Summer of 2011... in pictures

Knot Yet is safely put away in storage as winter threatens to dump down on us any day now.  The days are so short.  There is lots of time to stare at the count-down timer.

Then it hit me.  There is still plenty to do going forward, but I haven't posted any pictures from this summer's trip to the North Channel.

So, like I posted earlier we had guests onboard for the first week.

Some relaxed...

Julie enjoying a book.

Some relaxed maybe too much...

Somebody lost a bet or bet him he couldn't...
but why do I always have to take the pictures?!?! 

We stopped at the mandatory stops...

It's like this all day long for a reason.

Apparently there is more than one way to get there...

It's not just a boater's paradise.

We enjoyed some quality family time...

Learning to blow the sun down with a conch shell.

At least she looks good doing it.

Painting on the rocks with Honey.

We enjoyed the beauty of it all...

Making our way into "Rat Covered Portage".

Not a bad view while you're fishing.

Because I couldn't get the loon picture that I wanted.

The real reason for going...

Look at the size of that fish!

Haul Out :-(

We left a couple weekends open for taking Knot Yet across to Penetanguishene for haul-out.

Yes, Penetanguishene.  Our home port, Wiarton, cannot handle us over the winter.  We do not fit in their indoor storage.

Normally, we try and push our season on to get the end of October in.  But, seeing as we now have to make a trip across Georgian Bay before haul-out, we decided to cut our season a little bit shorter.

Our first choice weekend blew a gale.  Winds blew 40 knots, gusting close to 50 knots.  Waves on Northern Lake Huron grew to 15 feet.  Not quite as big on Georgian Bay, but still no place that I want to be.

Our second choice weekend was Thanksgiving weekend.  Apologies to our family, but we needed to take care of our boat.

Wow!  Did we ever luck out.  Shorts weather and calm winds.  It's hard to appreciate that we need to get this done when the weather is like this.

Saturday is so nice.  I keep telling myself we should get going.  I keep checking on Sunday's Marine Forecast.  But, good things come to those who procrastinate, so we wait another day.

Instead of making our way across the bay, we loaded up for a fall colours tour around Colpoy's Bay for the afternoon.  Fabulous!!!

Griffith Island Lighthouse

Saturday night we have boating friends over for dinner, tell lots of stories and stay up way too late.  I sure hope the weather is nice on Sunday.

It is a charmed life we live, because Sunday is every bit as nice as Saturday was.  Our 9am planned departure crept a little to become a 10am departure, but that could happen to anyone.  ;-)  Regrettably, it is time to leave.  We say our good-byes and cast our lines for the season.

Wiarton Marina.  We have never seen this many boats in the water after us!

The trip across the Georgian Bay and around to Penetang is 62nm.  In conditions like this, it feels like we should do it way more often.  It's hard to remember that it is the middle of October.  We don't see a single boat between Griffith Island and Christian Island.

Christian Island Lighthouse

I have to put a plug in for Bay Moorings marina (http://www.baymoorings.com/).  This was our first time actually meeting the staff and seeing the facilities.  I must say, I have a hard time recalling ever being treated better at a marina.  First impression is I like this place.

The problem with storing your boat almost a 3 hour drive from home... how do you get home?  Easy, phone a friend with a plane.  Thanks Gerry!!!

Kerri getting ready to board our flight home

BTW, the following weekend blew over 40 knots again.

Knot Yet to the rescue.

We got to pull a fellow boater off the rocks today.

Next Tuesday is Macara's birthday, so we suggested that she bring a girlfriend up to the boat for the weekend.  Barely 15 minutes out of town the poor girl gets car sick.  Uh oh, is she going to be okay on a boat.  Turns out she was fantastic!

Saturday we take the girls for a cruise.  We put Knot Yet up on step and ran her out to White Cloud Island, she needed a good run.  Then we put her in sightseeing mode.  We drifted back in along the north shoreline, doing crafts, watching movies, having snacks... down stairs.  Dad had a great ride up on the flybridge :-)

The girls had planned that we would spend the night on the hook.  A south-east wind and a girl that gets car sick.  I don't think so.  Back to the dock.

Sunday morning starts with "let's go for another boat ride."  So, we take them for a short trip to go swimming, do lunch, paint some nails.  All good stuff.  I changed the oil in the genny.

We were almost back to the marina, when we overhear a radio call to the marina requesting help.  A sail boat had been blown up on the rocks and was taking a beating in the surf.  The marina doesn't really have a rescue boat and there weren't a whole lot of power boats on the water.  Lots of sailboats, yes???

We interrupt their call and offer our assistance.  Come on girls, let's go!

We arrive at their location, and yes, they needed help.

