June 18th – 30th, 2012
Picture this:
It’s 5:45 p.m. Roger & I are sitting in our cockpit. He’s drinking Mount Gay Rum & Guanabana (Soursop) Juice. I’m drinking Bombay Sapphire & Tonic. Kenny Chesney’s newest CD is playing. It’s about 73 degrees, sunny, blue sky, NO humidity, nice breeze blowing. And I’m trying my best to reach far back into my memory of less than 2 weeks ago to begin writing this blog entry. I look at the pictures and try to reconstruct our experiences. I plow through the photos, I’m smiling (mostly!) and realize that each day is better than the previous. So here’s our story for the past couple of weeks…
As we head north on Georgian Bay, our next stop was Twelve Mile Bay. In hindsight, this was not as formidable an anchorage as I originally thought when we arrived. There was already one boat there and with the rock right in the middle of the anchorage, I wondered how Potest Fieri and our boat were going to crowd in and allow enough swinging room to miss the rock. Danny & Susan asked if we’d like to raft up to them and I was relieved when Roger said yes.
At the anchorage, Roger was fishing off the boat and caught a bass, which he threw back because it wasn’t in season. He & Danny decided to jump in the dinghy and troll around; Danny caught 3 bass & Roger didn’t catch any. Roger said he was only letting Danny catch the fish because he didn’t want to upstage Danny. It sounds like a fishy story to me.
The second day that we were at Twelve Mile Bay, Roger & I took Louie in the dinghy to Moose Deer Point Marina to drop off our trash and get Louie off the boat for a walk. It was almost 4 miles from our anchorage. I could see that Roger was getting antsy as I was walking Louie, and he pointed to the sky and said, “It looks like we’re going to get some weather.” So we headed back immediately and the closer we got toward the anchorage, the darker the sky became. The air felt cool, then warm, then cold. If you know me, I’m petrified of lightning, and that was my fear at the moment. The wind was on our nose & Roger had our Mercury wide open. Louie & I were holding on tight. Then I saw a wall of white, which actually scared me more than the black sky that we’d been trying to outrun. The squall came down on us and the rain hurt as it was pelting us in the face. Luckily, the waves in the channel only had a mild chop, or I would have lost it for sure! The good news is that we made it back, didn’t get struck by lightning and our good friends Danny & Susan closed all the windows and ports on our boat.
The next day we went to Echo Bay, where again we stayed for 2 days. What a gorgeous anchorage! We went exploring in the dinghy and Roger swam off the rocks and went kayaking with Danny. I practiced my dinghy skills and drove it around by myself. Travis said he was proud of me because as I mentioned last year, Roger & the kids always drove the dinghy, and I just sat back and relaxed! I didn’t even frighten our neighbors on three sailboats, a powerboat and a trawler! One evening, we dinghied over to Henry’s Fish House for dinner. There was a float plane in the water at Henry’s dock and some people flew in for the famous fish & chips.
On Friday, June 22nd, Roger pulled up the anchor and I drove us out of Echo Bay. I was really sad leaving there! The trip to Parry Sound was nice and the weather was gorgeous. We had an encounter with 2 barge boats in Seven Mile Narrows. Danny had called “Securite” and announced that our 2 trawlers were entering the Narrows, but the two workboats didn’t bother to call on the radio and we were shocked when they were upon us. Danny started backing up and Roger put us in reverse and edged over to the side of the channel. Everything was fine, but the adrenaline got pumping!
We arrived at Big Sound Marina and had our pick of slips; you can see by the photo that it was nearly empty. They had a good deal, you pay for 5 nights and stay 7. I did laundry and defrosted the refrigerator. The next day Roger picked up a rental car and we packed up for our trip to Indianapolis. Roger had business there on Monday & Tuesday and we had looked for options to fly him down, but it was ultra-complicated because we are up in the wilderness. The 10-hour drive to Indy was a piece of cake, compared to the logistics of flying him there, and Louie & I got to go too! We were away from the boat for only 4 days, but it seemed like an eternity as we entered into “our other life”, which is great too. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Nicole & Kacee or Brett & Kelly because they were on a Murphy-family vacation up in Michigan. We were able to spend time with Travis; he had just come back from Denmark, where he is working as a Business Development Analyst for Grundfos Pumps. When he isn’t traveling, he will be at Peerless Pump in Indy and that’s where he’ll live. We tagged along as he looked at apartments in downtown Indy; it was surreal because he just turned 22 a couple of months ago, and here he is traveling internationally, starting his career & leasing a “nice” apartment downtown (as opposed to the dumpy hockey houses he’s been living in for the last couple of years at IU)!
While Travis & Roger were working, I was running around trying to pick up all the things we “needed”. I wonder if we hadn’t made the trip to Indy, would we still “need” these things? Since I lost my sunglasses overboard on the dinghy ride in the storm, they were at the top of my list, as well as getting Louie to the groomer, and of course a mani/pedi for myself. Time flew by and before I knew it, we were back in the car heading to Canada again. Back at Big Sound Marina on Wednesday night, I re-provisioned the fresh foods & now the freezer is full and so is the frig. We washed the boat, Roger got the propane tank filled (which will probably last another 3 years!) and he took back the rental car.
We left the marina on Friday, 6/29, at 6:10 a.m., knowing that we would have wind on our beam when we were exposed to Georgian Bay. It was an interesting trip, although very uncomfortable at times. Roger stayed at the helm almost the whole trip (8 hours) and Louie & I ate ginger snaps and we successfully warded off any possibility of seasickness. We knew that we would be inside the small craft channel for a good part of the day, but I dreaded the miles that we had to go “outside” with seas abeam and strong winds (18 mph, gusting 24 mph). I asked Roger to highlight the route on the Richardson’s charts so that I could get an overview.
The small craft channel is very protected from the winds off Georgian Bay, but it can be treacherous with rocks everywhere. Just look at the photos! In some places, the channels are very narrow, and the depth is barely over 7 feet. With a 3-foot wave action, I worried about getting caught in the trough and “scratching” the rocks! But I’m the worrier in the family, and Roger did an awesome job navigating and he never checked his email on his iPad once. We arrived at Wright’s Marina in Byng Inlet around 2:15 and because of the gusts of wind pushing us into the docks, we passed on 2 slip assignments they tried to squeeze us into. We hovered in the channel until they moved a boat and we slid into a decent spot.
We decided to stay an extra day because the winds were more of the same, and we really would like to “enjoy” the ride! Roger joined the guys at the community grill and cooked maple-glazed salmon kebabs, a nice healthy dinner, only to be spoiled by Kawartha ice cream at “Ice Cream on the Rocks”, a little ice cream stand near the marina. We had eyed it earlier in the day when we went for a long walk. Roger had Butter Tart ice cream in a turtle sundae, and I had Moose Tracks ice cream with hot fudge, butterscotch & toasted coconut. I helped him finish his sundae & now I wish I didn’t.
Tomorrow is Canada Day, July 1st. We’ll leave very early and I want to go the whole way to Killarney to catch up with Susan & Danny. I know we’ll be bypassing some nice anchorages, but I think Susan is anxiously waiting for me to get there with the 2 bags of lemons I picked up in Indy for our infamous Lemon Drops! Then on July 5th, we are expecting our friends Rae & Steve to join us for a while. Both couples have cruised the North Channel extensively (our next body of water), so we are in good hands to get the local knowledge of the area. With another segment of the trip nearly behind us, we still have so much to look forward to!
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