July 29, 2008: Hurst Marina, Manotick, Ontario

Well two days later we are still at Hurst Marina. We are really so fortunate to have found such an excellent Meridian dealership. Today we asked that they double check the location of our special order of navy blue gelcoat, the liquid color that they use to paint the fiberglass. Unfortunately, DHL admitted that the package that was ordered last Thursday overnight is still in Washington, DC. Ummmm... We have a long way to go before September 1^st when we need to be in Lake Michigan for weather reasons. So we are opting for an alternative coloring. Interesting enough, Peter Hurst, the owner of the marina came by to meet us today... I guess when you are in the marina for over a week you get a visit. Peter was very articulate and told us about starting out with a Yamaha motorcycle dealership and how it migrated into a Meridian and Sea Ray premier maintenance marina. He had been to New Bern before with a customer to visit the Hatteras plant so he complimented the local bakery downtown and asked to verify that Pepsi actually originated there. We assured him that it was true. He also told us that he had seen The Next Thirty Years when we were docked in Ottawa. He remembered because he had never seen a Meridian with a blue hull before, so we are notorious!

Anyway it was a very slow day. I actually worked all day and Tom played with the Cummings repairman discussing the fact that we apparently have water in our diesel fuel. Unfortunately, the plastic tub where we stored extra fuel filters we had brought with us for this possibility was cracked and the filters were wet... oh well...

So we decided to brighten up our day we would take the dinghy back to Kelly’s Landing where we ate last week to have a nice dinner on the patio. We motored up to the finger docks and waited until the packed porch freed a table. It was funny to be eating at an establishment that sold snow shovels upstairs. We decided to try something different for dinner and ordered a wonderful dish called a boxty, a potato batter crepe with seafood stuffing in a light cream sauce, at a table overlooking the water.

It was beginning to get dark as we headed back to the marina. Tom cranked up and we headed out as the evening cooled and the sun made the water pick. Suddenly a short way up the Rideau, the whirr of the engine stopped. Unfortunately, there was also smoke, but fortunately we were not up the creek without a paddle! So Tom got out the oars and we proceeded up the canal against the current. Tom and I joked that the main problem with our predicament was that we could not go fast enough to avoid the mosquitoes. After a while we saw a pontoon boat approaching and flagged them down. They immediately placed our voices as not the local crowd. They asked if we had friends on the Rideau and when we answered that we did not, they assured us that we did. The McNally’s lived on the Rideau on River Road and very graciously towed us past their house 20 minutes on to Hurst marina. They were really good Samaritans as it was really getting quite black dark by then and we had no lights on the dinghy. We thanked them profusely and they suggested that if we were still in town tomorrow night that we come for dinner. There are really good people everywhere.