Adell had packed lunches which we enjoyed while sailing. All round a wonderful day on the water.
When we got the boat into the marina  this time I told Kim in the office as we were leaving that this was the last time I’d take her out . I was flying back to Vancouver.  I just love the way Loyalist Cove Marina cares for GIRI.  I’ll miss her till next year.



Here are some pictures Tanya took and sent to me.

SV GIRI - Boating with Alan - Kerr Bay

Alan insists that since we didn’t actually put the sails up, we were not ‘sailing’.  Hence, the title, ‘boating with Alan’.
I’d called Loyalist Cove Marina a couple of weeks earlier and asked if they could check my Autopilot.  The autopilot hadn’t been communicating with the compass.  I love my Autopilot and was so pleased that it had been repaired. Just some corrosion on the wire connections.  When I’d been there earlier in the summer we’d been out sailing with Ron and the nephews. Ron wasn’t up to boating this time but i still wanted to try out the anchor tackle.
Alan is good company. A psychologist finishing his masters he’s a bit impatient but otherwise sensitive and intuitive.  He has a thousand questions and his curiosity abounds.
It was a grey and overcast day. I’m not a particularly energetic sailor. I love my Volvo diesel motor and I love making stove top expresso coffee on my lovely three burner gambled propane stove.  Only 20 minutes from Loyalist Cove Marina is Kerr Bay across the channel.  We anchored in 25 foot of water after I untangled the anchor chain that had been shook about by shipping the boat across Canada.
With anchor hooked I made my coffee and had a peanut butter and jam sandwich reading a book in my own special Captain’s corner while Alan actually had a rather long nap.  This is heaven for me.
When i raised the anchor I hauled up half the seaweed on the bottom too.  A bit of a fiddle getting it off. Then Alan drove us back to Loyalist Cove Marina where I took over for the berthing.  One of the staff was on dock to catch the bow line Alan tossed him.
I cleaned up with the though this would be the last I’d see the GIRI till next year.  Then Alan and I went off to Paul’s in Napanee to collect the pizza Ron had mentioned he’d missed while he was in hospital.
A great day boating.  Even if I only used the iron jenny!

