July long weekend with 'The Family' [dahn dahn dahn daaaaaaahn]

Three generations of mechanically challenged Mara men stuffed into one engine room. (Dad told me to say that) They were trying to figure out what was wrong with Grandpa's engine. We think it's because he brought bananas on the boat.

Grandpa and Gerry arrived on Bella Fortuna and we took over the end of the dock at Camelot Island for the weekend. Dad told me that this is the exact dock that Grandpa and Grandma used to bring the 4 kids to on their boat during their summer vacations 35 years ago. It was neat for everyone to come back. Dad says that it's still as nice as he remembers except that the public is no longer allowed on Endymion Island because of a rare berry. We had problems with the camera so part of the picture is cut off.
This is Uncle Mike blowing on our conch horn. Everyone tried but not very many people could make a sound on it.
Mom bought marshmellows and all the things for s'mores. Yum!!! We had a camp fire every night there but it rained so it was hard to start the fire on some nights. This was the picture with the most family members in it... there's half of Uncle Mike, Uncle John without his head, Gerry,Uncle Jeff, me, Mom, half of Steve and Aunty Kay's arm. For Canada day, Mom bought a rainbow fire thing that turnes the fire different colours when you throw the package in. It was really cool. We weren't allowed to do fireworks there.
I went water skiing behind Grandpa's new Boston Whaler. It went reeeeeeeeally fast. Uncle Jeff, Uncle Mike and Dad went in our dinghy for some close up action (of me wiping out!!!).
This is Aunty Mary and our cousin Sean who we met for the first time. Aunty Mary is wearing Sean's hat. It was neat meeting him for the first time, allthough he did not enjoy his first boat ride...it involved gettting wet, cold, tired, hungry and getting stuffed into a lifejacket and bounced around in the dinghy. He was not happy when he arrived. But he enjoyed camping in a tent a lot more.

The Thousand Islands

After we spent the night in Main Duck Island, we went to Kingston for a few days. We checked in to the country and provisioned and relaxed for a few days. We toured around and went to a steam engine museum and listened to a concert right outside the marina. We saw the new Pirates of the Carribean movie. Our first movie in the theatres in a year. Then we went to Gananoque and my Dad's best friend 'uncle' Bill stayed with us for 2 nights. We went to Camelot and hiked the island. It was exactly like Georgian Bay!!! It's the nicest cruising area that we've been to since the Bahamas.
My friend Calandra and her mom Paula drove to Kingston and came on the boat for a night. We went to Milton Island. Calee is at camp for all of July so she wanted to see us before she left.
Somehow Calee convinced me to jump into the freeeeeeeeeezing cold water. I stayed in just long enough for the picture. Brrrrr!!! It was really cold and swimming in warm Gulf Stream water all winter didn't really help the shock.
We set up the tarzan rope (as we call it) while Calee was here. We tie some knots in a rope and attach it to the halyard and swing out off the boat and into the water. Steve is affraid to hit his legs on the life lines when he jumps so he tucks his legs up. It looks pretty fancy.
We went back to Kingston to drop off Calee and Paula and the Snow Birds performed the next day so we stayed. It was different than the Blue Angels but I liked both performances. The Blue Angels went right overhead so they made a more impressive sound, but the Snow Birds did fancier tricks. There we also only 6 planes in the Blue Angels. There were 9 in the Snow Birds.