Whitby and Port Hope

From Toronto we sailed another 28 nm east up the Lake to Whitby Ontario. We spent a quick and quiet night at dock in the yacht club.

We enjoyed watching the local swans with their babies.

The old saying "Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morn sailors be warned" did not prove true this day.







We rose very early and made the 32 nm sail to Port Hope to meet friends. This would be our last Canadian stop for a little while. After this we would be heading across the Lake to the USA side. Our boat had a draft of 6 ft. For non-sailors, this means that if there is not at least 6 feet of water under us we are on the ground.  So there are some places that we just cannot go. And thus crossing the lake gave us better options.
Keeping this in mind as we read our guide book for Port Hope it stated that there is a shoal that extends 1/2 mile into the lake that is only 7 ft deep (on good days) out from the mouth of the habour we wanted to enter. It also stated that silting is a problem at the habour entrance. So we proceeded very slowly. As we approached we saw a large yellow shovel dipping down into the water in front of us. They were digging out the silt. Good, but they were also pointing to the wall right in front of them. It took us a few minutes to realize that they wanted us to sail there, not avoid there. Sooo like every true sailor, we hit the mud. Luckily because it was only silt we could easily back out and get unstuck. Not so luckily, we did this more than once. Oh well live and learn. The only damage was to our egos.