I left Toronto Sailing and Canoe Club at 9 a.m., with dry bags packed, planning an overnight at Bronte Harbour YC, where I’d learned to sail 59 summers before.  Happily, my parents had figured out that two months in Bronte was cheaper and more effective at keeping me out of their hair than a month of summer camp.  

With a following wind, 10 to 15 kmph. NE, the boat moved nicely to the south west.  This was my first overnight cruise in my Wayfarer so it was every bit a shake down cruise.  As I left the protection of Humber Bay I was surprised by a long swell from the east, probably from a disturbance at the Kingston end of the lake. My first thought was just don’t let that disturbance track me down.  

After a satisfying hour the wind eased, still from the NE and I sailed in a heat and humidity haze.  Visibility was about 5 km, so I didn’t yet see the Clarkson smokestacks, a familiar sight to sailors on this well travelled route.  Half an hour later the wind went to nothing.  Would I be able to make Bronte or have to go to Plan B, Oakville or, even worse, Plan C, Port Credit?  I didn’t want to have to report that I only sailed to Port Credit, which we can reach in a leisurely hour’s bicycle ride from home.

I pulled out the paddle, wished I’d brought the oars or at least a crew member to share the paddling, and paddled for about 20 minutes, enticed by a very distant wind line.  I was treated to sounds of sailing school hilarity carrying more than a kilometer across the glassy water.  It was the PCYC junior club kids, some swimming, some sail-sculling their Lasers standing on the deck in front of the mast, facing backwards and rocking their boats through 30 or 40 degrees, creating enough wind to keep the boat moving. Some things never change.

The wind line arrived, filling in from the opposite direction that it had been blowing when I started. This was unexpected but welcomed even though it meant I’d need to put in a few tacks over the coming 25 kilometers. With my sophisticated self steering mechanism, an extra long bungee, engaged with 3 or 4 wraps around the tiller, I used the ensuing one minute of two hands free time to get my lunch from one of the dry bags.  

The wind was freshening from the more favorable southerly direction so I put in a reef and was immediately more comfortable managing to keep the boat in good trim.  I arrived at Bronte at 3:25.  Hospitality at Bronte Harbour YC was terrific, I was assigned a slip right away.  I put up my newly constructed boom tent and chatted with the sailing school instructors.  I think they might have questioned my credibility when I told them I’d instructed there almost 60 years before.  Much about the club hadn’t changed in that time except the number of slips had at least doubled.  I swam at the little beach in Bronte Park where my mom had taken us on hot summer mornings about 65 years ago and enjoyed supper with wine back on board. 

Overnighting taught me lessons in dew management (put everything away in dry bags) and the finer points of boom tent construction.  Mercifully there were few mosquitos but my slip was right under a bright mercury vapour light which turned the night into day.  I’ll bring my airline eye shades next time. On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised at the boat’s stability for sleeping.

Next morning after 7:45 coffee on the restaurant strip next to the harbour, I set sail in 10 kmph from the SW.  The wind cooperated and by 11:00 I was well past the Clarkson refinery and planing occasionally. The wind backed to south and picked up to 15 to 20 kph and I was planing more often than not and was impressed by the PCYC junior sailors doing upwind tacking drills, tacking each time a whistle blew, usually with much less than a minute between tacks.  

By the time I arrived back in Humber Bay the echo waves off the breakwater were easily apparent from over a kilometer away.  As I closed on the breakwater the waves were brutal, about three feet or more sometimes with only a boat length between waves.  I was mindful that an OC-6 canoe had been lost against the breakwater in the club’s popular round Toronto Island race. I made it through the gap with a furled jib and was ashore by 12:45.  

All in all a great first cruise, averaging a little over six kmph to Bronte, about eight kmph returning and for the last two hours about ten.  Learned lots and most importantly gained a lot of confidence in my boat and my abilities.  Here’s a haiku I wrote about my short voyage, it’s called Lake Ontario: