At Harbour City Yacht Club, Toronto seems so far away

The Toronto skyline appears in the distance as we depart Island Yacht Club for a cruise of the ponds and lagoons of the Toronto Islands.

1200 hours
Tuesday, September 7
Harbour City Yacht Club

We depart Island Yacht Club. Our plan is to check out Harbour City Yacht Club first. If there were no slips available, we will head to Queen City Yacht Club.

We need to go no farther as there is space at HCYC. We are the only guests. There are only four visitor slips.

Before we head to the HCYC, we poke our nose around the neighbouring ponds. We almost stay at an anchorage behind Forestry Island where we chat with two sailing yachts from Whitby, with one of the owners originally from Cape Breton.

At HCYC, we haven’t checked in as yet. Admiral needs her lunch of see-it-again grilled salmon with a green salad.

We register at the Toronto Island Marina office. First night is free for reciprocals. Second night $1.50 per foot. Fuel is $1.41 per litre but we filled up for $1.27 per litre--plus free pump-out of our toilet holding tank--at Bluffer’s Park Marina en route to Toronto.
We are not certain, but there seem to be almost as many swans as Canada geese in the Toronto Islands. The swans are quite territorial.

We bump into Paul Murphy of Lifestyle from whom we’ve been renting Slip #42 at Fairport Yacht Club in Frenchman’s Bay for the past two seasons. Surprise, his slip here is right next to the Upper Deck lounge.

We feel energetic and take our bikes out for a ride past Centreville. We notice a cruiser who is docked on the mooring wall by the bridge on Centre Island. We chat him up and discover that it’s 50 cents per foot, albeit without service. During July and August, this would be too busy a stop for us but now, in September, we might try it before departing the Toronto Islands for Port Dalhousie once the wind eases up out on the lake.

It is so quiet and peaceful on the Islands, as school has started and the crowds are gone.

For a guy who acquired his first BBQ only last year, the Captain sure has learned how to grill a steak to perfection.

Our dinner is a perfectly grilled rib steak smothered with mushrooms and onions, baked potatoes, peaches-and-cream corn and an Australian shiraz--with the lights of Toronto sparkling in the distance.
Not a bad place to spend an evening when the wind is howling out on Lake Ontario. We’d recommend a layover at Harbour City Yacht Club for anyone with reciprocal privileges and a relatively small boat.