Mackinaw Is Day 2

We shopped here.

The Marina and Park

Downtown from the Fort.

Rifle live firing, cannon fire,all staff in
period dress, very interactive display. 

Some big Suckers use this Waterway

Morning tea on the deck of the Fort

Serenaded by excellent actors

Dawn and Ted joining in.

Dawn was impressed by quality of costuming

Pretty P.O.

Rosie the Riveter/Blacksmith

Gardens to die for

Remember this area is covered by
snow and ice for 2 to 3 months.

The UPS man, everything via horse

Says it all

Couple of nice renters.



 

Drummond Is then to Mackinaw

Mackinaw Is – tourist mecca

We spent a day at Drummond after clearing customs. The hooha that we had been warned about not re-stamping our visas on re-entry into USA was a non event. The customs officer asked a few questions and stamped our passports with a 6 month visa until February 2016.

We rented a car to go and do some provisioning at the grocery store some miles away and had lunch at Pins bar & Grill (which had a pin bowling alley within the restaurant). After docktails with most of the other boaters (about 7 couples) at the marina we later celebrated our admission back into the USA with a bottle of champagne kindly bought by Ted & Sue.

We made a calm trip to Mackinaw Is with steady, light rain & poor visibility for most of the way. We saw 2 large freighters in the distance and Ted's AIS (an instrument that transmits speed, description, position & ID of vessel ) noted that one of these was 143 metres long & the other 258metres – which is massive.

Mackinaw Island is a sight to behold with beautiful large Victorian style homes and multi roomed hotels, inns & B&Bs all lining the waterfront the largest of which is The Grand Hotel with 390 rooms and a porch of over 1200ft.The era is 1800 with horse drawn carriages and colonial homes surrounded by colorful, perfectly tended gardens and huge hanging baskets lining the street frontages. No vehicles are permitted (except the island ambulance) & everyone moves via foot, bicycle or horse. But with many tourists wobbling about on bicycles having not ridden for many years & children taking advantage of the wide carless streets you need your wits about you. We saw a lady hit by a bicycle, taken away by ambulance and the next day she had her arm in a sling.

This was once a huge fur trading post & later lumber & fishing. Now the industry is tourism with a capital T. An island 8 miles round criss crossed by hiking, biking & horse trails. Last weekend they had 50,000 visitors most of whom arrive by ferry. We are here on a week day and it is busy enough. We took a carriage ride & saw the grand homes, trails, and carriage barns & stables. We visited the large, stately, stone palisade of Fort Mackinaw. Built in 1780 the fort walls contain 14 original buildings with 1880's period furnishings, displays and period costumed guides. Canons & muskets were fired, fife & drums played and silly tourists (including us) taught an old courting dance. We also viewed the governor's residence where many presidents have slept.

We walked along the waterfront past umpteen fudge, souvenir, craft shops, cafes & restaurants with no sign of a Starbucks or McDonalds. The island is very tightly controlled by the powers that be. We choose a reasonably priced place for dinner where we exchanged travel & boat stories after we had finally persuaded the very nice host to turn the music volume down.

At the moment it is blowing 20+ knots so we will wait & see what the weather is doing in the morning & make a decision whether to stay or go.

Drummond to Mackinaw Is 45.51N-84.36W

Threatening Sky

Celebrating our Visa

A real old timer, right out of
Popular Mechanics 1958

The view from the Flybridge
Mackinaw Island

Some of you may remember my old Charter Launch the
Cara-Mia, Tied up near us was this nearly identical
Chris Craft  to mine, about 6ft longer and with a aft cabin
an absolute beauty.

One of the few motorised vehicles
on Mackinaw lady v bicycle

Huge carriage house,one for you Louise

Aircon Stables

Mackinaw Arch

More Docktails.

