Swimming with the Mermaids

Greetings! it's KG again making a rare guest appearance while Tony has a much needed night off.

Yes, that's right, I swam with mermaids this morning.  

Here are some pictures of this intrepid group of swimmers. 

This is a group of mostly women - both older and younger than me, and they were all cheerful and ready to go despite the fact that last night our weather took a turn and the winds picked up and the temperature dropped (thankfully) so it was only 15.5 degrees C (that's 60 degrees F for you American readers) and a bit choppy in the water.  

The group is actually officially known as The Mermaids of Kingston, an open water swimming group that meets every morning weather permitting at 7AM to swim along the shore of Lake Ontario, just outside of the Marina we were staying in.  [Apparently there are at least three other open water swimming groups in Kingston, ON - there is another group that call themselves the Krazy KOWS (Kingston Open Water Swimmers).]  Yesterday while I was on my morning run along the Lake Ontario running path I saw some of the mermaids heading to the water and so asked if I could join them today and they were super welcoming.  It was wonderful to swim in the clear cool water - we only swam 1 km but that was enough for a first time out. I have really missed my regular open water swimming in the various lakes around the Twin Cities this year.  And it set me up to have a great day on the water in the boat.

After my swim Tony and I had to run a few last minute errands because we didn't realize when we pulled in that yesterday (Monday) was a holiday in Canada - called Civic Holiday.  This is celebrated on the first Monday of August every year to give Canadians a 3 day weekend to start the month. (How nice!!) 

Once those errands were done, we got underway and headed West across Adolphus Reach in the northern part of Lake Ontario and traveled about 35 miles to Picton Bay and will be staying in Picton, ON overnight (named for Lt General Sir Thomas Picton who served in the British Army in Europe and was killed in action at the Battle of Waterloo).  This underway was the first time in a long time that we weren't surrounded by land and enjoyed looking out on the vast Lake Ontario.

Once we tied up in Picton we got off the boat to re-provision since our food was running low, and then spent some time sight seeing.  We were pleased to see that the town was quite full of tourists enjoying all Picton had to offer.  Since this is located very near Toronto and Kingston it is a popular vacation spot with lots of beautiful hiking on sand dunes and packed with breweries, gourmet restaurants and plenty of places to separate shoppers from their hard earned money.  

Our favorite place we stopped into was the Rosehaven Yarn Shop. I was excited to see they had a yarn store within walking distance since I'm looking for yarn for the next crochet project I'm planning and it is so much better to handle yarn you're buying to know you're getting what you want. We knew we had reached the place when we spotted the lamppost and bicycle covered in yarn.  

I left Tony outside people-watching while I went into the store and he understood completely this poor man's predicament!  

(In case you can't read his sign, it says: My sweetie told me to wait here while they went into the yarn shop). Alas, the store didn't carry bamboo yarn so my quest continues.

We had an outstanding dinner at one of the local breweries and then headed back to the harbor for the sunset.  We have one more travel day on Lake Ontario before we enter another canal/waterway run by the outstanding Parks Canada.