My last post ended and we were only half way through our North Channel vacation. Ooops! Sorry about that.
In previous posts, I have mentioned that we prefer to find anchorages that are a little more out of the way. A little more private.
THEN WHY ARE WE HEADING TO THE BENJAMIN ISLANDS FOR THE AUGUST LONG WEEKEND???
And that was our mistake, I thought more about where we wanted to be than what others might do.
Macara is 6 years old. What 6 year old does not like a beach? Beaches in the North Channel are at a premium, but we found a nice one and we backed right in on it. Bow anchor in about 12 feet, stern anchor just off the beach... less than 3 feet of water. Thursday, we have the place to ourselves!
Friday morning I get a text message from my mom. "We spent last night in Little Current and are almost at the Benjamins, where are you?" Happily, I give her our location and invite them to join us. Along side beaches, grandparents rank pretty high on a little girl's list.
And then it happened.
We are wading away on our secluded beach in the Benjamin's... life can't get any better. It's just after noon and I have my first rum of the day in hand.
Hold on. That Sea Doo is coming right into our bay. Is it the police? No, it can't be. He has board shorts on. So, we chat. Small talk. All the time, the wind is blowing him further in to our beach. I offer to hold on to him so he doesn't get blown ashore. He say "no thanks, that is where I am heading". What??? And then, I look out of the bay and two more boats are coming. Oh no!!! What is going on here?
To make a long story short, they were the advance team and they were going to camp on this beach no matter who was there before them. By Saturday morning, the beach was littered with a full flotilla of boats. The highlight being a large fabricated pontoon boat that hit the beach and landed right on top of our stern anchor. Right or wrong, it was more than I could handle, so we picked up and found ourselves a new little piece of paradise.
Moral of the story: When spending the long weekend in the Benjamin Islands treat your anchorage like a chess game. Not only must you consider your move, but you must consider your apponents next move too. Fortunately for us, this was not checkmate and we moved our fun to a new location.
Sadly, the end of week one meant the departure of our boat guests. Extremely fine boat guests (our usual cruising friends that only had 1 week this year), they actually helped us with our break in period aboard our new boat. You see, with three staterooms and two heads, we weren't in the habit of using all of the boats space to it's full potential. They were able to report that our forward hatch has a leak and the day head just ain't right. Add that to the list.
After another great night in Killarney (it was finally my turn to see Andy Lowe shut down the carousel) was followed by, "Daddy, Daddy can we stay another day? I want to play in the pool. There are kids here!!!" Well that was hard to argue with. Even with Grandma and Grandpa waiting for us in McGregor Bay, they would just have to wait.
Every year we see more and more boats in McGregor Bay, but once again we were able to tie up to our favourite tree. A little fishing, lots of swimming, a few dinghy rides and even a campfire on the shore make McGregor Bay a lot of fun. The highlight definitely being Macara catching her first fish. A medium to smallish pike that had her screaming so the whole world could hear. Without a net, her pike was on it's way to a stringer when he slipped from Grandpa's grasp. Oh the disappointment, oh the tears! And most of that was on Papa's face.
One final appearance at Killarney Mountain Lodge before an early departure across Georgian Bay. Up bright and early and the forecast looks fantastic. The plan: Let's throw the hammers down and get most of the big water out of the equation and then we will back off a little and save some fuel. After about an hour of easy cruising I decide to pull her off plane. No sooner had I done that, and Kerri is kicking me out of the captain's seat. "Go make me breakfast, I have got the wheel for a while", she says. Well then, "come on Macara let's go make some breakfast." The best part was, we opened all the blinds, threw on a movie and sat down stairs and watched the Bruce Penisula glide by.
Pictures soon to follow... I promise ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment