Mike Another beautiful day
08/01/2007, Covered Portage Cove

7/31/07 Boyle Harbor to Covered Portage Cove

Another windless sunny day. We hoisted the anchor (after almost a month I've got the new windlass down) at around 9 am and backtracked a couple of miles to the point. Then up Landsdowne Channel toward Killarney, which we by passed, and continued on to Covered Portage Cove which is spectacular. There is an outer bay and then an inner bay both of which are surrounded by rounded limestone cliffs and trees where there's enough soil. It's a popular spot and there were probably ten boats in each of the coves when we arrived. Is sounds like quite a few but everyone was well spaced and all had their privacy if they wanted it.

After a quick lunch we found our hiking shoes and climbed one of the cliffs that had a trail for a great view back down on the boats in the cove. The hike reminded me of the last half mile of Ramseys Cascade.....If you've been there you know what I'm talking about, if not, read steep and rocky.


We switched to the larger dinghy motor for the first time ( we have two- a 9.8 hp that gets us up on plane and a 2.5 hp that we putt around to shore and back) to drive the two miles into Killarney hand headed back to town. Killarney is a very old town dating back to the late 1600's. It consists of a natural straight cut that divides the mainland from George Island which is about 50 yards wide and a mile long. Both sides are solid boats with a few houses and businesses thrown in to break things up a bit. The LCBO (read beer store) faced the channel and had its own dock so we stopped for a $40 case of Bud Light. The fishing dock was selling fish and chips from a permanently parked school bus on the water so after filling both dingy tanks with gasoline at the General Store (they also had their own dock) we were there for an early supper.

We spent the remainder of the day reading in the shade and jumping in the water periodically to cool off.

The most memorable event of the day occurred about two hours before sunset. Three sail boats that had been in the inner harbor came out and anchored between us and the nearest boat to the west. There was lots of room in the cove but they all bunched together much too close to both of us. On top of that, they really didn't anchor very well. (For those of you who are boaters... they had undersized anchors, 15 feet of chain and put out 45 feet of rode in 22 feet of water. If a thunderstorm popped up they would be dragging into either another boat or the surrounding rocks. The guy on the boat to our west, who had been here when we arrived, started yelling at the three sailboats for their rudeness and lack of seamanship. (Two of the three were single handing and the third had two guys.... All of whom seemed to be buddies) who promptly told the guy to mind his business.
Our neighbor who seemed to be in his 60's lost it... Screaming and swearing. It was embarrassing. A little later one of the three intruders dinghied over to try to smooth things out ... and the ugly American lost it again. Both parties were at fault and the whole scene put a little damper on an otherwise perfect day.

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Mike -Another beautiful day
08/01/2007, Boyle Harbor, Frazer Bay

7/30/07 Eagle Island to Boyle Harbor.

We woke up this morning to another perfect day. We had two destinations in mind, Oak Bay and Little Current. The entrance to Oak Bay was only about 3 miles to the north while Little Current was in the neighborhood of 20. Over coffee, we fired up Ken's program on the computer, pulled out some maps and guide books and tried to figure out when we needed to get serious about heading toward the East Coast. Our best guess is that we're ok but need to step things up a bit. We headed for Little Current at about 10 a.m. with no wind again. Navigating here is always fun... many times the shortest route is not the best.

Little Curraet is a small town where Manitoulin Island meets the mainland. We were going to stop at the government dock which is just a wall where boats tie up, but things were crowded and congested so we just kept going. There is a swing bridge that opens on the hour and we only waited about five minutes to get through.

Kathy set a course to the east where there were at least three good anchorages and we were on our way . A nice breeze kicked up so we quickly got the sails up for the remaining 10 miles. We ended up stopping in Boyle Harbor, which was a beautiful spot. We took the dinghy around to check for fish and just to have a look around. There are tow other boats here. We have two destinations in mind for tomorrow and are well staged for which ever we decide in the morning.

The rocks and cliffs here are white, which is a change from the pinkish-grey to the west. There were some great thunderstorms rolling through to the west of us this evening but it barely sprinkled in our cove.

One of the things that is interesting up here is listening to the VHF radio. The North Channel is small enough that people can talk to each other almost anywhere... and they do. Some people talk all the time and we find ourselves giving them personalities and appearances even though all we know them by is what they say on the radio. It is easy to tell sail boaters from power boaters and you can usually come up with a reasonably good guess at the size of their boats. Some people travel in packs... and after a few days we know which boats belong to which pack, where they're going and what's for supper.

Because of this almost constant idle chatter, the other 50% of the boaters up here remain silent.

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Kathy
08/01/2007, Eagle Island

We left Gore Bay with hopes of sailing, but the wind died and we motored on flat, calm water to Eagle Island, only 16 miles away. We arrived around noon, had lunch and then had kind of a lazy day, mostly reading. I did start a second layer of wax in the cockpit. We'd like to get at least three coats on to keep it looking nice. It was really hot, so I worked in the shady spot where there was a nice breeze. We had a delicious dinner of steak, broccoli, cucumbers and onions in sour cream, roasted Manitoulin Island garlic and bread.

There is a large harbor here and we can see other islands and the La Cloche Mountain Range in the distance. We might not actually call these mountains, but the Canadians do. The shore of this island, like many others, is wooded and rocky. We did not go to shore and explore, but Mike did try fishing. He caught some small-mouth bass and threw them back. I guess this was a pretty uneventful day!

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