There seems to be a huge weather system over stalled over the Great Lakes this week and we had torrential rains and 30+ knot winds overnight. We decided to stay right where we are for another day until this thing blows over or at least figures out which way the wind is going to blow. It has shift over 200 degrees in direction throughout the day and the waves on the lake are apparently quite large and confused so not a good place to be.

We decided to take the bikes into town and re-provision with trips to Walmart, Canadian Tire.. Zehrs and M&M Meat Shops and the local bakery....this town has everything...almost. We also dropped into the Gozzard Boat Company and got a tour of their facility. For those of you not familiar with this company, they design and build some very fine blue water cruising yachts that are literally all over the world. It was interesting to see how a small, customer boat builder actually does their work. Very cool and very nice people!!! Finn also had a banner day spotting 3 rabbits and chasing 1. He also made a friend of a very large German Shepherd at the yacht club. This was a milestone for him as he normally doesn’t want anything to do with Shepherds.

We have been monitoring the weather all day on various internet sites but could not get the usual Canadian Coast Guard marine weather report on the VHF radio. I asked the lady at the marina office if her radio was working but they only monitor channel 68. We have 2 separate VHF sets on the boat and 2 handhelds. I checked all of them and was getting the same result so I ruled out the possibility of it being our radio. I called the Coast Guard and the guy sent out a test message while I was on the phone with him...which we didn’t get. He said he’d check things out and call back, which he did a few minutes later. He figures because we’re in a harbour surrounded by some very high hills on 3 sides, we can’t get the signal from their Kincardine site. Now you’d think someone working at a place like a marina would know if there was a problem with radio reception, wouldn’t you?

I will climb the hill in the morning to see if the handheld set works to prove his theory. If not, we’re not going anywhere until we get this figured out. The middle of Lake Huron in 2 meter waves with 20 knot winds is not a place to be without a working radio. First there’s no wind, now there’s too much. That’s sailing!