We left Cedar Island and Singer Castle early as there may be rain by mid afternoon. Retracing our steps along the St Lawrence, we head south to Ironside Island, where we will leave the St Lawrence shipping channel proper and take the Canadian Middle Passage channel of the St Lawrence.
This passage meanders through the many Thousand Islands on the Canadian side. So no more freighters to contend with, although most that we encountered we watched go by from a marina dock or from our anchorage.
As we entered the Canadian Middle Passage, we traveled past Grenadier Island and Tar Island and the town of Rockport, Ontario. Cottages large and small line the shoreline and bluffs. Further south we enter the narrows, where there are many small islands and the Canadian shoreline to our west.
Coming up to the International bridge we slowed as we had been warned to watch for shifting currents and eddys. We negotiated this area with no issues, due to Bill’s great boat handling! This area of the river has these unpredictable currents as the channel is narrow with the water rushing past its many islands, as well as the depth of the river changes dramatically here. There is a trough up to 150 feet deep that suddenly ends near the bridge and the river bed becomes 35 feet deep. All that water is pushed up over the ridge and causes havoc with the currents. We were glad that we were warned about this ahead of time.
After the bridge the channel twists and turns in between islands til we got to the town of Ivy Lea. We docked where we thought we could check in to customs, but found out we were in the wrong spot. With the assistance of some very friendly Canadians we located the check in point as well as learned from the locals all about this area of the Thousand Islands. Going a little further south we came to Ivy Lea Resort and docked. While securing the boat we had the good fortune of meeting a family of avid boaters who were more than willing to share their knowledge of boating in the Thousand islands and the Rideau Canal(which is our next leg of the trip).
We gathered our passports and Arrive Canada receipts and headed to the phone provided by the Border Patrol. After a 10 minute wait, we had a nice conversation with the Border Patrol Personnel who asked our passport number, receipt number, length of our stay and if we had anything to declare for customs. We passed inspection with that phone call and were given a number to display on the boat so show we had cleared customs. So we were officially released into Canada! We celebrated by having lunch at the resort restaurant. Note: ARRCan is an app that is to be filled out before you arrive at the border.
After lunch, we traveled another mile to dock at a Parc Canada dock on the island of Mulcaster. Boaters from two other boats helped us dock as the winds had really picked up. Thus we met our dock mates, a couple from Kingston and a couple from Quebec. Apparently all construction stops in Canada for two weeks in mid July and all construction related workers take their vacation. Both these couples are taking advantage of the Thousands Islands for their vacation time.
Once we got the boat secured and chatted further with our dock mates, we headed out to walk the trails on the island. We circumnavigated the island of mostly pine forest for about 3/4 mile hike. Enjoyed the rocky terrain and shoreline. Afterwards we took a well deserved nap!
Bill decided to take a swim to a neighboring rock island and I duly recorded the event.
Here are some drone shots from Mulcaster Island.
