The Thousand Islands

Time to get out of the city and back to nature. Awe the Thousand Islands :) The name is actually wrong because there are more than 1800 islands in this area. The islands are a national park and are the start of the St. Lawerence Seaway that leads out to the Atlantic Ocean. As such there is no shortage of boat traffic in the area, large and small. One side of the river is Canadian, the other the United States and the islands between go back and forth in ownership.

The first island we decided to spend a couple nights achored behind was named Beaurivage Island (which means beautiful shoreline in French). It was 15 nm from downtown Kingston. It is off the main shipping channel and the achorage is very protected.

We anchored close enough so that we could swim or dingy back and forth to explore the island. We spent 2 nights there and did not want to leave. We swam, barbecued, fished, and pretended the outside world did not exist.

The depth in the achorage was about 10-12 ft in the center with a weedy bottom. The depth in 1000 islands can change in an instant and caution must be taken. Because many bottoms are just plain rock with no holding power for anchors it is also necessary to make sure something is holding it. We both teach scuba so we usually just put on some gear and go look at the anchor to be sure we get a good night sleep.