Split Crow

We went to the car show yesterday in Brudenell yesterday. It was very interesting with many, many beautiful cars. As compared to last year’s show, there were a lot more cars because there was no hurricane coming our way. Much better attended! Of course, with all the cars to look at, Dennis made a beeline for the only boat, so I had to take his picture!

After the car show, we went to Souris to the Village Feast. We went with Kim and John Laing who also have a boat in Souris. Kim and I lost a number of euchre games last year to John and Dennis while we were there last year, so we are hoping to get a few more games in this summer.

The Village Feast  “is a non-profit children’s charity based in Souris, Prince Edward Island. It supports local and global initiatives whose goals are to improve the lives of children in our world. Some of the beneficiaries are Farmers helping Farmers which builds school cookhouses in Kenya, Africa, on behalf of Village Feast, the Souris Food Bank, Coats for Kids, and Main Street Family Resource Centre’s Young Mothers cooking classes.”

Michael Smith, the famous chef who lives in PEI, does a lot of volunteer work for the Feast and he also initiated eleven honourary islanders on the stage. Those poor people had to dress up in an “Anne” hat, wear a potato bag, peel a potato, drink moonshine and cordial, shuck an oyster, take the rubber bands off of a lobster and apologize to their fellow inductee on the stage. For this, they each paid $100 that went to the Souris food bank. It was good fun watching them!

When we got back to the boat, we were just relaxing when we heard a series of bangs. It was exactly 10 pm and when we looked out, there were fireworks going off on the commercial dock. We assumed the fireworks were done by the Maritime Fire Chiefs as they were having a conference in Summerside.

That’s about all the news for now. The tilers are working on the bathrooms and William is working on the baseboards. Wilfred the plumber will be here tomorrow to install the baseboard heaters.

We are still living on the boat at the marina in Summerside and now that the weather has warmed up, it is much better. I did buy a set of fleece sheets and they have made a big difference. I think I will keep them on all summer while we’re on the boat. Cotton just seems to absorb all the moisture whereas these fleece sheets do not. Now, they are shedding quite a bit even though I washed and dried them on extra hot, so maybe a few more washes might do the trick. I would recommend them, so here is the link.

We spent Canada Day here in Summerside and it was quite nice. There were activities for the kids down at the Green Shores Park which is about a kilometre away if you walk on the boardwalk. There were quite a few bouncy castles and I wondered if they were tied down enough due to the continual winds here on the island, but nothing went wrong, so I guess they were fine.

The fireworks were really good, especially because we just sat out on our deck. There were all sorts of people on the boardwalk and the dock and everyone looked like they were having fun. Allan, from the computer store next door kept us well entertained with his nine grandchildren. They all seemed to have to use the washroom and none at the same time, so he spent most of the night walking back and forth with a different child in tow every few minutes. It was pretty funny!

The house is progressing well and William has the windows all done as well as most of the trim. Next week will be a big week as Chris will be working on tiling the floors and the kitchen is coming on Wednesday. Most of the lights were installed on Thursday and they look really nice.

William thought it might be an idea to put a mantle on the fireplace so here is a picture of the fireplace without a mantle and with a makeshift one (ignore the ladders and envision just the mantle). If you have an opinion, please make a comment! We’re not sure yet what we like better. Here’s the pic:

Other than that, we went for a bike ride today to Kensington. We stopped at all the antique stores along the way. There is so much stuff! I really like the antique wooden crates so I might get one later on. It is a good idea to ride your bike though while shopping for antiques because you can’t carry much. Here are some pictures of last night’s sunset and our bike ride.

That’s about all the news for today.

We managed to get to Summerside this afternoon with very little effort. There wasn’t much wind so we motored the entire way except for a 15 minute stretch when Dennis pulled out the sail. Soon after, the wind puttered out. Nothing much happened on the way down. Once we left the Charlottetown area, we didn’t see anymore lobster pots, so the only thing to contend with was the bridge and it was easy to go under.

The big excitement though occurred last night. Someone was filming a tv series at the marina. It is called Just Passing Through and they were filming an episode for the second season. Here are a couple of pics.

Other than that, not much else is new. As I said, we made it safely back to Summerside. The house is progressing well and I will be writing about that soon as we won’t be traveling anywhere for the next while. Here is a picture of us going under the bridge.

This is a picture of the harbour from our new home. The sailboats are out racing tonight.

That’s all the news for today!

The “shakedown” cruise of 2015 actually went fairly well. Compared to most years, this one was quite low key. I remember last year when we left Souris and rounded the corner at Cape Bear, everything went crazy – lots of wind from several directions and big waves. This year was much better.

We intended to leave at 5:00 but by the time we got organized and the fog has dissipated, it was 6:30. We left in the rain but there was very little wind. That was good because we had to keep our eyes peeled the entire day! We were on the lookout for lobster traps and knew that if one wrapped around the prop, it would be very bad news. We managed to miss them all but our track was probably not a very impressive straight line. At one point, when Dennis was having a nap and I was in charge, I spotted a whole bunch of lobster pot markers and veered off course. The markers suddenly flew up into sky. Humph!

The weather was a typical Maritime day – rain, fog, wind, sun, more rain and then more sun. Most of our time on the water today was rainy but it did clear up at around 1:00 and became a beautiful day.

The highlight of the day was when a little porpoise came alongside the boat and started swimming beside us. He then went in front of the boat and swam right in front of the bow for a good five minutes. It was really interesting to watch him dive and come right back up in front of the boat.

Once we arrived at Wood Islands, we immediately went over to Crabby’s and learned that it was NOT open and that it had changed hands. The new owners will open up in July so we will see if they were able to get the lobster roll recipe from Crabby as it was awesome!

Not much else happened today. All is good – we will be heading to Summerside tomorrow but it will be a long day on the water. North wind so it should be good for sailing. We will have to keep our eye on the lobster pots again.

Here is an older post of the 2012 Shakedown Cruise.