We are now a motorboat

Arrived at Midland, Ontario, yesterday afternoon.  We spent the morning anchored somewhere just off the Small Craft Route along the southeast shore of Georgian Bay, waiting for the rain and possible thunderstorms to stop so we could make the jump across the bottom of Georgian Bay.  The weather turned out much better than expected - it was "fair to Midland." [why does he keep coming up with things like this ???]

s/v Ihana, mast down and fendered

Today we had the wonderful crew at the Bay Port Yacht Center (in Midland) build a cradle to hold our mast, boom and mainsail, after they took down the mast. See picture of our boat with the mast down and cradled, and fenderboards for the canals.. We need to have the mast down for our next adventure - the Trent / Severn Waterway from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. This bypasses most of Lakes Huron, Erie, and the Detroit area - takes us north of Toronto for 240 miles and 44 locks!  More on this later.

Last night we took the dinghy across Midland Bay to downtown Midland, for shopping and a nice chinese dinner.  It was a 10 minute commute by boat, saving us a 20 minute walk ...

Rocky Road

Pictures from the Small Craft Route down the east shore of Georgian Bay.  Beautiful, but difficult traveling by boat.  For well over 100 miles, we saw water and rocks. Lots of rocks.  Lots of lots of rocks. Some water too, sometimes not enough.

Rocks. Shoals. Almost- or actually-submerged rocks.

Red to port, green to starboard here.
Barely passable inside the buoys, and not often very deep.
Outside the buoys, you WILL hit a rock.

See the obvious rock.  See the not-so-obvious shoal?

Well marked rock, with daymark indicating which side is safe to pass on.

Missing Lake Superior, where shallow water is 100 feet deep.

Lots of people do this

There were sometimes over 150 boats checking in to the Cruiser's Net at Little Current - boats sailing or motoring on the North Channel.  And these were just those checking in.
We have seen hundreds - maybe more! - people doing something like what we are doing.  Most are not going as far as we are planning, but a whole lot are.  We keep meeting people who have or will be traveling to Florida for the winter, some of whom do this every year.

Moral to story - we're aren't the only ones crazy enough to take a trip like this.

Punch line - There are plenty of people to provide help, information, and companionship out here.  Wow.

Thank You - continued

Again, we are indebted to many people who helped us along our way.  It's hard to mention them all, but we especially thank:

The team at Bay Port Yacht Center in Midland, Ontario - for their excellent work in unstepping our mast and building a cradle to hold it on the boat.  This saved us a lot of work and, besides, they knew what they were doing.

Jenny & Mike Sutton (of Roseville MN!) - for information (and chartbooks) on their trip to the Bahamas by sailboat for a year, what we should expect, and valuable hints and suggestions.

Happy Smith (Great Lakes Cruising Club) - for information on anchorages and routes to get us down the east shore of Georgian Bay from Britt to Midland. Also for inviting us to join 9 other sailors from the GLCC for dinner in Britt.

Mike and Diana Nelson, and David Craigie (Trailer Sailors) - for providing us with charts, chartbooks and cruising guides - and information - on the Trent / Severn Canal and the Small Craft Route on Georgian Bay.

John and Coleen Travis (Trailer Sailors) - for organizing and executing a wonderful 2 week interlude in the North Channel of Lake Huron, with about 30 boats. Our boat was the largest and - since it was trailered from Lake City, MN to our launch point in Superior, WI - technically it was a trailerable boat.

John and Irene Clement (Trailer Sailors) - for loaning us their truck in Little Current, ON, so we could drive to Espanola to refill our propane bottle.  Would you believe it is almost impossible to get propane on Manitoulin Island?

Jim Kimmet (Northern Lights Sailing Club) - again, for crewing with us all the way across the south shore of Lake Superior.

The crew of the s/v Iroquois, who clued us in that Garmin did not supply us with the best charts for Canada, and helped us know what to order. Now we are no longer anchoring 1/2 mile inland ...

Countless other boats we met along the way.

Auto, our wonderful autopilot.  On light-air days, he took over the helm so we could relax and not be enslaved to the wheel for hours and hours.  Too bad he hasn't learned to steer with strong winds and waves, but then we would have missed all the fun ...

Ilona, for being the best possible crew member and co-captain.  And for wanting to go on this adventure, maybe even more than I did.

And I'm sure there will be more people to help us along the way.

Some pictures taken this week

Killarney Channel - the main street of Killarney, Ontario

A Boat-in Movie Theatre - in our marina in Killarney

Sportsman's Inn, Restaurant & Marina, Killarney ON

Lighthouse at entrance to Byng Inlet, Georgian Bay

Dinner on our boat with the crews of Teliki & Thistle Dew, Killarney ON

St. Amant's Inn, Restaurant & Store - in Britt, Ontario

Our boat in Britt - on the left, behind

Range with green lights - entering Byng Inlet

Range with red lights - entering Byng Inlet

Another community, more new friends

Because we are flying our Great Lakes Cruising Club burgee up on our mast, we got invited to join 12 other sailors here in the marina (Britt, Georgian Bay, Ontario) for dinner tonight.  Having just left the Trailer Sailors in the North Channel, we were by ourselves for a whole day without hooking up with another group of sailors.  Sure not lonely out here!

Also met Morris & Joyce who have a trailer and sailboat here in Britt, and are also members of the Trailer Sailors Assn.  Morris gave us valuable advice on anchorages and routes from here to Midland, all the way down the coast of Georgian Bay.

We met Ted from Grand Marais (MN), who knows Art (who we met in the marina in Ontanagon a few weeks ago), both of whom know Tyler and the Barness's in GM.

Taking a lay day here.  Catching up on sleep, maintenance, cleaning (boat and ourselves), more sleep.  Life is good. The world is small ...

Crossing Georgian Bay

We left the rest of the Trailer Sailors fleet this morning in Killarney; we're on our own again now.

Exciting day today, crossing northern Georgian Bay from Killarney to Britt in the Byng Inlet near the northeast corner of the bay.  This is the one section of Georgian Bay that required long runs on the outside - 40 miles - with no places to safely duck back into sheltered waters – mostly we were several miles offshore.  The winds ranged from 10 to mostly 15 knots or more for the seven hours it took us to make the crossing. Waves – big rollers – continued the whole time – probably over 3 feet, maybe more.  Auto just couldn't handle it, so we spent almost the whole day steering the boat. Not relaxing, not especially fun. Cold, too – full foulies on all day.

Ihana handled it just fine; we did okay also – but it was exhausting.  Finally grabbed a marina slip in Britt, had breakfast at 4 pm, and slept until we went out for pub grub (Britt's Pub?).

We have to go back outside for about 15 miles for the next leg, but will wait until the winds subside a bit out there. Maybe a lay day here; supposed to be winds of 20 early tomorrow morning, then down to 10 in the afternoon (offshore, thankfully), with waves building to ½ to 1 meter.  Might go for it in the PM; might just wait it out for a day.