We spent last night anchored at John Island and woke up to very thick fog. We were supposed to leave at 7:00 but didn’t get underway until 8:00 because we waited for the fog to dissipate. We set off and within twenty minutes, we were right back into the fog so we turned on the radar which worked beautifully for three minutes and then promptly quit. Luckily, we could see about 1000 feet in front of us so we managed to get through the Whalesback Channel without any trouble. By 10:00, the fog had lifted completely and the radar started working! Go figure!

Foggy morning at John Island

We arrived in Blind River at 1:00 and we noted that the depth of the harbour was 6 feet 4 inches in places so it is not great for big boats. We got the end dock and set up both cables and now are basking in the air-conditioned boat! What a difference!

This afternoon, we went to the marina office and picked up a parcel – one of the two that are needed for the wind meter, so it looks like we are not going to have a wind meter after all. Rats! I thought we’d finally get ahead of the game but no such luck! Oh well, hopefully the other parcel will arrive when we return.

I have to say that the Blind River Marina is excellent! It is clean, has great showers, a laundry room and very helpful dock attendants. The marina even has coaster bicycles to borrow (probably because the town is quite a hike) so we rode those around most of the afternoon in the heat. We got a good workout though! Dennis, in particular, had a real good workout, when we were madly racing through the only set of traffic lights (we wanted to catch the green light) when his chain fell off! He had to push the bike to get off the road (it was the Trans Canada highway, by the way) and then fix the chain. Poor guy – he doesn’t seem to have much luck but he is certainly resourceful and fixed the bike in a few minutes!

Blind River doesn’t have much to offer and everything closes at 6 o’clock. The grocery store was adequate but we just wandered around in it to get out of the heat. I went shopping downtown to the two stores but couldn’t find anything to buy.

So, tomorrow we are headed to Harbor Island (that is actually part of the states) and then on Friday, we will head down the St. Mary’s River and get to Sault Ste. Marie for a couple of days. We then hope, weather permitting, to go to Lake Superior for a week or so.

That’s all the news today!