I had promised the details of the race/photo finish and have been delinquent. But, here is the rest of the story.

We had only six vessels sign up for the Third Annual “Round the Island” Race this year, held on Sept 1st, and three of those were from the Lodge. Stormy Night, The Lodge charter vessel, captained by Dave McAlister and Eileen Quinn, was entered and had a family of non-sailors aboard. Jennifer East’s Shark, Via Vai was ably steered by her mom, Annabelle, with Jennifer tweeking the lines. Our Fandango was steered by Capt’n Murray, with Gray Babiuk running the winches and myself as moveable ballast.

The rest of the fleet was made up of a Nonsuch 33, a Jeanneau 32 and a Tanzer 26. The winds were probably about 8 to 10 knots and it was a perfect day for a race.

We got off to a great start- first boat over the line. We held onto the lead for approx half of the first leg, when the larger, heavier boats started to overtake us. There was a little skirmish with the Nonsuch and we managed to hold him off for a while, but eventually he got ahead of us. Then the Jeanneau sneaked by. We were in third and stayed there all along the second side of George Island and up alongside Sheep Island. We had planned to sneak through the shallow, rocky middle ground to shorten the course for our little boat but both of the vessels ahead did the same, with the Jeanneau just off of our bow. We rounded the top of Sheep Island and had a beat to the finish. The wind was changing directions and we tacked into each shift, inching past the Jeanneau. Then Murray noticed that the Nonsuch had made a tactical error and gotten way to the west of the course. Things became quite quiet and serious aboard as we tacked, tacked always coming closer to the Nonsuch and the finish line. One of our tacks took us so close that we ducked under the davits of the Nonsuch. But, as I said previously, we crossed the finish line 2 seconds ahead of him and just less than 2 minutes ahead of the Jeanneau! The smallest boat in the race! Yeah!!

The barbeque and prize presentation followed the race and everyone seemed to have a great time. A grand total of $481 was raised for the Killarney Health Centre Building Fund.

That excitement had just died down and Gary had headed back to Winnipeg, when Steve arrive for a brief visit. He had his friend Katherine, from Vancouver, with him and we spent a lovely evening with the two of them. As they were off to Ottawa to see Jeremy and his family, I took the opportunity to catch a ride to visit with my newest granddaughter, just one week old. Samantha is a sweetheart. She is a very patient baby and waits, without yelling, until she is changed and her bottle is warmed. I tried to take some of the load off of Jeremy & Cynthia while I was there, to allow them to catch up some much needed sleep. I think we all remember those first months with a new baby and the constant feeling of exhaustion. Jeremy had taken some holidays and did the majority of Samantha’s care while Cynthia recovered from the C-section. All too soon, my brief visit was over and I caught the bus to Sudbury on Sunday.

Now, I am working in the bar and in the office while Murray freezes in the Boat House. Today, we have our first day off together since we arrived in early June! Nice to snuggle in this morning, have a late breakfast an do some jobs around the cabin. Just two more weeks and we start to head south – as far as southern Ontario, that is.

We plan to be in Ontario for approx a month and hope to connect with all of you. Hugs,

Heather & Murray