Dennis had to climb the mast today so that he could re-install the wind meter (which currently is NOT working) but that’s another story. Here are some pictures – I took some from the dock and Dennis took some from the top of the mast. Enjoy!
Author Archives: JH
The trip so far…. (Parry Sound to Beaver Island)
OK – I have actually a few minutes to sit down and write something! This boating business is keeping me very busy. You wouldn’t think that it would, but I really haven’t had time!
So, everything is going really well on this trip. I think the boat is well set up – we have all the amenities of home. We are very comfortable living on it and have established a good routine starting with coffee in the morning. At home, we have the coffee on the automatic timer, but that would not be very practical on the boat, so Dennis gets up really early (usually 5:30) and wanders around the anchorage or marina until he hears me stirring. Then I make a lot of noise, so he quickly makes my coffee. It is an excellent way to start my day and I would highly recommend it to fellow boaters.
It we are travelling then we have learned to “batten down the hatches” and secure everything. You never know what will happen on the water, so it is best to be prepared. We learned that the hard way (of course!). Trying to get down below in rough water is very unpleasant because it is so hard to hang on to things. We have to lock all the cupboards, lockers, and drawers (easy – just press the button on each), close all the windows – I guess sailors would say hatches), put all the dishes safely away, and bring the important things up in the cockpit. The important things include the life jackets, radio, hats, water, saltine crackers, blanket (for me), and cushions.
We are also getting better at docking the boat which is the most nerve wracking thing of the day. Anything can go wrong in a few minutes. Dennis, I have to say, is an excellent driver (if that is the right word) and I once in a while can actually accurately throw the lines to the dock handlers. When it is windy though, like in Drummond Island, it is a challenge.
Now, on the day we left Gore Bay, we had very calm weather and motored the entire day but about two hours before we reached Drummond Island, the wind came up and we had a bit of a rough time. Nothing disastrous happened, just a lot of pounding into the waves. Anyway, by the time we reached Drummond, the wind was really howling. We had to dock because we had to clear Customs. Luckily, this very nice couple helped us, otherwise it would have been terrible!
Once we cleared Customs, we immediately went for a walk and beelined over to the Bruce Roberts steel boat – Dennis’ dreamboat! Our recreation then, consists of looking at other boats…
Anyway, the trip has been lots of fun! We have learned to pack our food properly, so we have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. The best idea though was to buy frozen bread from The Mad Hatter Cafe in Parry Sound and keep it in the freezer until we need a loaf to bake. Their bread is excellent! That is the one thing on the trip that is not good – buying decent bread so this has solved the problem.
The other really good thing is my iphone. I can access the internet from almost anywhere which I am enjoying. I check the weather and the news, update various things, and keep in touch. Now that we are in the US, it is a bit more expensive ($1.00 per MG) so I just check once a day and then use the wireless at a marina.
I am getting lots of exercise too! I have started jogging (every few days). I am not very fast but can go 8 km so that helps a lot. When we are at an anchorage, I swim or kayak around. That helps too but it is the jogging that really makes a difference. I haven’t even ridden my bike once!
So, this trip has been great! We are now on Beaver Island and will head over to Petoskey tomorrow and then work our way back into the North Channel.
For entertainment today, we are all going to watch Dennis climb the mast to put up the wind meter. Hopefully it will go smoothly!
We
Mackinaw City
We are in Mackinaw City at the Straits Marina. The entire Great Lakes Cruising Club is alongside. Our boat is pretty small compared to them! Oh well, we’re lucky to get a dock! Beaver Island tomorrow.
July 8th – Gore Bay
We just spent the night at The Benjamins. That is a pretty incredible place! Beautiful anchorage – probably the nicest one in the entire North Channel. Now we are in Gore Bay. This is also my favourite marina and town. First of all the marina slips are easy to get into, the grocery store makes excellent sourdough bread, and the showers are heavenly – lots of hot water that comes out full blast!
Tomorrow we are going to Cockburn Island.
July 5th and 6th – Little Current to Clapperton Island
We arrived in Little Current uneventfully – no spectacular crashes onto the dock or smashing into other boats. Things are going our way. Little Current was not busy at all. There were only a few boats in the marina. I went jogging and checked out the sights. Nothing had changed from last year. Dennis wandered around town looking for a few spare parts for the boat. It was a very hot day!
