Adventures With My Family

No Grits in Canada In prepping Polaris for departure, I was amazed how much food I could squirrel away in the six compartments assigned for food. Three of these are in the galley, the others are below and behind the dining cushions. And, there's no such thing as pull out shelves so everything is piled on top of each other. The challenge, while underway, is recalling where you put things. I made a map of sorts, plotting the location of everything. The challenge while underway is maintaining the same location and keeping it as neat as the first pack, which invariably fails to happen. I made a 2 week menu and provisioned accordingly. The challenge after two months is the emerging disquiet, not yet a mutiny, at the recurring menu. It has been intimated that my favorite, beef and broccoli stir fry, should walk the plank. I tend towards simplicity, fewer pots to clean, less water needed to clean, less time over hot stove...etc but maintaining crew morale through food is a daily...

You might expect that "Loopers", as those of us circumnavigating the eastern US call ourselves, would be relatively evenly spread out around The Loop. In fact many are bunched up somewhere along Lake Ontario, the Tread Avon Canal in Canada and Lake Huron and Lake Michigan region during the summer. We're all following 70 degree weather. We're also in prime bug season, but that's another story. No one wants to be in the swampy low country of Georgia or South Carolina in July. While many newer boats come equipped with AC, being inside is not why you come on this trip. So far, we've had this extraordinary region of Canada to ourselves. In fact most of the trip, except for marinas has been solitary or near so. We think this is because we chose the less traveled route through the Erie Canal and got an early start. Two days ago we finally caught up with some other boaters in a spot called Covered Portage...pronounced por-TAJ here in French Ontario. It was a dimin...