No we didn’t go for a 3 hour tour recently in the boat but with the weather as it is currently the marina we’re in is more akin to a washing machine than a calm harbor. Basically whenever the winds kick up the waves out in the lake (especially if the wind is coming from the south at all) all the wave action starts to funnel into the marina area tossing around all the boats there. It’s times like these I’m happy that Pathfinder has serious bulk on its side so the waves have a harder time moving us around but even then there are times when Jeannie and I will be there and we’re both feeling a bit sea sick. But to make ourselves feel better we look out the window at the other ships in the marina. Dear LORD I have no idea how those people stay in bed with the boats tossing like they do. It was SO rough this morning that one of our fellow boaters was tossed from the dock into the water. He was alright and some people were able to help him get out but still… BIG waves (just a note out there to people worried that the same will happen to the crew of the Pathfinder, don’t worry. We’re tied up to the concrete wall so when we stand on our “dock” we’re actually standing on land not a floating platform).

If the weather is still as rough as it is now tonight I’ll take some photos of the waves going by the entrance of the marina. BIG white caps.

Also these waves should be moderated out a LOT more in the coming week when Kajama and the Empire Sandy arrive in our area… Like they said they were about 3 weeks ago… I’m not exactly holding my breath BUT it would be nice for them to be there to help curb the wave action we’re suffering through some nights.

Sorry for the meandering post there. I woke up early to the weather and a lot of crashing noises which turned out to be the ships on the other side getting tossed around roughly. So I’m a bit disoriented. Fortunately today should be fairly light work wise.

Also GOOD LUCK JEANNIE on your second interview!

Jeannie and I have just completed on the Pathfinder at Pier 4 (more or less). Things have been going rather well even if the ship isn’t 100% complete. We now have most of the equipment ready to be installed but we’re still working on wood work. Today I hope to get the galley paneled and with Dad’s help get some electrical run. Although that sounds like a rather large amount of work Dad and I have decided that if we don’t get to it, then we don’t get to it. This week is our week of recovery since the mad rush we did the end of last week (where we did the majority of the wood work, finished 90% of the insulation and vapor barrier installation, and brought Pathfinder across to Pier 4.

Wow. You can really tell this is an early morning post. I’m just meandering all over the place with topics. Whew. Ok. I need coffee…

Back to how it was on board Pathfinder. Most of the time the temperature right now hovers around 20 degrees Celsius in the pilot house which has become our temporary master bedroom until the wood work in the cargo hold is done (right now it’s acting as wood storage and my workshop). The bathroom right now is by far the most insulated place in the entire boat… considering it’s holding onto all the last batons of insulation ready for installation when we have the rest of the framing up for the cargo hold. The galley right now has a picnic table in it along with some of the rest of our miscellaneous gear and kitchen utensils. We hope to have this mostly sorted out say end of next week but we probably won’t drop the mattress down to the cargo hold until the week after some time since next weekend we’re getting our HUGE Wabasto heater for the boat. This new heater will be total overkill for our purposes and is a bit pricey… But at this point a bit of overkill on heat for the coming winter is a good thing

Aside from the mess and general disorganized nature we’re living in, Jeannie and I are happy. We have our own space!

So Pathfinder made its final journey for the year from Toronto Island Marina to Pier 4 this year. Naturally since this is one of my stories things didn’t exactly go as planned as you can see by the map below of approximately where we went.

View From TIM to Pier 4 in a larger map

First was the break out from TIM that was a bit fun but not overly scary. As some of you know we were hard aground. Thinking back on it we may have been as much as 18 inches into the mud at times so a good portion of our propeller was buried… Mind you with a 40 inch prop that really amounted to a hill of beans really.

We cast off the lines… no movement.
Dad started the engine at low… no movement.
We throttled up higher… no movement.
We maxed it out… It slowly pulled itself backwards into the deeper waters of the middle of the marina. Marginally deeper that is. We were still dragging bottom but only a bit. We had a piling post put in for us for next years dockage which was in our way for turning out (our ship has a huge turning radius) so some of the TIM dock hands help push us around so we could get out easier and then we were off to brave the Deep Channel pass.

“Why ‘brave’ Josh? It’s a deep channel! No problems there right?”

Yaaaa. About that. It’s deep in places but that channel has had freak sand bars pop up with the crazy weather systems pushing the water around. Regardless though we did get out without hitting bottom and kept a decent amount of space beneath us most of the way. Part of the issue is that we don’t have a working depth sounder so we never really know how much water is beneath us at any given point so it’s all done by eye balling the depth (correction: we HAVE a depth sounder… it just doesn’t work well if it works at all). Once we got to the buoys outside of the channel we were in the deep water of the Toronto Harbour area.

There I called up Pier 4 to ask if we had permission to slide right on in since I knew that there was 1 guy that “needed” to get in before us. A bit of back story on that and why we didn’t go into the slip on Friday like we had originally planned because the other vessel needed the space around us to get into his slip for winter (the channel into the marina is just shy of 30 feet across and Pathfinder is a whole 18 feet wide so it makes it a bit tight for anyone to maneuver). That timing worked out well for us anyways so we had no issues. We decided to try maybe for Saturday then… The guy had to reschedule his entry date again due to engine problems. So we said we’d be in early Monday morning… Annnnnnnnnnd so did he. But that he’d be at latest noon… Mind you we got a lot of work done Saturday and Sunday so having a Monday departure was ok. Just the time was getting late especially with me having to work on Monday as well. We call up Pier 4 and the other vessel still isn’t there because he’s getting a pump out across at RCYC. So we end up taking a toddle around the harbour area completing 1 loop.

During this Pier 4 calls again and informs me that they’re STILL not there and that it may be a bit later. So we decided to do yet another loop of the harbour as you can see. At one point we thought we saw the other vessel and did a bit of zig zagging to let him get in front of us so we could just follow him right on in. But when he got closer to Pier 4 he veered to the west and headed for the western gap. Just then Pier 4 called again and said he wasn’t there yet so I called to Dad at helm that we couldn’t come in yet, but Pier 4 interrupted and said to just come in now since it was after noon anyways and the other boat would just have to shuffle in around us. So with some maneuvering we slid right on into our new home at Pier 4 on the western wall just passed the white draw bridge.

Thanks to all that helped out with the journey!
Mom, Dad, my number one gal (you know who you are), Skipper Cheryl, and Mitch!