Wild Horses is all bandaged up and ready for re-launch

We just received the good news yesterday that our failed seacock has now been removed and a beautiful new one is installed.  Yes!  A big shout out to our fantastic boat mechanic, Roger, who not only prioritized our boat fix in amongst his very busy schedule (he literally had to squeeze us in by working late into the evening after he had finished a full day’s work on other boats).  Thank you Roger!

The true test of the new seacock, of course, will only be when Wild Horses is placed back in the water.  We won’t have long to wait on this test – the re-launch of Wild Horses is set for Monday afternoon (June 29)!
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Our sail plan for this launch is pretty straight forward.  We will spend Monday night at dock in Iroquois Marine Services and then throw off the dock lines just before breakfast on the Tuesday morning, for what should be a full week at various anchorages through the Thousand Islands before finally docking in our boat slip at Trident Yacht Club.  

An aerial view of some of the islands in Kingston's Thousand Islands

A pic of Wild Horses at Trident (pic from 2019)

​The interesting part about departing from Iroquois is that it starts with the most harrowing part of the trip, a.k.a. “the cut through”.  Immediately after leaving dock, we enter the cut through by making an acute turn to starboard and then slowly work our way through the narrow channel that will take us to the St. Lawrence Seaway, on our way to the Thousand Islands near Kingston. 
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What makes the channel unnerving is a combination of underwater geography, boat size and a lack of navigation aids.  The channel is VERY narrow with VERY rocky shorelines and riverbed.  It is 7 feet at its deepest.  Our boat is VERY beamy (i.e. wide) and its keel is 5’6”.  Add these elements together and you can already see trouble.  To up the level of difficulty, there are only 2 buoys to guide us through the approx. half a kilometre long channel, both are at the beginning.  Once we pass the second buoy, we navigate using local knowledge (stay 35 ft off the starboard bank) and our eyes.  During this extravaganza, Mike helms the boat and I am firmly planted at the bow of Wild Horses, eyes peeled to the water, looking for any semblance of the rocky underwater shelving that makes up the shorelines of the channel.

This is just to give an idea of the kind of rocky shoreline that exists in the channel. Note that this is not the actual channel!!

The water chart for the channel

​The good news is that once through the channel, navigation along the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Thousand Islands is easy and entertaining.  Until Brockville, the view is much like being on the 401.  Not much to see or do.  But once we get to Brockville, we are treated to a vista of islands, cottages, million-dollar homes and even a castle (Singer Castle).  And we have lots of anchorages to choose from!