Loyalist Cove Marina and Sailing with my Brother

It was a year ago my brother Ron was diagnosed with cancer.  I’d wanted to go sailing with him but it didn’t look like he’d be able to get to the west coast.  So that began the process of shipping my sail boat, SV GIRI, 13 ton, 40 foot steel offshore sailboat,  to southern Ontario. My brother lives on Hay Bay in greater Napanee region.
Thanks to Loyalist Cove Marina in nearby Bath,  this whole project could go ahead.  Dave and Kim of Loyalist Cove Marina were the most helpful and understanding people.  Andrews Trucking would move the boat with the help of Vancouver’s  Lynnwood Marina and ProTek Riggers.  But it took Kim arranging for a place to accept the boat.  These things always seem so ’straight forward’  to the planner like me but the devil is in the detail.
Andrews Trucking had to address the issue of ‘height’ of the boat and all the legislation about transporting while Kim had to find a marina slip long enough and deep enough to accommodate my ocean going craft and juggle moorage for when the boat would be launched.   Thankfully Dave has a superb secure storage facility right near the Loyalist Cove Marina.   The ship had never had to spend a winter on land. It had wintered the dessert in Arizona after sailing the Sea of Cortez and been on land in the West Coast rain forest but never known snow despite our trip to Alaska. Were it not for Kim I’d not have thought that with freezing the boat’s engine and water systems would need winterizing just like my RV.  The GIRI was made  safe through the winter.
Dave has a travel lift and also trucks big sailboats and powerboats himself. I called ahead a month before I’d arrive having arranged with some challenges in the months before  to have doctors covering my practice.
It’s not an easy thing to get away from my work.  Less and less government resources these days with fewer and fewer clinicians and aging and sicker patients.  As doctors we cover each other for holidays though there are so few psychiatrists in my subspecialty area that my patients in one practice have no back up but generalists, my phone number or the hospital.  In my downtown addiction medicine practice a couple of days a week six of us juggle the roster so we always have warm bodies in place.  It’s difficult enough for Dr. Gary Horvath who runs the clinic, where due to the patients addiction, it sometimes feels like working in an emergency or a war zone. So much acute and sometimes bizarre and often life threatening illness along with the primary diseases of heroin, cocaine, crystal meth addiction and alcoholism.  I don’t know when I last ‘burnt out’.  I was diagnosed with PTSD years past after being held hostage and just dealing with all the death I’d seen. Now I’ve seen as much death these last few years working in addiction as I did when I worked with AIDS patients in the mid 80’s when that epidemic was at it’s height.  I look on vacation, not so much as ‘vacation’ as being away from the ‘front’ and an attempt to recoup, to be able to go back to face the always  sad, tragic, desperate,  and increasingly belligerent patients, one of whom has been threatening me and my dog for a couple of months.  Just getting away from Vancouver is a relief.
It was really a joy to see the SV GIRI moved from land back to water and  a perfect slip that Kim had arranged.
My brother Ron’s cancer had stopped being held back by the UBC chemotherapy combination being provided by the brilliant Dr. Anna Tomiak and her colleagues, at   Queen’s University Oncology Department in Kingston General Hospital.  Fortunately, however,  Dr. Aaron Hansen at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto was beginning a new trial of treatment.
I accompanied Ron to the starting of that treatment in Toronto. Sonya, Dr. Hansen’s  research nurse was extremely informative and helpful. Later we met Dr. Aaron Hansen.   I enjoyed that he acknowledged a colleague but gave my brother his undivided attention, answering his questions with care and precision. Ron was thankful to be again on a scientifically based treatment for his difficult cancer. Ron studied science at the University of Manitoba and went on to be a senior administrator in the federal Health and Welfare Department in Ottawa.
 As his wife Adell says, “we don’t expect a cure but we’re buying time in hopes that there will be one”.  So far my brother has been a rock star success so I’m hopeful given the truly amazing breakthroughs that are occurring daily in medicine.  It shocks me that in my own career I ‘ve seen so  many ‘killing ‘ cancers now being curable.  The  general life expectancy is increasing dramatically so much thanks to education and scientific advances.
Back at Loyalist Cove Marina, Dixon, a Harley motorcyclist like me, stepped the mast and got all the rigging arranged only to encounter a problem with the roller furling. Lorry, whose laughter is infectious, had the boom holder and radar mast back upright and secure by then.  Thankfully Dave with his amazing wealth of experience figured out that the problem not a tangled line in the mast as had happened in Hawaii, but with the track on the roller furling. Dave fixed it this latest “challenge”  by going up in his “cherry picker’ machine and adjusting the tension on the track.
Hallelujah! The Genoa was raised.  The mast was up and secure.  The boat was ready to sail. Wiring could wait.  My nephew Andrew, doing research with robotics and geophysics for University of Ottawa, flew in to the CFB at Trenton from Alert, Nunavut, nearest to the North Pole.  Graeme my other nephew, chemical engineer at Deep River Nuclear Plant had come down too.  Allan the child psychologist would arrive along with Andrew’s wife Tanya, the graphics designer.  Everyone was there to go sailing with my brother and I.  Ron’s cancer has everyone sensitive to time in a way only cancer survivor’s can testify too. I was therefore so thankful when Dave saved the day with his ‘cherry picker’ elevator solutions and Kim found a space for the SV GIRI to live. I really believe when everything finally comes together like this that God truly is in charge.
Jack, who had family who had had cancer told me the marina had diesel and gas pumps which I’d not seen.  With exquisite care, definitely more skilled than I,  he filled my tanks without spilling a drop.  Through the crystal clear water we could see large bass swimming in the weeds on the bottom.