A swing keel sailboat, so they had managed to get themselves blown right up on shore.  No place that I wanted to be.  So, I found myself a place in about 9' to 11' of water and proclaimed that I was not coming any closer.  Kerri grabbed one of our spare anchor ropes and a large ball fender and floats it out off the bow.  The rest was pretty much up to them.  I did my best to hold our position backing into a breaking surf while the one poor guy makes his way out over the slippery rocks and through the surf.  The life jacket was a good idea, because he took a beating.  After about 15 minutes he has the line back to their boat.

I start to back away and they aren't moving an inch.  With both guys naturally clinging to the high side, they were driving their keel down and into the rocks.  I couldn't get them on the radio and they couldn't hear us over the wind and the surf.  What we were trying to tell them was to get on the leeward side of the boat.  They thought we were motioning for them to get off the boat.  So, the one guy obliges!  Jeez, now we got one guy in the water, but the boat has broken free.

So, now we are sitting there asking ourselves, "what just happened?"  Were these guys together or was he a cottager that came out to help.  The guy makes his way to shore and starts walking to the nearest cottage.  Nope.  Our rescued boat tosses us our line back and circles back to pick up his buddy.  OH NO!  This doesn't look good at all!  You see this tiny little dock was only 200m or so from where we had rescued him.  Largely the same conditions.  It took 3 or 4 tries, but the guy finally gets on board.  It was pretty much a horror show to watch.  The boat was bouncing wildly!  Bouncing off the dock, probably off more rocks.  Luckily nobody got hurt.

Remember my little birthday girl and her car sick friend?  Well the girl friend is fantastic!  Actually helping out and being a sweetheart.  Macara isn't enjoying this at all!  Too rough, too much drama.  She is worried to death the other folks aren't going to be okay.  She is pretty certain we are in pretty big trouble ourselves.  I am grateful she had her friend along to talk to her, because that would have been just one more distraction for Kerri and I.

Knot Yet is a fine vessel!  I don't think that I could have done this in the Sea Ray.

Where did summer go?

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 ;-)

North Channel

Our annual pilgrimage is in full swing!

All is good.

It's 80nm from Wiarton to Killarney.  In the past it has been a 3 to 4 hour trip, depending on the weather. We have sucked in close to the Bruce Peninsula for protection, we have made the straight run, every time is different.  It is big water.

We slept in!  How could that be?  My BlackBerry has the most annoying alarm, kind of fitting for me, a sonar ping.  It always gets me up.  Even better, it is like finger nails down a chalk board for Kerri.  Two pings and she is beating on me to shut that d*mn thing off!

The plan... to arrive in Killarney around noon.  The forecast... up to 15knots out of the North-West, not the best.  And we slept in.  Having already covered some 2000nm this year the plan was to keep the fuel consumption under control.  But, the MAFOR was not in our favour and Macara is still pretty nervous after our trip from Kincardine to Wiarton.  So, we put Knot Yet up on plane for a couple hours to get some miles behind us before the winds pick up.  Sometimes, plans work.  By Lonely Island we had all the protection we would need.  So, we pull off the throttles and glide into Killarney on about as little full as our old 30 footer would.

Never wanting to mess with success, we like to start our North Channel voyage the same way.  After a long trip, our routine fits perfectly.  Head directly to Herbert's fish bus and split a fish meal.  Their portions are huge, so we have it fine tuned down to 1 meal and 4 extra pieces of fish for the 3 of us.  A perfect lunch.  Then it is off to the pool so Macara can have a swim.  After that, we get dressed up (boat style) and head out for a nice meal at Killarney Mountain Lodge.  Every year the same thing, Prime Rib dinner and a bottle of red wine.  Finally, some live entertainment with Andy Lowe.  He is a one man entertainer who plays a mix of some of his own songs and requests.  He has been playing in the Carousel every year  for the last 12 and we have never missed a year. Macara calls him 'My Andy'.

Now the details get fuzzy.  Largely due to a Non Disclosure Agreement between us and anybody that we have ever cruised the North Channel with.  When we go looking for an anchorage, we want one to ourselves.  We don't do the popular, crowded anchorages.  The charm of these cruising waters is the seclusion.  So forgive me if I am not willing to post our favourite spots on the internet.

Our western anchorages will be known as "The Benjamin's" and our eastern anchorages will be referred to as "Rat Covered Portage".  Rest assured you will never find us anchored in these two popular anchorages, but we may not be that far away.  ;-)

It's a bit of long run down to our "Rat Covered Portage" and, if someone is already shoe horned into our little spot, we don't have a really good plan B.  We get lucky again!  So we proceed hunker down for a few days.  We like to stern into this particular little bay and throw out a beach anchor.  Then place two bow anchors to keep us in place, no matter the wind direction.  When the wind is howling from the west, we are not more than 50 yards from rolling 4 foot waves as we sit peacefully in our little cove.

