Today is the day we bring Foggy back home to Cobourg Marina! Weather forecast was good, warm, sunny and a little bit of wind from the South moving to the East in late afternoon. 

Distance: 25 nautical miles
Total time: 5 hours 15 mins
Time sailing:  3 hours 30 mins (3 - 4.7 knots)
Time motoring: 1 hour 45 mins (6 knots)
Weather: Sunny with clouds, light SW wind

Stayed overnight and got up early to start prepping the boat. She was looking pretty bare with no sails or canvas.

It took us most of the morning to prep the boat.

  • Refill water tanks
  • Re-attach wires from mast
  • Install chartplotter and instruments on binnacle
  • Replace anchor, chain and rode in bow locker
  • Attach mast and boom vang
  • Run lines under deck cover
  • Check and tension shrouds, forestay and backstay
  • Bend the sails (raise and furl genoa, raise and fold the main sail)
  • Setup lazy jack lines
  • Inflate and secure dinghy to davits
  • Run and check the engine

We finally left Wiggers at 1:30pm. Weather was sunny, mostly clear with a few cloudy spots to the North and East. Wind was light coming from South West.

We are always nervous in this channel. You need to stay close to the rock wall on the East side. Depth varied between seven and six feet. Just take it nice and slow. The bottom is soft mucky stuff so even if you do drag a bit it won’t hurt.

The moment we got past the rock walls we unfurled the genoa, raised the main and shut off the engine. We knew were weren’t going to be going that fast, but we didn’t care. Even felt bad for the sailboat motoring ahead of us, probably doing a noisy 7 knots while we silently slipped through the water at 4 knots.

Engaged the autopilot and sat back and enjoyed the sail for about an hour and then started doing a bit of work on the boat. This is, without a doubt, our happy place! So nice to be on the water again.

We only saw a total of five boats, all from a distance during the trip and only touched the autopilot bearing once to point toward Cobourg after giving us enough space out from shore. I like to go out a bit farther than most to avoid traffic and look for better wind.

Water was clear and cold, varying between 10 and 14 degrees Celsius. Couldn’t resist the urge to sit on the sugar scoop and let our feet dangle for a few minutes. Tried to imagine it as tropical water, but the pain from the cold cramping up our feet brought us back to reality.

About 10 nautical miles away from Cobourg the wind suddenly dropped and the water turned to glass.

Please ignore the gross deck, we decided to not clean the deck at all this year since it always gets dirty while the crew steps the mast. That is one of the last chores we did on the boat during this trip. It’s quick work with buckets of water and scrub brushes.

We bobbed for a bit, up ahead the water was rough, so we decided to wait for the wind to pick up. But it never did. Started up the engine and motored the rest of the way.

Around 6:45pm we were entering Cobourg harbour. The white lighthouse at the entrance is perfect for locating Cobourg. You can easily see the white triangle along the shoreline from miles away.

We called Cobourg earlier and they informed us that they are distancing boaters by having only one boat per finger. We were given the same slip as last year and have the same dark blue steel sailboat next to us but the lovely wooden sailboat on the other side has moved somewhere else.

Also noticed a few other new changes at Cobourg. New metal spring loaded gates with signage.

The power has been relocated, again. And this time I think they should be good for the varying levels of water we’ve seen on Lake Ontario!

New safety gear, ladders painted yellow and spaced around marina wall.

The marina was closed, and we didn’t have time to explore. But we like what we see so far at Cobourg, well done!

Packed up and ready to go home at 7:30pm. Look, the deck is much better now! Drove back to Bowmanville to pick up the car we left there and went home. Can’t wait to get back to Foggy!

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