More Time on the Lake for Wild Horses

Ah, September.

The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler.  For Wild Horses, it also means that the end of the season is just around the corner.  Every other year, we would have already made the 10-hour trip back to Iroquois Marine Services, hauled the boat out of the water and called the end to our season.  Labour Day weekend was our marker.  Not only are the water levels dropping (making the Iroquois “cut through” more and more difficult) but every other year our work in Ottawa would be in full swing and taking time off for the boat would be almost impossible. 
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But this September is different.  We are delightfully retired so there is no natural pull for us to be anywhere but on the water 😊.  Aboard Wild Horses, we are enjoying the fresh mornings that are made even more picturesque with light fog and changing leaves.  Although we are looking forward to our winter home in Trenton and spending more time with my wonderful parents, we are still loving our boat life and want to keep it going as long as possible.  

A foggy morning for Wild Horses

Ocean walking along Big Sandy Bay beach - beautiful anchorage!

An overhead view of the Navy Islands

Fog engulfs the boats at Trident Yacht Club

Still, those Iroquois water levels don’t care.  The more they drop, the more stressful the Iroquois cut through will be.

So as the calendar turned over to September, we decided to make a change. We will be storing Wild Horses at a new marina this winter.  We wanted a place where water levels weren’t an issue and we wanted to be closer to Trenton, to lessen our off season drive to the boat.  Truly, we hadn’t completely loved the 2-hour car drive from Trenton to Iroquois every day as we commissioned Wild Horses in the Spring and the thought of repeating the experience for her fall decommissioning wasn’t leaving us feeling warm and fuzzy.

Don’t get me wrong – this wasn’t a novel, end-of-the-season idea.  We had searched for marinas early on in the season but none had ticked all of our boxes.  The marina needed to be closer to Trenton, fit our pocketbook AND have storage space for our boat (not every place can fit a 47-foot sailboat with its mast up).

Luckily, a new winter storage marina fell into our laps, thanks to a tip from a fellow sailor.

Wild Horses will now have Bath, Ontario as her winter home, which means that it is only about 45 minutes by car from Trenton for decommissioning.  

Loading the steel cradle for Wild Horses for its 1.5 hour drive to Bath

A folded cradle successfully moved from Iroquois to Bath, compliments of my nephew Henry

​And when we are ready to make that final trip and put a lid on the sailing season?  We will have a lovely 2 ½ hour sail from Trident Yacht Club, past picturesque downtown Kingston, and with no worries about water levels.  Instead of planning to haul out Wild Horses mid-September, we are now looking at Thanksgiving. 😊

A view of the Kingston waterfront from the cockpit of Wild Horses

Until then, we will continue to enjoy the fall season aboard Wild Horses.  The hatches stay closed most of the time and the heater gets turned on as the overnight low drops to single digits.  Most meals are now done in the oven rather than the BBQ, which warms the boat up while it also warms our tummies.  Plus, our heavier comforter now has a permanent spot on our bed and we have traded our sandals for socks and boat shoes.
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To say we are cozy aboard Wild Horses is and understatement.  And the view from the cockpit never disappoints!

A view of an old depleted dock in the Bateau Channel at Trident Yacht Club

A beautiful fall morning on Wild Horses