The joys of a new boat (sarcasm)... after a beautiful dinner and glorious night with a few drinks under the stars, it was time to start the genny and go to bed.  No go!  What's up?  I read the manuals for a bit, nothing clearly jump out at me.  So, I decide to deal with it in the morning.  What's that noise?!?! is how I wake up.  The bilge pump is gurgling, pump not pumping out.  I jump to the control panel and check the voltage.  Only 9 volts!  It was 12.5 volts just 5 hours ago.  Oh no!  This is not good.  I carry an Eliminator battery with booster cables with me and attempt to start main engines and the genny... nothing.  It looks like I am pulling all four batteries and spending a long day in the dinghy running into town and getting them charged.  One more idea.  Hook the Eliminator directly to the genny start solenoid.  Next to impossible given the genny location.  There has to be an easier way.  Finally, I find it and genny jumps into action.  Crisis averted.  Good thing, because I was not looking forward to the alternative.

So, right now we are sitting in Little Current.  Cleaned up and pumped out, it is time to get ready to make our way to the Benjamin's.

More to come...

Ian

Canada Day at home in Wiarton

After a week in Kincardine Marina and entertaining just about every night, we made our way for our home port.

The plan was be on the water around 4am and enjoy a nice leisurely cruise up and around the Bruce Peninsula.  Maybe even save a little fuel after our 2000nm delivery run.  Well, I forget to let Mother Nature in on our plans.

Fog and rain took some of the charm out of leaving before sunrise.  Hit the snooze button and try again for 6am.

Still not pretty, but it is time to get going.  Leaving the girls in bed, I set the throttles for a 10knot cruise and make a course for Tobermory.

So far, so good.  The wind is 8-10knots out of the west.  A beam to sea.  If it stays like this, life would be great.  But, the forecast is not promising.  They are calling for 15-20knots out of the North-West and that would be a lot less enjoyable.  At about 7:30am, the seas are starting to show signs of picking up, so I slide down the ladder to talk to the girls.  I tell them that I would like to pick it up and make Tobermory before things get nasty.  I get the go ahead.

It didn't take long and we were seeing the forecast coming true.  Not ideal, but the boat can handle it.

Oh no!  Here come the girls and they are not happy.  Macara is quite upset.  It took me about 10 minutes to convince her that we were safe and that it was just a little bumpy.  She was histarical, but comes around once she could see what was actually going on above decks.  Just the same, she wasn't having fun and for a brief moment I considered bailing out and pulling in at Stokes Bay.  But, that was an 8nm run on its own and it wasn't that much further to Tobermory.  We press on.

Finally, Tobermory.  To my surprise and much relief, the seas lay right flat.  The morning's plan was to lay off the throttles and save a little fuel, but the trip thus far has wiped the smiles off the crew.  I decide to get us off the water as soon as possible.  Hoping a little terra firma will improve the mood.

We now have a new ETA.  We were talking between 4-6pm.  Get ready folks here we come and we will be there by 1pm.

Normally, we are in the water around the 1st of May, this is the last weekend of June.  Enough suspense, it is time to unveil the new boat.  Our marina friends are all gathered at our slip.  Balloons and air horns to boot!  Got to love 'em!!!  A nice reception, and much appreciated.

Canada Day!  Our first full weekend in Wiarton is a long weekend.  Sweet!!!

We will call it Friday morning, but we are off the dock by about noon.  The weather is gorgeous and we spend the rest of the weekend on the hook.  A little further than prime fireworks distance, but we have a great view of the fireworks and our favourite anchorage for the night.  Get comfy and enjoy!!!

Getting home: By the numbers

Starting from Stuart, FL...

Day 1:   183nm   St. Augustine, FL
Day 2:   143nm   Hilton Head, SC
Day 3:   123nm   Charleston, SC
Day 4:   231nm   Oriental, NC
Day 5:   156nm   Norfolk, VA
Day 6:   192nm   Atlantic City, NJ
Day 7:   191nm   Catskill, NY
Day 8:     94nm   Fort Plain, NY (Lock 15, Erie Canal)
Day 9:     94nm   Clay, NY (Lock 23, Erie Canal)
Day 10: 148nm   Port Weller, ON
Day 11:   90nm   Erie, PA
Day 12: 186nm   St. Clair Shores, MI
Day 13:   43nm   Sarnia, ON
Day 14:   82nm   Kincardine, ON

Total: 1956nm

Eight different states and a province.