Very nice private home

North Channel, Canada

Killarney – Little Current - Drummond

Some of the text does not always line up with the photos because we are still having to catch up the days when we haven't had internet. The blog is often a culmination of 3 days of travelling and doesn't always match the date when we post it. However today we have good internet access and we will try and catch up.

We stayed in Killarney Mountain Lodge Marina after having travelled the long Collins Inlet. Have been on the lookout for deer, moose and bears but nothing seen to date except stuffed ones in restaurants.(I know it is rare to sight one but some people have – so it could be us). We walked the small town where many shops/businesses seem to have closed & had fish & chips at another 'world famous' Herbert's Fisheries. They used to serve it from a bus but that no longer happens. (probably another health & safety issue).

We made a long side trip into a 10 mile long fjord called Baie Fine which is lined with white silica cliffs and fir trees. At the end is a narrow 2 mile channel leading to The Pool which is a great anchorage. We hiked up a hill on the lakes edge to view a beautiful topaz lake – very clear with no bottom growth due to the acids that have leached in from the rocks – the acids have long gone so it is OK for swimming. We travelled further south to Heywood Is where we anchored in Browning Cove for a perfect night.

Our next stop was Little Current where a swing bridge opened only on the hour, so we made it for the 8 o'clock opening and headed to the Anchor Inn where a “cruisers broadcast” is done over the VHF every morning at 9am. Boaters are welcome to sit in and listen to weather forecasts, world & local news, & other boats calling in with their name & position. Roy will also relay any messages or help with any medical or emergencies. This is broadcast over a large area in the North Channel. Roy's substitute Doug was on the day we were there and after the broadcast and also at cocktails in the bar later in the afternoon told us tales of boaters & the rich & famous who had brought property in the area.

We are now on the last leg of our journey through the North Channel which is at the north western part of Lake Huron. Georgian Bay, which we have just completed was in the north eastern corner. We decided to go to the largest island in Lake Huron - Manitoulin which is a huge island stretching from east to west across the top of Lake Huron. We tied up at Kagawong Bay and next morning visited the Bridal Falls & a couple of museums. Many facilities there for the locals. We travelled on to Gore Bay and anchored for the night. We watched the work being done on the already impressive town docks which were being further developed with a long break wall. It was even more impressive when we realised that it was a Saturday evening and at 7.30 at night they were still working. - 3 large diggers & a barge.

Next morning we had a long but easy journey to Drummond Island and during this time crossed the Canadian USA border.

To Killarney

Georgian Bay 3

Remember the 'challenging routes' mentioned in my last text, well today we did the toughest of them.

The first was just a warm up called “Narrow Island” then we came to Hangdog Reef and Hangdog Channel. It had many U turns & it was necessary to count the buoys as you went so you knew exactly where you were – there were a lot. It kept the navigator & the skipper on their toes. It was a narrow winding channel through huge round boulders usually only protruding between 1 to 3 feet out of the water (they looked like whale's backs). You were very aware that there was also a lot of the boulder under water. We made that and came to Alexander Passage where we read warnings about shoals, and in the event of low water or 2 foot running seas that there would be changes in depths and not as per charts and new buoys may have been added (but that's a good thing). We were lucky on all counts – we had calm days and height above datum was 25 inches. We never had any bad outside factors when doing any of these tricky runs.

We found an anchorage at Golden Sword Island -another quiet night. Our second to last tight squeeze was next morning in a place called Roger's Gut. It was 6 ft deep and had been blasted through rocks long ago - “the buoys are routinely moved to narrow the channel & to find the deepest passage” - quoted the book. That day we also took an alternate route called Dores Run which included a section known as Parting Channel. We read many warnings about this and I as the chart plotter (navigator) had to confer with the skippers and read out the relevant comments from my reference books such as – do not attempt this if draft is more than 5 ft (we were OK ) if this is your first time here, (it is – but they were confident )or if the boat is longer than 40 ft, (well -one is 38 & one is 42). if you have only a single engine,(we both do) do not attempt it. The author of the Water way guide “gave himself a nasty fright going through here in a 29ft boat” !! But they were up for it & are both competent . The problem is that you turn a blind corner into a very narrow channel which is made even worse by the large rock sitting in the middle of it. You do a tight right hander around the rock and between the red marker (denoting the cliff) then another dog leg left & then right between 2 green markers. The markers were barely wide enough to get the boats through. But do it slow & with accurate precision and it works. (see the photos to clarify my wordy description). Sue on the other boat didn't take breath until a while after when we were compelled to stop along side each other and get all the excitement out. The route up to this 'dogleg squeeze' and the pool at the end were crystal clear and exquisite.