In the afternoon, three powerboats moved over from the wall to the slips near us. They settled in and one of the boaters played the American National Anthem very loudly. I thought that was a bit odd considering it was July 5th – Independence Day had already come and gone and he was in another country. Oh well, we endured it as it only lasted a few minutes.
Nothing exciting happened in Little Current (which is a good thing). I did discover though, that in order to get cell service, I kept having to walk up to the top of the hill. Doing that plus my jog, kept me busy.
This morning, at 8:00, a cruise ship arrived. Wow! It was huge! It was able to dock without any difficulty too – especially with Wally (the local dock service guy – fuel, pump outs, water, fishing gear) catching the lines and taking charge. It was an interesting sight.
We headed out to The Benjamins but decided to go to Clapperton Island instead. There’s nobody here – we’ve got the place to ourselves. Dennis keeps diving down to check the anchor and says that we have moved fifty feet, so we may have to re-anchor the boat. I went kayaking for an hour around the bay. The weather is beautiful – very warm and the water is perfect for swimming!
Tomorrow, we’ll head over to The Benjamins.
July 4 – Covered Portage Cove to Heywood Island
Covered Portage Cove is a beautiful anchorage. The weather was excellent and the water was actually warm enough to go swimming. I tried out my wetsuit and enjoyed at good long swim. Dennis went fishing but did not catch anything. We decided to go back to Killarney for fish and chips lunch. It was like Grand Central Station! We eventually found a place to dock right outside of the liquor store. Dennis is very good at docking and managed to almost parallel park in the little spot. I asked some tourists to catch the lines and they did but they didn’t pull on them, so we had a minor mishap. All I can say is that the old ramshackle shed is a bit more ramshackled now!
After a good lunch, we headed out to Heywood Island. The trip was uneventful except that we forgot to properly secure the boat, so when a powerboat whizzed past us, leaving a huge wake, everything down below crashed all over the place.
We arrived at Heywood and found a good anchorage. There were a lot of boats but the best boat was another Hunter 42 Passage. We dingyied over after supper and had a great tour. The boat is older than ours but completely different. We enjoyed our visit with Bill (the owner of Rejuvenated) and invited him our our boat to compare notes. He was quite amazed at the differences between the two. We (as in Dennis and Bill) discussed the similar problems of each boat.
At 10:00, the mosquitoes came out with a vengenge! I closed everything up and we went to bed. There seemed to be quite a few in the aft cabin and we spent quite some time trying to get rid of them, and finally I left to go sleep in the forward bun, which is very cozy. Dennis said that he slept with the covers over his head all night and discovered that we had left a window wide open without the screen. Yikes! Anyway, there are dead mosquitoes all over the floor now, so I guess I’ll have to vacuum them up.
We will be heading for LIttle Current soon. We have to time the bridge opening so that we’re not circling for 45 minutes. Maybe this year we’ll get it right!
July 3 – Regatta Bay to Covered Portage Cove
July 3rd – Regatta Bay to Covered Portage Cove
We left at 5:30 this morning from Regatta Bay, knowing that it would be a long way to Killarney. We were right! The wind was already up (not that we could tell the speed) but there was definite wave activity on the lake. We had our coffees underway and that was the last bit of nourishment we had for most of the day. The sky was bright blue and the weather very promising, but there was quite a swell. We were able to sail almost immediately – very unusual for going to Killarney. Usually we end up in a big storm, or horrible winds, or sometimes we get no wind at all! Today was the exception so we persevered through the swell for the entire day. Needless to say, even Dennis wasn’t feeling very good but he managed to keep the boat going. I, unfortunately, spent most of the day lying down, huddled in the cockpit, trying not to get sick. Of course, had I gotten sick, I probably would have felt much better, but I didn’t.
We got to Killarney at 4:30 and just kept going because we wanted to get to Covered (or as our friend Bruce says) Crowded Portage Cove. It was quite full but we are nicely anchored in a safe place. We had a nice swim and some supper – nothing too exciting, and are now ready for bed. Tomorrow, we are heading into Killarney for fish and chips so I want to be ready!
Happy Canada Day!
Happy Canada Day!
Canada Day
Well, of course nothing goes smoothly when you are sailing and this little trip was no exception. Dennis and my dad left Killbear Marina on Tuesday. The weather was not great, quite cold actually, but they headed up to Regatta Bay. They stayed overnight and were able to walk around on the rocks but the nighttime temperature was only 10 degrees. They were going to heat up some hot water using the generator, but it, unfortunately, broke down after five minutes, so they just washed up and headed for bed. They did remark though, that they slept like logs. Dennis had a very quick dip the next morning – the water really woke him up!
