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Another MacRay Yacht
Club trip of 2007 that we took was to The Cove Marina, Ontario
Canada, located in the southeastern corner of Lake St. Clair. This
was our second time here, the first being back in October of 2004.
The featured activity
for this trip was a 'Casino Night', and we had eighteen boats make
the weekend cruise.
The weather was great,
and besides the Casino activity we went swimming in the pool, took a
couple nice dinghy rides, and had a nice dinner at the local restaurant.
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On
the Way ...
We got underway on Friday, leaving our dock at MacRay Harbor a little
after 1:00 in the afternoon. Travelling with us for the 29
mile journey across Lake St. Clair were two of our neighbors
who also dock on Seabreeze. Mark and Chris from SeaRenity a
SeaRay 290, and Martin and Michelle and family from Irish Way,
a Mainship 32.
We headed out the channel
with us in the lead and a blimp over head. This was Jobbie
Nooner day (an infamous gathering at Gull Island) and there
were going to be a lot of boats on the water today.
We were running at 27mph most
of the way, and crossed the Shipping Channel at 1:35, and
continued southeast. Not very much boat traffic out today. It
was a nice day to cruise, very sunny and the Lake was fairly
flat. As we got closer to shore, we came across numerous
fishing boats.
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Runnin'
with Irish Way and SeaRenity on the way to the Cove. |
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Arriving
At 2:15 we entered the channel at
the Thames River, marking the entrance to the Cove. It is marked by
a small lighthouse, and the first marina on the starboard side is
Radlin's (which just sold, and is now named Smugglers Marina and
Roadhouse).
We docked at 2:30 along the wall.
We were surprised to find that we were the first boats here! We
hooked up electric and water and then set up our canopy tent as
well.
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| At
the Dock |
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We had several canopies set up for
the club. An excellent place to get in the shade and enjoy docktails. |
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Under the tents was also the site
of a great breakfast, featuring Captain Morgan pancakes! |
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Casino
Night ! |
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| The featured
activity of the weekend was Casino Night! Held in the marina
shelter facility, it was nicely set up with tables, dealers
for games of chance. We all got $1,000 in fake money to gamble
the evening away with.
Gina lost all hers, and Tim
ended up with $6,900 at the end, but it still wasn't enough to
place in the top players. Anyway, it was a fun time, and we
ended up winning some Corona glasses.
After the gambling we stopped
in the Marina garage for a bit where they had a DJ spinning
some tunes. Afterwards we ended up at the bonfire until late. |
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| Dinghy
Rides |
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We
took a few dinghy rider down the Thames River over the weekend. One
trip we took with four of us and explored some of the canals off the
river. One area looked like a 'ghost town' with old shacks and
outhouses, and marinas that didn't look like they were being used
too much
It was fun checking all this out.
On another ride with just the two
of us we went quite a ways, and experimented with ways to get the
dinghy on plane better and to go faster. We had the handheld GPS
with us and were able to max out at 20.8 mph on a couple of
occasions.
One of the exhilarating times was
when we sped up to 20mph and made a U-turn on the river (which isn't
that wide). We came back over our own wake with a large bounce. Wow!
We watched some turtles on the logs
near shore and went down the river a few miles before heading back
to the marina. You can travel quite a distance down the river if you
want.
See
a short video
of our dinghy ride.
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| Saturday
Night Dinner
The group went for dinner at the
on-site restaurant 'Spooters'. There was a Harley Motorcycle Club in
attendance, so there was some really nice bikes parked outside.
After dinner, we walked across the street for ice cream. |
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| A nice set up at
the Cove is their fire pits. Plenty of wood to last the night.
Everyone gathered until late at night, unwinding from a full
day of "doing what boaters do".
By noon on Sunday most of the
boats had left before we shoved off a short while later. We
made it back to MacRay Harbor in an hour or so, where we
anchored out front. We tied up with a few other boats, and
several of our friends came out by dinghy to stop by for a
while. Finally at &:30 we pulled into the dock before
heading out to dinner. A very nice weekend cruise! |
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