We began the the last leg towards Killarney after this. It was a 24 mile stretch appropriately called Collin's Inlet. We anchored for the night after 7 miles at Mill Lake for another peaceful night.

Baie Finn to Little Current

We hiked up from the
main lake to this beautiful
mountain lake

Crystal clear water

Some hardy teens swimming 19c

Touring in the rubber ducky

Sunrise at a great anchorage

The big smoke, town of Little
Current

Local Paper

Friday drinks and canapés put on by
the Anchor Hotel and Cruisers net
a local VHF radio service, the man
standing was the days radio operator'
the only service of its kind so far,unlike
Aust and NZ where we have extensive
coverage.

Something Canadians are very
bad at, ignoring no wake zones,
they seem to have no concept of
what their wake is doing behind
them, it was a constant complaint
by most visiting boaters.

Restored cruise ship

Some of us hiked up to
this waterfall.

Our flag proudly flying
in Canada.

We are getting further North
every day.

Georginn Bay 2 Tight channels

Georgian Bay – 2

There are over 30,000 islands in Georgian Bay and our charts no longer show a magenta line on the chart plotter (GPS) or the paper chart for us to follow– so we are having to work out where we are going & what we want to see, which islands we want to anchor in according to the wind direction and how many other people know of this favoured anchorage, & other alternative anchorages if it is too crowded & wind direction has changed, rocks to avoid, then throw in distance and time factors and it becomes a challenge - & I thought this was a holiday.

Georgian Bay is large with so many choices it is difficult to know what to choose. Because all of the bay is clear water, pine covered and many rocks we decided to add to the adventure by choosing the narrow, tight spots where the the advisory books state “not recommended for large boats with drafts of over 5 ft, or 42ft long or first time boaters to the area”. Sounded like a challenge to Ted & Colin so we have done these areas and although you had to be careful it added some great adventure to the routes for the days. The main fear of course are the sides of the narrow channels and the bottoms which are all granite rock – solidly keel & prop crunching. Colin has photos of most of these OMG spots.

Most of these were alternate routes to the main one – Monument Channel had a couple of U turns & a right angle one. Starvation Bay had a tight squeeze at north & south ends with the warning “channel is very narrow & congested with many boaters not bothering to slow down”. We have been surprised that the polite & courteous Canadians have been the worst offenders of any state during our whole trip, at waking other boats – it has been rare to find a boater slowing to pass others.

We stopped for lunch at Henry's World Famous Fish Restaurant on Frying Pan Island then continued to a popular anchorage for the evening ( Echo Bay) but it was too crowded so found our own in Spider Bay – just the two boats – calm & quiet.

Next day we headed up to Parry Sound via the South Channel with warnings to call on VHF to warn other approaching traffic before entering narrow channels & 7 mile narrows, 5 mile narrows & 3 mile gap. We went through a “Hole in The Wall” in Parry Sound unlike the one in NZ it was a natural slit forming a channel. We also passed an “Aussie Island”. We dropped anchor for lunch in Kilcoursie Bay & then found anchorage further on in Snug Harbour for the night. We dinghied into the village brought an ice cream & watched the huge number of people queueing up for their Sunday meal at the only restaurant there. On weekends these small places have many boaters visiting and it's best to stay away if possible.