Category Archives: Sailing the North Channel

Today has been another scorcher! Check out this picture!

View from the bow of the boat - a little hazy!

We left at 11:00 this morning and headed over to John Island – there wasn’t even a breeze! We had plenty of company though and another herd of small annoying insects followed us over. They didn’t live very long, just long enough to make a mess all over the outside of the boat! Luckily though, Dennis cleaned everything off fairly quickly with buckets of water and a rag. I did find a really interesting bug sitting on the hatch. I am not sure what it is – none of my books have it listed. I hope it isn’t the last of its kind because it disappeared after I took its picture!

Cool bug we picked up on the way over to John Island

We went in through the back way this time and made a mistake interpreting the GPS – it looks like when you have the quarter mile scale on the GPS, it is not too accurate! Luckily, we were going very slowly and backed out before hitting anything. Also, these people driving by in their dinghy waved and pointed us in the right direction as well as calling us on Channel 16.

We did the usual – swimming, fishing, kayaking and crib. I have now lost almost every crib game except one – we’ve played almost every day. I need to play at 8:00 in the morning, not at 5:00, when I am hot and tired! Oh well, the summer is not over yet.

We are headed to Blind River tomorrow and hopefully will pick up the long awaited wind meter!

We are at the dock here in Gore Bay and the heat has been unbelievable! I don’t think we’ve ever had temperatures in the 30s for more than two or three days, so this takes some getting used to! Luckily the water is really nice, so I think we will spend a lot of time swimming! This reminds me of the time we were on our little boat going down the rivers and we stopped for a few days in Peoria, Illinois. Nick and I spent the entire day in the pool because of the heat! We went grocery shopping at 6:00 in the evening and I remember seeing the temperature posted as 96 degrees! This is much better here.

The stairs to get down into the boat broke – one of the steps was loose so Dennis had to take it to a body shop to be welded. Of course since we don’t have a car, he pushed it through town in a grocery cart! (See pictures below).

Gore Bay has new shower and laundry facilities – very nice, so we are taking advantage of it and doing the laundry. Nothing is really dirty but everything just feels damp from the humidity.

We also went grocery shopping and got the essentials but either we went at the wrong time (2:00 in the afternoon and we had to walk back in the heat!) or the store does not stock much. We were able to get some produce though and had the “big salad” for supper – it was delicious!

We are heading out to John Island and will anchor there today. Then, we are going to Blind River to hopefully pick up the wind meter (if it arrives). The Nexus representative has been very helpful and they are sending us a wired wind instrument. I am a bit skeptical though that this will work out but you never know!

Did I mention that Dennis won $50 in the lottery? He spent $40 though, getting the stairs fixed, so we’re only $10 ahead!

This is one of my favourite anchorages in the North Channel – it is beautiful here with smooth pink granite rocks all over the place. Great place for walking, snorkelling and viewing all the other boats. Obviously, this is a very popular anchorage and there are over 40 boats here tonight. Luckily, everyone is behaving themselves so it is very nice and quiet.

It is very warm here – I guess the heatwave is across most of Canada, so this is a good place to be but during the middle of the day, it is so hot, you have to go and hide down below or you will cook! I will have to go kayaking tomorrow morning at 8:00 am because by 10:00, it will be too hot. The water temperature though, is very nice and we did a lot of swimming today. We went snorkelling over near a narrow channel that brave boats go through. It is really neat because you are swimming along the smooth rock about four feet down and then suddenly the rock drops down a huge underwater cliff – pretty cool to see!

Here are some pictures of the scenery. Check out the one of Dennis exercising and the one of the guy with his dog! We may stay here tomorrow – it depends on how many people clear out of here. We will go to Gore Bay next, probably on Monday.

We are anchored out at West Nob – which is a bay kind of near Little Current. The La Cloche range is on one side and some small islands are on the other. It is probably not a very safe anchorage but since there is no wind, we should be fine.

We really like it here because there are very few people – we are surrounded by a First Nations reserve and over on the other side of the rock, is a small camp with a tent and people come and go there but leave us alone. Yesterday when we arrived, a couple of people poked their heads out of the bushes to investigate so we waved and they waved back.

The weather has been spectacular – hot and sunny now for several days. Today was probably the warmest so we spent a lot of time in the water and in the shade. Dennis went blueberry picking at 1:00 though with no shirt (duh) and is now sporting a lovely burn on his back. He did manage to find a cupful of blueberries though and we will have them tomorrow for breakfast.

