Prepping for the passage to Canso Canal

The Summerside Yacht Club is a very nice port of call. Summerside has most of the modern services that one may want. Maybe my comfort with the place is tainted by my pleasure to be back in the Maritimes again.

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There has been lovely areas which this passage has had me travelling through; yet the journey has been long and it will be nice to be back in Halifax with my Daughter and Son-In-Common-Law again.

Yesterday when on a walk to the local Canadian Tire store, a house which was for sale happened to catch my eye. It is a lovely old home which, likely, dates back to the 1800s. It has legal permits to be used as a four room B&B with a two bedroom apartment with its own entrance and civic address in another part of the building.

My thought was that it would make a great income property situated conveniently nearby the lovely Summerside Yacht Club.

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The asking price is $399,000. With my warm and fuzzy feelings about Summerside oozing through the THC chocolate edible buzz it seemed sensible to send some pics of the place to my Daughter to see what they think about it. Their silence to my texts said volumes. Even contemplating such a thing was breaking our agreed new property priority list. At the top of that list is that the new property is to be located on peninsula Halifax. It was a pleasant fantasy for the rest of my walk at least. 🤪

It seems that my stay in Summerside has found me going a bit native. Giving myself a symbolic kick in the proverbial pants, it seemed that preparations for departure must be put underway asap; before getting too comfortable and cozy here in Summerside. For as they have been known to say in Westernos, "Winter is coming."

Upon my return to the Yacht Club work began on setting a course using the Navionics software. It surprised me how little of the passage remained. Regular readers will remember the first overnight passage made by Pierre and myself, along the coast to Gaspe, had been 122NM. The passage from Summerside, PEI to the Canso Straight Yacht Club would cover 139NM; which would be 17NM longer. Using the 5Knot/Hr. average, which has been used in most of my course calculations, that would mean about 3 additional hours than our first overnight passage. Very do-able.

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Summerside, PEI to Canso, NS

Once complete the next stage to Halifax would be Nova Scotia's east coast. Doing a rough measurement of the distance it totaled 150-ish NM. Such a distance would take approximately 30 hours. The passage down the east coast to Halifax would be slightly less than the passage from Gaspe to Summerside.

There will be potential for fog and other inclement weather, so more delays may need to be enforced. Good weather seems a prerequisite at this stage in the passage as well as the coast, known for its fog, which we will be passing along. Government wharves should be expected along the way if gnarly weather has us seeking shelter. More research needs doing to identify such Plan B ports.

The engine hours were checked yesterday when moving to a proper slip from the transient dock and it was at 170 hours. The breaking-in maintenance was due at 150, so that will have to be done before departure.

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When checking the amount of diesel in the tank, by using a wooden dowel for this purpose, the dowel was unintentionally broken. So off to the building supply store for a replacement dowel and an additional stop at the gas station to pick up a 5L container of diesel 15W-40 oil for the oil change and all the items are now on hand for engine maintenance.

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To my surprise the diesel tank was nearly full. It surprised me that my calculations were so close having added about 80L over the course of my travels down from the Gaspe. The calculation used is 3L/hour. It seems that is a very reliable amount to use to estimate consumption. A gauge will be nice to get installed instead of my stick method, but hey it works. 🤓

With all that in place thoughts turned to the more mundane matters of beefing up the boat kitty. First my favored coin shop was called to set up an appointment for my Daughter to take in a troy ounce gold bar to the shop. The price of gold has done almost a 2x since purchasing it from them. My feeling is that Bitcoin is a lot more likely to break out than gold at this point.

My Daughter graciously agreed to take it to the shop for me and she will then send the funds to the boat kitty account. This should have me ready to get Yacht Club Membership and the cost of getting Makina on the hard while awaiting the closing date of my property's sale on Nov 15th and those funds to be released.

Well it has been put off long enough. Time to put on my grease monkey hat and get that engine ready for its next stage of the passage.

May the wind be at your back!

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