Touching Bottom (not the good kind)

When 12 tons of boat meets the Canadian Shield, the sound is memorable.

We ‘touched bottom’ today exiting the narrow channel from Bone Island National Park anchorage. It involves going through a passage between two small islands. Off the eastern island sits a rock, well-charted and marked with a white float marker. Off the western island, unmarked, is a rock shelf extending like a long, bony finger into the channel. There is probably about 25 feet of clearance between the two objects and when we arrived two days ago, proceeding slowly, we managed to avoid them both and spent two nights in the bay listening to weekend party-boaters careen about. Fairly quiet late at night and early in the morning, though. Caught and lost a huge bass with my first cast of the day and from then on just small fry. I digress…

Thunder clouds at Bone Island

We decided to leave the anchorage and head back to Penetang as today is Sunday, tomorrow Canada Day and the day after that we take up residence for a month at Hindson Marina.

We gave a loud, jaunty blast of our horn as we motored off towards the narrow channel. I kept a steady eye on the water and the GPS and it looked like we were approximately where we were when we had entered. But close, as they say, only counts in games of Toss-The-Hand-Grenade.

Brooke, who had been stationed on the bow to watch for such things, had just nipped into the salon to grab her polarized sun-glasses, the better to see that which we were about to hit. Just as she came back on deck we started to pass over the very end tip of the rock shelf.

Brooke & Huxley playing in the dinghy

Her loud ‘whoa, whoa!’ came a second too late. I threw the engines in reverse but our momentum carried us over the shelf. Bump! A point near the bow on the keel took the hit (fortunately) and the force of the collision drove the boat up and most of it cleared the shelf before coming down again. I say ‘most’... Bump! The second hit came just astern of amidships. Then we were clear. We looked at each other with wide eyes and hoped that perhaps this time we had been fortunate.  I hove-to in the bay while Brooke went down below to check that we weren’t taking on water. She reported back that everything looked all right. Shaken, we motored on and checked again a few minutes later, just in case. Still no leakage… It looks like the smooth boulders of the shield were going to forgive us this time.

Of course, the rest of the trip was not much fun, mostly because of the uncomfortable start, but also because it was Sunday and every child, woman and man (and most of the dogs) in the district of Honey Harbour were on the water. Thousands of them… One could only describe it as a zoo so that’s how I’m going to describe it.

At one point we passed a runabout being driven by two 8 year olds. Honestly. Children! Motorized running shoe after running shoe whizzed by us in the narrow channels, missing each other by inches and swamping anything around them. Sea-doos darted in and out oblivious to everything but their own ravenous appetite for speed.  Dinghies manned by older gentlemen from the big boats sloshed about between slow-moving sail-boats that rolled and tossed, prisoners of their slow speed. Wave after wave crashed against the sensitive shore line and those people unfortunate enough to have boats moored at docks near their cottages watched as their own craft bounced and chafed against the wooden boards, their lines groaning.

Part of the Flotilla of the Damned

Just as we were clearing this mayhem and heading towards the exit out into the bay, two canoes filled with visiting friends from Italy, who had obviously never canoed before in their lives, veered about in the small craft channel. I played tag with them for a while, slowing down to a crawl and steering this way and that as they tried to figure out how to make the canoes go in a straight line. I couldn't pass them because the markers which I couldn't transgress (but they certainly could have) were too close together. Finally the one guy who actually could canoe somewhat told the others how to steer out of the channel.

Canoeists playing with their future

The bay itself was a seething mass of churning, confused sea as the wakes from a thousand boats hit each other, climbed over each other and smashed down upon smaller more innocent wakes. Some swells had grown to considerable size and we jerked around heading towards Penetang. Down below Mister Huxley began to foam.

Huxley & Hattie pretend not to be interested in a fancy dinner.

It only lasted like that for a short while though and then we were back at our old anchorage in Discovery Harbour. Strange day.

Mary Mary 'neath the prow of HMS Tecumseth