August 3 – Friday
It promised to be another very hot day with thunderstorms and high winds added to the forecast – we stayed at Light House Point. It would be our “make & mend day” as the British sailors would say, centuries ago. I, cleaned up the fenders and with help from Polly, we gave FLIGHT a good soapy bath. Polly did some selective laundry, as well. The air conditioning was running full tilt on the boat, and we decided to take a walk to the little town of Rouses Point where we found a Dollar General store. We laid in few supplies (costing way more than a dollar)and headed back to the marina. Other than the liquor store, where I (RCB) finally found a bottle of bloody Mary mix, we didn’t find much else of interest in the town.
New Found friends: When we got back to the marina I bumped into a fellow trawler owner who has a GB 36 woodie built in the ‘70s. I had chatted with Jeff the day before so we talked some more about boats and later that evening he and his wife Kass came aboard FLIGHT for drinks. While they now live near Toronto, they are natives of Newfoundland and had lived for 8 or 9 years in one of the Pacific island areas where Jeff taught electronics in a technical school. The conversation was easy amongst the four of us, and like many from our generation, had started with tent camping in a VW bug and hand-me-down furniture in our first apartment etc. Kass entertained us with stories from her childhood growing up on Newfoundland, where she described her house by saying “several steps past the front door and the next stop was England”. As a child she would jump from ice chunk to ice chunk playing in the spring when the ice pack would be breaking up. Jeff bought the Grand Banks 36 just this spring and intends to take her back to Newfoundland in 5 years when he has her in the right shape. I told him to count me in if he is looking for crew. I can’t imagine what the shore side comments would be when this old wooden boat shows up with a pair of geezers aboard and asking where we can get rid of all the empty beer cans. We exchanged contact info and now add these Newfoundlanders to our growing collection of Canadian friends.
Our supper was a combination of Polly’s leftover pasta from the not-great place in Chambly and the chicken breasts I (RCB) had over cooked on the grille that afternoon.