The only thing I don’t like about this place is the shad fly carcasses in the water. I guess because this is a bay, they all ended up here on the surface and are not overly attractive.

Here are a few pictures of our surroundings. That’s all the news for today!

Yesterday, we left Little Current in the afternoon. We had finished all of our grocery shopping and laundry, visited with the Lindsays and were ready to move on. We are now at Harbour Island – it is a small island right behind Clapperton Island. There is an abandoned resort on the island – I guess in the 50s, it was quite amazing and apparently John Wayne actually stayed there – or at least visited it on his boat called  “The Duke”.

Here are some pictures of the resort:

Abandoned resort - one of the outbuildings

Piano - a bit out of tune!

Steps leading up to the abandoned resort

We noticed another boat anchored in the anchorage and it has a board attached to the swim ladder. We couldn’t figure out what purpose the board served until the lady came rowing up to the back of the boat with her dog – kind of a husky looking dog – and she spent a few minutes convincing it to use the board as a ramp. The dog eventually ran up the ramp and safely made it to the boat. Kind of neat although taking a big dog on a boat is a lot of extra work! I guess the alternative is to leave the poor thing in a kennel all summer, so this is a better solution – not everyone can have people stay at their house and dogsit the “guard beagle” Jodi!

Well, we arrived in Little Current for the 9:00 bridge and were safely tied up by 9:15. We did the laundry right away as well as the grocery shopping. Very exciting!

I guess we are officially in the North Channel and hope to go to Hog Island tomorrow, then the Benjamins, Harbour Island and then Gore Bay.

The most exciting thing that has happened is that we may actually be getting a replacement wind instrument! Of course it took a lot of badgering on my part – I emailed Nexus of Sweden, and they have been most cooperative. Supposedly, a replacement will be sent to either Gore Bay or Blind River via Purolator – maybe even today – but I am not holding my breath until I actually see this thing! I am cautiously optimistic though and am hopeful that after three years of arguing with Fogh Marine (and getting nowhere), we will get something.

It is very warm here in Little Current – 27 degrees. Yesterday, we had a big rainstorm come through the anchorage – Heywood Island – and I thought that it would cool off but it hasn’t. We’re nice and cool in the boat though as there is a nice wind blowing through.

That is all the news for today.

We’ve been in Covered Portage Cove for the past three nights. It is usually nicknamed “Crowded Portage Cove” but it looks like most of the boaters have gone home. We have enjoyed the weather although yesterday it rained hard for several hours. The dinghy was over half full of water.

The weather today is very warm already and the sun is shining. It is supposed to be 29 degrees! Good place to be – on the water! We are going to move north and look for another anchorage. Eventually we’ll head into Little Current (Wednesday?) and get our last bunch of groceries. We’ll be heading home after that.

No other news to report.

Old Pink has an update…

After leaving The Benjamins (quite a relief – very crowded! There were 42 boats in the anchorage), we decided to find a new place, a bit more off the beaten path, that was within striking distance of Little Current. We motored through the rock and shoals and totally relied on the GPS chart plotter in order to  get to our destination. As we came into the anchorage, Dennis spotted two deer near the water – a doe and a fawn. The fawn was having a great time playing around in the weeds. When they spotted us, they left.

This anchorage was excellent. There were no other boats (except for the people we are traveling with). There was a nice long sandy bottom (no beach) from the shore that stretched out for a hundred feet or more. The La Cloche Mountains were on one side and a bunch of round rocky outcrops on the other. We were well protected.

I saw another bald eagle flying overhead. We had already seen on on Clapperton (maybe it was the same one) the other day. That was it for the wildlife though. There were only one or two blueberries to eat when we went ashore, so that pretty much ruled out seeing a bear.

The whole afternoon was windy but sunny. At 5:00 though, the weather suddenly changed and we got a half hour thunderstorm. The Johnson’s were on our boat and just before the rain started in earnest, they took off for their own boat. It was a good thing as their anchor had dragged quite a bit.

After the storm passed, we had supper and then finally watched “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. It was ok even though it had the English subtitles.

The next morning, we motored out to Little Current. Dennis and I were obviously not paying close attention though because on the shore (about a kilometre from where we were anchored), there were several canoes and tents. The people were all in the water and nobody had a stitch of clothing on! Jim and Sharon noted this when we stopped in Little Current.

We are now in Little Current and will stay until tomorrow. The weather has turned quite bad and it looks like a rainy day. It’s a good day for grocery shopping.