ANOTHER DAY IN KINGSTON

Kingston is quite the happening town! The Blues Festival may have lasted a bit late, but the party lasted even later, with very loud music reverberating throughout the marina until around 2 AM. This morning I made it a point to get out my noise-canceling headphones, as well as some earplugs, in case it is as loud, as late tonight.

One of the blues venues in front of the City Hall

We started the day by going out to breakfast, then visited the Farmer’s Market for some fresh bread and produce before walking around the rest of downtown. It was a bit surprising to see all of the commerce and popular shops here, but it is a university town - that may help explain all of the drinking, eating and entertainment establishments. There’s a Great Lakes Marine Museum in town, so walked over there and got some background on military, commercial and recreational boat building in Ontario, as well as toured a retired Canadian Coast Guard vessel. 

At the Marine Museum

Our challenge for the day was to find a cruising guide to the 1000 Islands area of the St. Lawrence River. We are going to go to that area tomorrow and, although we have nautical and electronic charts, it’s very handy to have a detailed guide which includes marinas, services, anchorages, places to visit, etc. It took us a while, but we finally found one to supplement our chart information.

This evening, we met friends for cocktails on their boat, then went out to dinner where we were joined by yet another friend we had met in the Bahamas last year. She was in town from Alberta - another nice coincidence.

The music venue is outdoors, a couple of blocks away, and the music is highly amplified. As much as we like listening to jazz and blues music, unfortunately, what we hear on the boat is a distorted, pounding bass line which drowns out most any other part of the bands. We’ll listen to it for a while, then tuck in and try to protect ourselves from the pounding as the night wears on. Assuming we get adequate rest, we’ll leave Kingston mid to late morning, downbound on the St. Lawrence River...