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August 18 e-mail:
Hi Everyone!

We?in Ontario now and having a fine time on the Trent-Severn Waterway. After peaceful cruising on the rivers of New York and Ontario, we?have a difficult time transitioning back to open waters and tides. The waters are so calm I can balance a stack of sandwiches and tall glasses of ice tea on a tray and make my way up three sets of ladder/steps from the galley to the flying bridge without spilling a drop. Try that on the Chesapeake Bay! We?able to let the dogs out on the bow while we?locking through with little fear of them getting knocked overboard. With forty-three locks under their collars, they?becoming real canal dogs.

The Trent-Severn Waterway has some interesting locks. We be going to be going through an engineering marvel this week, the Petersborough Hydraulic Lift Lock. Next week we?be locking through Big Chute where our boat will be placed on straps and lowered 57?a a railway lift. Here? link to the Trent-Severn Waterway:

http://parkscanada.pch.gc.ca/parks/ontario/trent-sev-waterway/trent-sev-waterway_e.htm

We?be finishing Trent-Severn and cruising Georgian Bay and North Channel during this next 30 days. Our rush to beat the weather on Lake Michigan is ever present, and we spent only one day in Thousand Islands. One day in Kingston, Ontario just wasn?nough, either, and my list of places to return to is growing steadily.

We?updated our web page: http://members.fortunecity.com/lesoine/lesoines/

Cruising life has certainly not lost its wonder, and we?still having a great time!

Camille
Ray, and Taylor
Aboard "We 3"
(757) 620-2947
http://members.fortunecity.com/lesoine/lesoines/

"Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain

July 22 "e-mail"
Hello Everyone!
It's been almost three weeks since we began our journey, but we've just begun to sample the rich diversity of our country's coastal landscapes. We've watched crabbers unload bushel after bushel of writhing crabs in Tangier Island, enjoyed the serenity of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, slept at the foot of Barnegat Lighthouse in New Jersey, and gazed at the splendor of Lady Liberty against a Manhattan backdrop. Our seamanship has improved by default. Ray has nursed our boat through a churning channel with an ailing rudder, and I have gotten pretty good at hauling anchors and handling lines.
We've gotten a LOT more casual than "Casual Friday." T-shirts and gym shorts are the order of the day in 100 degree heat, and Ray and I have expanded our limits to what we consider acceptable levels of cleanliness. Access to freshly laundered shirts is more easily accomplished in the comfort of your laundry room at home; from the boat it is an ordeal. We lower laundry baskets down the ladder to the swim platform, transfer them into a gyrating dinghy, motor over to the dock, haul them across a 600 foot pier, and trudge four city blocks to the nearest laundry. Perhaps we can put it off a few more days...
We love anchoring out, but conservation of water and electricity becomes critical. I am really glad we made the conversion from house to boat last year in the relative comfort of a marina where the boat is plugged into marina water, electricity, and even cable. I've had the opportunity to adjust to life "on the hook" gradually. We have enough water capacity to last six days, and we run the generator twice a day to charge the batteries for refrigeration, lights, electric toilet, and toys (TVs, CD player, coffee maker, and microwave.) Our electric stove uses much too much current, so I've been cooking on a camp stove up on the sundeck. Every burning light bulb becomes an issue.
As we were strolling the streets of New York yesterday, we talked about the choices people make in their lifestyles. It would be a huge adjustment to move to Manhattan where people hike to the grocery, walk their dogs on sidewalks without a blade of grass, tip the bellmen at their apartments, and get around town without benefit of a car. It takes an adjustment in lifestyle to live here, but New York's residents reap the city's benefits in return.
It's the same sort of adjustment in lifestyle with the boat--you sacrifice some things in order to enjoy the benefits. Yes, the boat jerking against 2 MPH currents woke me up at 4:00 AM this morning, but I got to watch the sun rise over a Manhattan skyline. It's miserable in the heat with no air conditioning, but there is an unbelievable sense of freedom when you are cruising across the Bay with dolphins skimming the surface around your boat. It's irritating when the refrigerator is empty and the nearest grocery a half-mile away turns out to be a deli. But our dining room has an ever-changing vista with the best view in town.
We found a Manhattan marina that offers mooring balls for $15 a night. Only the Union Mission could offer a better rate here in New York. So we'll stay here for a few days and then continue our journey up the Hudson to the Erie Canal. Perhaps to a marina with a Laundromat.
Camille
Ray, and Taylor
Aboard "We 3"
(757) 620-2947
(757) 620-2927
"Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain