Day 70 Saturday, August 31, 2013

Day  70 Saturday,  August 31, 2013

Alicia and Alex head to shore after a nasty night

Well off goes sicky.  After a horrible night at anchor, probably the worst we have ever had, Alicia and Alex head off to catch our lines at Scudder’s marina, where we will get a slip for the night to ensure a good nights sleep.  The winds are still high so we are not looking forward to getting into the 30 foot slip they have assigned us for a 40 foot boat.

Heading of on our bike ride

Stone Man

We do manage to get into the marina uneventfully as behind the breakwall it is more calm.  It is now about 8:30 so Alicia and Alex cook up some eggcellent omelets.  As soon as Alicia got to shore she felt much better.  The boat is quite still in the marina so no issues.  We have some showers at the facilities and plan our day.  We decide to circumnavigate the island on bikes.  The bike rental company will deliver the bikes by 11:00 so we are good to go.  We decide to head in a counter clockwise direction with the main destination being Pelee winery and anything else interesting along the way.  First stop of course is a yard sale and Julie acquires a new basket to put nighttime paraphernalia in.  Next stop is a Stone Man advertising a local company.  Then ice cream, then the ferry docks, and then the winery where we go check out a folding bike for sale, however it is steel frame and we want 2 aluminum rame folding bikes.   Back to the winery where we have a picnic lunch awaiting our 2:00 tour. 

Pelee Winery, Dawson, Alex, Alicia and Julie

The tour is excellent and more on the history and agricultural side of wine making vs. the typical post harvest tours we have had in the past.  It is only $5 for the tour which also includes a 13 minute video which most of us napped through due to our lack of sleep and then on to the tasting of which there were 5 wines.  What was interesting was the wines we liked the least were the grapes we liked the most.  We had been able to pick from the grape vines as they are just about ready for harvest.  All the wine is actually made on the mainland except for the ice wine.  After the wine tasting we got to keep our white wine glasses that said “Pelee Island” on them so a great souvenir.  Ater the tour we sat on the patio and listened to some of the live music being played.

Fish Point

By now it is about 4:00 so we must keep moving.  We decide to continue along the coast and go to Fish point which is a spit that reaches far out south of the island.  This hike was about 1,5 kilometers of which half of that was the sandy spit where there were thousands of gulls.  We get back to our bikes and realize we must keep moving as they are picking the bikes up at 7:00 p.m. at the marina, and we still are only about halfway around the island.   We are getting thirsty and assume there will be some sort of convenience store on the east shore to grab something cold.  The roadway is nice, partly on the shoreline, partly inland a bit, and a split between paved and hard packed dirt so easy biking.  Luckily the bikes had big sieats to distribute the pressure as we are starting to get sore and tired.  We keep biking but nowhere to get a drink.  It is finally 6:45 p.m. when we pull into the marina exhausted.  Now we can have a cold drink.  When we get on the boat we have been left a note by the neighbour as we had plugged into the electrical system he had been using when he took his boat out.  Our slip had no power supplied.  Unfortunately we got back later than we thought as we had planned to unhook it prior to his return.  Oh well!

Tip of Fish point with Pelee Is in background

All of us are exhausted so after a dinner of pizza (delivered), Dawson and Julie crush Alicia and Alex at 3 games of sequence, and we are off to bed for a good nights sleep.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson