Month: July 2018

7/31/18:  I just realized when I typed Day 141…. we have been on this crazy adventure for 20 weeks already!  We are more than half way around the loop, timewise anyway, as our plan is for about 37 weeks total.  Dude.  That’s kinda wild!

Our plan for today was to backtrack to a couple of the most popular and beautiful places to drop an anchor for a stay.  Like I said before, we had really hoped to go to these with Rick & Rocky, but time and weather didn’t permit.  So today we were going to backtrack from Little Current to Baie Fine.  It is a long fjord bay, with high white quartz hills on both sides.  I read somewhere that it is one of the largest freshwater fjords in the world.  It is nine miles long, the last two miles are very narrow, ending at what is called “The Pool”.

It looked like an excellent day to leave Little Current.  There was a cruise ship on the town wall!  Time to get outta Dodge!  This ought to about double the population in this little town!

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7/29/18 Sunday:  We left Killarney about 8:30 in the morning, and headed west.  Ahhh – the water was calm, the wind was calm, and it was a nice day!  Because we need to have Rick and Rocky in Little Current by tomorrow, we skipped past a couple of highly recommended anchorage spots.  We had really hoped to go there while they were with us, but the wind just did not cooperate with that plan.  So, we’ll skip them for now, and head to Little Current, which is only about 24 miles from Killarney.  Adios, you crazy channel!  It was a very quiet morning in Killarney.

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7/27/18 Friday:  And the wind keeps blowing.  What the heck?!  We knew it would be, so we had already paid for two nights here – now we may need a 3rd.  This was Friday, and we were surprised how many boats left from here today.  Check out time is 11:00, and the docks were nearly empty.  The dock hands said that there would be 40 boats coming in today, in the big wind… it would be a busy day!  And yes it was!

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7/26/18:  We were up and ready to go and off the dock by 6:45.  It was a beautiful calm morning, and the water was splat flat gorgeous!!

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7/25/18:  Yes, there was some fog, but not bad.  Last night, everybody (the other looper boats) said they were leaving at 8:00.  We got up, looked around, and they were all gone by 7:30.  I saw Compass Rose pulling out as I was making my coffee.  No problem – we had reservations at Wright’s Marina in Britt, on Byng Inlet, so there wasn’t a big rush to get there first.  However, the wind was going to come up in the afternoon, and our journey would have us in some big water, so the sooner we got on our way, the better.  It was going to be a 60 mile day.  Adios Parry Sound!  We left Nellie Mae, our little 25’ tug friend, behind.  She’s been having engine issues, and Tim & Mary made the tough choice to stop/postpone their loop here.  The engine just quits without warning, and they’ve had mutilple mechanics in multiple locations work on her, and she’s still doing it.  The next couple hundred miles are very remote with a lot of rocks in narrow channels.  They decided it is not a safe thing to continue here, because it always takes a few minutes for everything to reset and restart.  They are afraid that one of these times she won’t restart.  So they are going to rent a car, drive home to South Dakota, and bring their truck and trailer back, and take Nellie Mae home over the road.  They are very sad, but we all agreed with them that it is the right decision at this point on the loop, to be safe.  After all, who wants to be so stressed worrying about crashing all the time?  The loop is supposed to be fun.  They hope to come back to Parry Sound to finish their loop next year. Read more →

7/23/18:  The weather forecast changes so often that we can’t keep up with it!  We’ve been staying put, and delaying our plans, trying to avoid big wind and thunderstorms.  But everyday that has been forecasted to be awful has ended up being not so bad.  We finally decided to make a break for it, and just go.  There have been thundershowers forecasted everyday, and they haven’t happened yet, and we need to get moving.  It was a cloudy day, but I think we only got sprinkled on a little bit.  And the wind was not bad at all.  We followed the Small Boat Channel for most of our route today. We had heard that a swing bridge on the southern route to Parry Sound was broken and would not open, so we took the northern route – the long way around.  (After we got there, we found out that the bridge was fixed.  Dangit!)

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7/22/18:  The worst thing to have on a boat, is a schedule.  Always be flexible in case Plan D is needed.  I’m so thankful that our friends are Pacific Northwest boaters, and they completely understand that! Read more →

7/21/18:  Today was forecasted to be windy in the 15 mph + range, so we decided to stay put in our nice little Wani Bay cove.  We’re pretty protected in here.  There were eight boats here last night.  Now it is Saturday, and we watched boat after boat come in and join us. By evening, we had 18 boats… 9 power, and 9 sail.  Almost everybody just dropped a bow anchor to swing with the wind.  There are just 4 that took out a stern anchor or tied to shore.  At least they were near shore so they wouldn’t mess up anybody else’s swing dance! Read more →

7/20/18:  Thursday – Today was forecasted to have some wind in the 15 mph or more range, so we needed to leave Beckwith Island and get back over into the more sheltered areas on the northeast side of Georgian Bay.  The guys looked at the forecast, and I came up with Plans A, B, & C.   Plan A would take us up into the Small Craft Channel to Indian Harbor.  By the way – the Small Craft Channel is a route that weaves it’s way through the 30,000 islands region of Georgian Bay (seriously – that is what this area is called).  In some places it is very narrow.  This area is all granite rock, and parts of the channel are not recommended for boats over 40’ in length.  A lot of loopers don’t even do the channel, but stay in the big deep water to transit Georgian Bay from south to north.  But the real beauty of this region is getting INTO it and discovering the little bays and channels.  Without hitting the granite.    Check out the beautiful blue color of the water as we crossed the big lake!

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7/19/18:  Today was forecasted to be sunny, warm, and calm, with calm overnight winds.  Sounded like a great time to go anchor out in “Canada’s Caribbean”.  I had read and heard that Hope, Beckwith, & Christian Islands, and Giant’s Tomb all had nice clear water and BEACHES!  In fact, the dock hands at Queen’s Cove said that these are their favorite places to go.  These islands are a little bit out of the way if you want to just cruise the Small Craft Channel through Georgian Bay, so most loopers don’t make the side trip.  Well, we like side trips, and we like beaches, so … let’s go!  This was our route from Ojibway Bay to Beckwith Island.  To continue the Small Craft Channel, we would have gone northwest on the yellow line, but we have plenty of time to get back on course.  The green line was our route – out west. We had to back track to get around Beausoliel and into a good navigable track.

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