They sailed all the way way in to Parry Sound. Apparently, the winds were excellent and they did 7 knots which is probably the fastest the boat has ever gone under sail. Once they arrived in Big Sound Marina, Dennis had to fix the generator, so they drove off to the parts store and were able to repair whatever was wrong with it.
Meanwhile, Ron Miller, of Ocean Equipment (the company that was repairing our wind meter (the one that cost $1200 and only worked for a week), contacted me and told me that he found the problem. The WSI box had completely corroded so even though the the wind meter and and the display box were able to be paired, the actual wind could not be read. So he fixed that and shipped it to our friends’ place in Kenosha. I am happy to report that Jim confirmed that the wind meter is working. For how long, we don’t know, but at present, it is working. Now, Dennis has to go up the mast again, to set it up, but that will make for good entertainment.
We spent the Wednesday night on the boat and discovered that the hot water safety valve broke, so we didn’t have any hot water. Luckily, Dennis had a spare one (who keeps a spare safety valve?) and was able to repair the tank.
The auto-pilot broke too but that was an easy fix – just a blown fuse. So, after enjoying the Canada Day fireworks in Parry Sound, we are now sitting in Regatta Bay, enjoying the sunshine and have offcially begun our trip. Tomorrow, early in the morning, we will head for Killarney. Hopefully nothing else breaks!
The Shakedown Cruise – Part Two
We have beautiful weather – perfect for sailing. Nice and warm, with a good breeze blowing in some direction. We don’t actually know the speed of the wind or its direction because we are still without our Nexus wireless wind instrument. It only worked for one week – after that, it gave out completely and Dennis spent quite a few trips going up and down the mast (in some very expensive but safe contraption). But I digress from the point of this story. I will keep a separate log of the goings on of the Nexus.
Since I am not a very experienced sailor, I’ve been practicing my driving skills when we leave the dock. Last week was a spectacular exit – no problems whatsoever and I was quite confident until a shrieking sound started up. It was the engine overheating and we weren’t even five minutes away from the marina. It turned out to be an air pocket (or something) and Dennis had us underway again within minutes.
Today’s exit from the dock was pretty good although it was a bit trickier because of the wind. However, within 30 seconds, we had bumped into something under water. It was apparently a cement block and Dennis mentioned that he should have reminded me about that. I cannot be held responsible for that though. You don’t expect to have cement blocks lying around in the middle of the channel. No damage though, so we carried on to Regatta Bay on Franklin Island.
We had an easy ride there and ventured through Canoe Channel. It was pretty shallow though (8 feet) and I doubt we’ll be able to take that short cut in the summer unless it rains for the next three weeks. We anchored in the middle of Regatta Bay and were the only boat there for most of the day.
The first thing we did was go swimming in our new “shorty” wet suits. They are terrific! The water temperature was 20 degrees Celsius and that is quite warm for the end of May in Georgian Bay but not for swimming around for half an hour.
Unfortunately, we looked like a couple of beached whales with these suits on. We seem to have developed bellies in the past couple of years and they definitely show in the wetsuits – no disguising any imperfections! Anyway, the wetsuits kept us warm and more buoyant, so we were able to swim around the anchorage for a good long time. I went snorkeling and saw lots of zebra mussels, a few crayfish, and not much else. Hardly any garbage either, which was very encouraging. Dennis dove around the boat and checked the new anchor chain – he’s quite proud of it. I guess it is much safer to have all chain instead of line, and in this wind (not that we know the speed of it), we are hardly swinging around at all.
The day was going very well but we did discover that the shower pump would not pump the water out and over the side of the boat. We had already replaced the pump last year in Mackinaw City and thought that our troubles were over. We spent considerable time troubleshooting and knew that the pump still worked but it had lost a lot of power and couldn’t manage to push the water up and over the side. So Dennis now has another job – to install a new pump. This time though, he is going to install a really good one. We’ve already had two pumps and although they were expensive, they need to last longer than eight weeks of boating. The only drawback of the good pump – we’ll call it The Terminator – is that we have to turn a switch on at the control panel when we have a shower and turn it back off when our shower is over. I think we can handle that inconvenience!
That is all that has happened so far today. Dennis is out fishing and I am having my tea. I’m sure more adventures will await us before the weekend is over!
Split Crow 