Today marks the end of our summer. Not literally, but as it
marks the beginning of our season-ending final voyage, it is that. We try to
get in one last, longer voyage to some place we haven’t been before. Last year
it was north of Killarney and the La Cloche mountain fjords. This year we are
trying for the North Channel. Of course, there are several factors affecting
the eventual success of that notion, the major one being weather. But other
things like work and such are factors. Fortunately, competition is fierce in my
line of work. Hopefully, one of those other bastards will beat me out for jobs
I have recently auditioned for. Priorities, you know. Anyway, I’m a going to
attempt to log this trip and you can travel along with us, on the good ship
Mary Mary, as we ply our way north and west.
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| The Crew - Day of departure |
Day 1 – Sept. 15, 2019 Wright's Marina, Britt to The Bustard Islands
The first day is always full of work as we get the ship
ready for long-term travel. We’re not the Endeavour to be sure, but we do have
a cat on board and apart from that there’s just the two of us. Mister Hattie,
head mouser, has had no work really as we have no mice. But we had to provision
and do other tasks like filling the water tanks, pumping out the waste tanks,
fuelling up and making sure we had enough alcohol on board. As you can imagine,
the latter task was the most taxing. We had to hire some men for that. Healthy
young stevedores that tend to gather on the piers and busk for work. One of
them quit when he realized the intensity of the job.
Anyhow, along about 1330 hours we headed off up Byng Inlet,
on route to The Bustard Islands. The weather is benign, with no wind to speak
of and the often-tempestuous bay at rest and gently rolling us out to deep
water. We don’t get out to the bigger bay very often as weather and waves can
make it too problematic to attempt. We tend to stick to the Small Craft
Channel, a buoyed waterway that uses the numerous islands as a shield from the
environment. But today, encouraged by the soft breezes, we chanced it out on
Georgian Bay.
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| Out on Georgian Bay |
It was, as I had hoped, a simple two-and-a-half-hour trip,
skirting the ever-dangerous and perilous rocks and outcrops that have lured
many a pleasure-boater to their doom. (Not really, but you do have to watch
out.) Then we ducked into what I am calling the Northeast Channel cove in The
Bustards and anchored in about 23 feet of water, tucked behind a small island.
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| The anchorage - The Bustards |
We have been pretty much alone since then except for a brief
incursion by an O.P.P. patrol boat that came in the narrow channel, heaving up
a huge wake that made us rock and roll. Smiling, the officer asked us how long
we were staying. We gave a vague answer and he was on his way. Brooke
speculated that the reason the boat was there at all was because of the equally
svelte female officer that was seated beside him. I guess they had to hove-to
somewhere else.
The evening is grand with a fine sunset peering through a
gap in the islands and we had cedar-planked salmon with asparagus for dinner,
cooked on the portable BBQ. So far so good. Tomorrow promises more of the same
and we may motor on further than usual as it is so hospitable.
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| Planked Salmon on the barbie |
Next episode: Cappie falls off the boat. Knock on wood.
