Summer ! Time to Check Out Lake Ontario

Sometimes it feels like summer will never it arrive. But it did ! So we decided to take a 28 day, 588 nautical mile sail. And for those who are wondering just how much actual sailing is going on, we spent approximately 115 hours underway.
We packed up the boat and our youngest daughter, Kelly, and headed out under the bridge. We decided to make the first days sail a realtively small one. We headed 29 nm (nautical miles) to Ontario Place Marina in Toronto. Including waiting for the bridge it took us 6 hrs. We left at 4 am and watched the sun come up over the lake. Great way to spend the morning.

The crew was smiling. Kelly because she had slept thru the trip and now got to go play at the amusement park.  And Captain Kyle because our trip to Toronto did not involve freeway traffic at rush hour. Amen :)

We met some friends, played a bit and had a terrific sleep on the boat.
New York has Central Park. Toronto has Toronto Island Park. This is truly a gem not to be wasted so the next day we headed over and spent a night there. We stayed at Royal Canadian Yacht Club. Part of the benefits for joining a yacht club is what they call "reciprocal priviledges". This means that if we are away someone from another club can use our slip for free and when we travel to other clubs we can use their vacant slips for free. It saves a small fortune in dock fees. And around Lake Ontario there are said to be about 50 or so of these clubs.

Toronto Island is noted to be the largest urban car free center in North America. Its total area is about 570 acres. There are a few yacht clubs, an amusement park, an airport and even a clothing optional beach for those who are so enclined. There are both public and private ferries that bring people over from downtown Toronto.

We took out our folding bikes and rode all over the island exploring. Then when we finished that we took the dingy for a tour thru some of the places you cannot get by bike.