On the GIRI, Graeme  replaced the bilge pump that had died in transit and we both epoxied a couple of bits that had come apart.  Tanya and Andrew had done a masterful job of painting the boat’s bottom and topsides so the GIRI was looking good when we all got aboard. The next few days were heavenly  boating on Lake Ontario’s North Channel off Bath.
Canada Day was a big event there with fireworks and parades we passed on the way to the marina.  One night, after an afternoon sailing,  we had a fabulous turkey dinner at J&P’s restaurant in Bath.  “It’s just like mom’s turkey dinner’s”  I said. Ron agreed.
Sailing was magnificent.  I had to train my crew, mostly Graeme and Alan, roughly from scratch.  Andrew and Tanya soon had to join her family for the annual hilarity of their family’s Canada Day celebrations.  We all enjoyed the photos on Facebook of this over the next few days especially Tanya’s father’s Canada Day red “tall hat”.
Meanwhile Graeme and Allan, Adell and I had a terrific "Captain Ron” docking experience when a breeze caught the bow where Graeme was standing with the bowline to throw to his mother who had instead got off the boat and stood ready with the stern line.  I managed the repositioning the sailboat with some flair that had other boaters getting up to rush to our aid until I called out ‘I’m training crew’, then everyone relaxed.
The fact is I’ve never taught anyone to sail. I’m an offshore solo sailer.  What made things worse was I’ve pretty much lost the language of sailing so was stammering on calling out directions in precise nautical directions to crew themselves just getting a handle on nautical  language. “Starboard, right, eh?” Despite all the confusion we managed safely.  Any departure and return to a dock is like flying, if you do it safely, with no harm to boat or crew or others, it’s a success.  We always tell ourselves this when we are faced with the all too common embarrassing lack of finest.
When we were actually sailing a similar level of chaos and confusion occurred at the winches and helm jibing and tacking.  Helmsman problems that Graeme and Allan had with holding the boat true, something I do intuitively now, would remind me of my early days maneuvering sailboats. They’re a whole different animals than power boats which the guys knew.  They were all thrown into the deep end too without the classroom or hands on instruction I’d received in getting my ships captain papers. At least they had pleasure boaters licenses which gave them the rules of the road at see.  I really was pleased that despite my lack of nautical educational prowess, everyone was a quick study.
That said my brother was laughing at our three Stooges cum Monty Python antics when we gybed or tacked. .  I loved to hear his full bellied laughter.  It was something I’d not heard this last year.  His sons and wife and I were muddling about while he was clearly simply enjoying the whole sailing experience.
“Watching you all  reminds me of when I was boating on Lake of the Wood and you guys were just kids with  Allan still in diapers,” he chortled.  Meanwhile, I, the great off shore sailor, too long a captive of my medical office was huffing away after taking a turn on the winch hardening the main or reeling in the jib.
  “Just a bit out of shape,” Ron laughed.   Norman Cousins would be proud of me. Andrew and Graeme manned the winches too. At one point with o onne rope was too short and in the confusion a rope  wound backwards on the winch  so a lot of effort was being made for naught till Ron   directed Allan to wind the rope correctly and add an extra wrap on the winch.
Each day  and in different sections the North Channel  wind was different with funnelling and deflection off points. For a while we had  12 - 15 knot gentle breeze  and nearly flat surface,  Then  we had 20 to 25 knots of winds, a moderate breeze actually getting to a strong wind.  The spray was coming off the white caps which were all over.  We were doing 6 knots speed on a beam reach.  We zig zagged back and forth across the channel enjoying the sunshine and blue skies.  Close hauled we took water across the deck and dipped the rail with everyone getting a taste of fresh water spray in the cockpit.
 Alan liked that. “I like the speed best, “ he said, a racer in the making.  Meanwhile I, definitely a cruiser,  had  enjoyed with Ron and Adell, the gentler down wind sailing telling them, this is where I solo sailing, put on the autopilot  on go below, make a cup of coffee then sit on deck reading a good book waiting to arrive at my next destination.
Ron talked about his boating Lake of the Woods and sailing with his friend on his 26 foot boat , reminiscing about all the youthful adventures.  We even talked about boating days with Dad and Mom, fishing on Manitoba’s Blue Lake.   The last day sailing,  Graeme had to return to Deep River early evening, so with the wind up and waves bigger we brought the boat about, took in the sails.   Ron took over the helm motoring us back to Loyalist Cove Marina.
More great days on the water.   I loved seeing my brother in high spirits again.  Laughter certainly is the best medicine.  I especially loved his reminiscence of all the other great days on the water. We’ve always been a boating family.  It’s probably the Scots and Irish in us.  Island people.  Northern and rugged. Canadian.
I sure hope he can beat back the cancer another year. He’s planted fruit trees which will likely give fruit next year. I’d love to pick these with him.  The SV GIRI will remain at the Loyalist Cove Marina.  So we can plan for more sailing maybe later this summer or fall and hopefully next year.
I’m heading back to Vancouver now to spell off my colleagues. In the other room Ron’s reading with two cockapoos, Eva the female and my little male Gilbert.  They’re lying on either side of Ron, guarding him, or waiting for treats.  It’s hard to tell. Graeme’s cockapoo puppy went home with him. With three dogs we had a lot of racket whenever anyone came into the house.  Dogs know better than anyone the importance of greetings.  It will be sad to be leaving family  again though I do look forward to Vancouver friends.
I’m glad to be leaving SV GIRI in the capable hands of the folk at Loyalist Cove Marina.  Sailing has been a healing metaphor of life for me.  We make our way not by fighting the wind and currents but rather by working with them. Finally it’s  all in God’s  time too.