Port Credit Anchor

Entry 53:

Tuesday, June 4th and Wednesday, June 5th:  Today, after too many decades I was going to sail by Toronto, my place of birth.  Due to the historically high water levels, marinas were closed so I wasn’t going to be able to walk the streets but I will get to see her skyline from the water.  The seas were flat, air again brisk (I could see my breath), the skies overcast and the threat of rain and growing winds.  That’s OK, I was going to see my home – can’t wait.

As I passed by my place of birth, the light winds shifted 180 degrees.  Now from the west at 12+ knots the waves continued coming from behind but had grown to 5 foot swells from the east!  I was in the midst of a vortex with two sets of winds – one from the east and the other from the west!

As I was leaving the Toronto skyline continuing west I counted at least eight cranes on top of high rises being built.  I don’t think a single one of them was lower than the RenCen.

I reached Port Credit around 7 pm with the west winds building and the threat of thunderstorms.  I had travelled 42 miles today and I was too exhausted to eat.  I anchored and fell asleep immediately only to suddenly awake.  Something was not right.  I jumped up, quickly looked outside and found my anchor did not hold in the wind and I was about to collide into some very expensive yachts.  I started the engine, pulled up anchor and set off missing one yacht by about 5 feet!  Hearing my dependable diesel, the skipper of the yacht ran out of his cabin and hollered a few shouts of expletives.  I didn’t quite get what he said as I was busy but assumed they were expressions of joy that we didn’t contact.  I waved back to him and secured anchor behind a bluff to protect me from the wind.  After about an hour of constantly checking to ensure my anchor was holding, I again fell into a deep sleep.

Heavy rain and storms prevailed throughout the night and into the next day.  I remained anchored the next day as the rain was so heavy, I was unable to see the yachts in the marina only a couple hundred years away.

I spent the day swabbing the cockpit in the rain, securing my ditch bag w/floaters to the cockpit rails and miscellaneous maintenance items both inside and outside.