July 8 - Aikens Island
Our last letter was created as we were approaching Meldrum Bay, Ontario. Now understand that Meldrum Bay is VERY little, it consists of a marina, snack bar, lodge, general store, museum, mail box, and two pay phones. You can walk from one end of town to the other in under 5 minutes and you can do everything there is to do in about 20 minutes. This is not a place you would want to spend four days. Our Meldrum Bay saga went something like this:
Day 1- Arrive in town and check in with customs. Usually you call in but this time the customs agent was waiting on the dock. She was a little laid back, she reminded us that you could only have 40 ounces of booze per person. Next she said "if you have more you'd better get drinking cause you're on holiday!" Next, go to the general store and buy meat. Here the meat is frozen solid, in fact you could use it to drive nails. This is great on a boat. Once shopping is done we fill up with water and we're ready to pull out early tomorrow.
Day 2 - Get up early to leave. Look out the port and I can't see the other side of the bay! FOG! FOG that lasts ALL DAY. We pull out of the marina and go anchor near the end of the bay.
Day 3 - Get up early to leave. Look out the port and everything looks fine. We pull up the anchor, head out the bay, and THE WIND IS ON OUR NOSE! We bash into waves for three hours and only make about 8 miles progress. This is supposed to be fun and we decide to head back. We raise the sails and have a great sail (only a little over an hour to get back) back to Meldrum. We take a slip because by now it is obvious that it is going to STORM big time. And it does!
Day 4 - Get up early to leave. Look out the port and everything looks fine, except it's a little windy. We check the weather radio and there are small craft wind warnings (this is a Canadian thing). Winds will be from the W at 17-21 knots, shifting to the NW at 21 to 27 knots. Robin frowns but Russ figures we can make the 18 mile trip before the winds build. So we break one of our rules and leave when there are small craft warnings. The sail was invigorating bordering on scary! We were averaging 7.0 knots with just the main sail up. Many times we were surfing down REALLY BIG waves at 8.8 knots. Nope we didn't make it across the channel before the winds built to the 27 knots as forecast, in fact the last 5 or 6 miles were sailed in 30+ knots of wind.
Now I told you that story so I could tell you this. As we approached "Turnbull Passage", a neat little cut with 30 feet of water which takes you between two rocky shoals that are about 3 feet deep, the waves and winds had really built. She was blowing a gale and Robin said she had never seen waves with such weird shapes. These bad boys were long, nasty, breaking type waves and the spray was blowing off the tops and soaking us. About two miles south of the passage we heard this loud bang, it sounded like a shot gun. I looked back to see our brand new dinghy bouncing off across the heavy seas (Yup! This is the third one we've lost). Apparently a wave had broken right over top of the dinghy, the added stress of being filled with water caused the towing line to snap. In these conditions there was no way we could come about and retrieve her so off she went heading for Georgian Bay!
We did make it through the passage with no problems, that put us in the lee of the islands and conditions got better. Our stop for the night would be in John Harbour. We had crossed the channel with a Catalina 38 named "Rich Winds." We noticed that they had pulled into Cleary Cove which is a picturesque little cove which the charts show has only 4 feet depth in it's entrances and in the cove itself. We figured if they can make it --- WE CAN MAKE IT! This was a great decision. For the conditions the cove was perfect and the water depth was at least 7 to 8 feet. We were snug for awhile. As we went to bed that night we could hear the loons singing in the distance.
Now you have to understand that being up here without a dinghy is like being at home without a car! You can't go anywhere without a dink.
After a nice quiet night and a great morning of relaxing we were ready to get off the boat and do some exploring. BUT NO DINGHY! Then Russ had an idea! I noticed that the crew from Rich Winds were rowing our way. I shouted over to them and they came by to visit. I made them a offer they couldn't refuse. We had baked brownies that morning and I offered to trade them a batch of brownies for the use of their dinghy. It worked!
The next morning we left the cove and sailed (a great sail with 10 knots of wind) to Gore Bay. Our mission was to rent, buy, or steal a dinghy. Now that's another story! For now we have an OLD, BEAT UP, CRUMMY LOOKING, rigid fiberglass dinghy which we are renting from Canadian Yacht Charters. She is for sale and we may buy her just to get us through this trip. I hate the thought of paying the Canadian Government Sales Tax, import duties to the US, and then the hassle of trying to register a new foreign purchased dinghy in Michigan. We have a decision to make but it can wait for tomorrow!
Right now we're anchored behind Aikens Island in the Whalesback channel. We have the entire cove to ourselves and are having a ball. Last night we had a camp fire on the rocks overlooking the channel. It's raining outside, Robin is still asleep (she's going for the North Channel 12 hour sleeping award), and it's time for breakfast. Life doesn't get much better than this!
More Later,
Russ & Robin