Day 34
Travel Time:
6 hours
NM today: 24
NM total:
787
Locks today:
0
Locks total:
70
Last night
we studied the weather and wind reports carefully to determine our plans for
travel to The Bustard Islands over some open water. We decided that the earlier we left port the
better, so we planned to get up and on our way first thing in the morning. Only one catch, last night Clark had gone
over to the office to pay for our night’s stay and missed the staff by about 5
minutes of closing time. That meant we
could not leave until after 8:00 this morning.
We didn’t pay when we checked in because we couldn’t decide then if we
would need to stay two nights to get a weather window to get to our next stop.
We pulled
out of our dock space at 8:10 and made our way back down Byng Inlet to the open
waters of Georgian Bay. No sooner did we
approach the open waters than we starting riding a bucking bronco. I could not imagine 3 hours of hanging on
with both hands with death grips, and I started to think about putting on my
life jacket. About that time I started thinking
that this could be a real miserable trip.
Clark and I discussed whether or not we should turn around and head back
into Byng Inlet for another night, but we agreed that we would rather push
onwards than retreat, so we decided to do a test.
Once we
covered the four nautical miles required to get out of the inlet, we would be
turning the boat from 270 degrees to 336.
The question we needed to answer the question of how the waters would be
once we turned. We did a quick turn to
approximately 336 to check it out and found that we were not thrown about
anywhere near as much. Okay then, only
two miles of being tossed around and then maybe some relief in sight. I asked Clark if he was happy he had married
an intrepid wife, and he smiled and said, “Not many people would be willing to
be out here in this.” I guess that meant
yes.
Folks
familiar with sailing should know the term “tacking” where instead of heading
straight into wind, the boat is piloted in a zig-zag pattern to reach the
destination. Clark decided that he could
tack to the buoy at the end of the inlet to give us some relief. That helped tremendously even though it
increased the distance and time traveled before we could turn. I had been thinking it but Clark suggested
that we put on our life jackets, so I asked if he was that concerned with the
waves. He said, “No, just thinking about
safety”, and so we put on our jackets.
That also served to add another layer of warmth as the wind was quite
cold.
Once we
turned the waves were still bouncy but we no longer found those “rogue” waves
that must have been in the six foot range.
Oddly enough, now that some of the tension had been removed from the
picture, both Clark and I decided around
10:00 that we were very hungry – must have been all the energy used up worrying
about the boat ride. I made sandwiches before
we left the marina because I didn’t know what we would be facing, and I did not
feel like having cheese and crackers as my lunch for two days in a row. We ate lunch at 10:30 because the waters had
settled down enough to let us eat without wearing our food.
As we
finally approached The Bustard Islands, Clark asked me to read about the
anchorages in our boating guide. The
first anchorage mentioned said that the anchorage was well protected but it
difficult to get the anchor to hold. We
decided to skip that and go for the second option where they said that a layer
of mud covered the rock bottom. This
anchorage they referred to in the book as The Bustard Islands Harbour. When we entered the anchorage, one sailboat
was anchored there which helped verify that we were in the right place. It is very hard to tell one rock / island
from another here.
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| Sailboat in Anchorage at The Bustard Islands Harbour |
Clark
deployed the dinghy and took 100 feet of 5/8” – 3/4 “ anchor line with him to
tie the line to a tree on shore. He
explored for quite some time with the dinghy trying to determine the depth of
the water close in by the trees (he has a depth sounder he rigged for his
dinghy) and find the right tree for his purpose. Eventually he came back to the boat having
tied the line around the tree and secured the ends of the line to a boat fender
which he left floating off the side of the island.
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| Clark in dinghy getting ready to tie line to a tree on shore |
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| Clark looking for the perfect tree to tie to |
“Okay”, he
said upon his return, “here’s the plan.
We move the boat towards the floating fender, deploy a stern anchor, and
then pick up the bow anchor line with a boat hook and tie it up.” Sounded similar to a procedure we have used to
anchor to the beach at Sandy Hook, so okay so far. Everything went according to plan until the
wind decided to join into the fun. The
stern anchor was deployed with Clark in the back tending that. I had retrieved my fender and had the bow
anchor line attached. Then the wind got
us in its grip, and I watched in horror as the boat was blown sideways ever
closer to shore with giant, unforgiving rocks relentlessly approaching. I could not see Clark in the stern dealing
with the stern anchor, so I just kept shouting back to him that we were in
trouble and the situation appeared to be getting worse and worse.
I grabbed a
boat hook and was able to fend the boat off the rocks by pushing the boat hook
against the rock face. As I struggled to
keep the boat off the rocks, Clark came up beside me to untie the bow line with
the other end attached to the tree. I
had untied the fender floatation from the line, so that had to be
reattached. The line was pulled taut by
the force of the wind, so Clark had a hard time getting enough slack on the
line to untie it and throw it off the boat.
Eventually he got it untied and thrown overboard and then ran back up to
the helm to get the boat in reverse and away from shore. Phew!
I sighed a big sigh of relief as I watched the rocks getting farther and
farther from the bow of the boat.
With the “tie-to-the-tree”
solution a giant fail, Clark then brought the end of the stern anchor line up
to the bow of the boat and tied it off such that the anchor he had deployed for
the stern was now the bow anchor.
Running around the boat with the anchor is extremely difficult. The anchor weighs a great deal just by
itself, add to that 10 to 20 feet of chain and 100 feet of line, and you’ve got
some weight going on. To move the anchor
on the boat it takes the two of us.
Clark carries the anchor and chain and I carry the 100 feet of anchor
line. I clearly get the easy part of
this job. For this anchoring scenario, since
the anchor was already in the water, we just had to move the line around to the
front.
What a
production the anchoring turned out to be, and the whole time we were concerned
with drifting into either the rocks or the one-and-only boat anchored in the
anchorage with us. The sailboat here
with us is from Canada and probably used to anchoring in these waters. I wonder if they enjoyed the show or just
wondered what the heck the U.S. folks thought they were doing. When all was said and done, we were anchored right
back where we had started an hour earlier before Clark tried the
anchoring-to-the-tree maneuver. The only
difference was that we were now anchored with the Danforth and not the
plow. Thank goodness we ate lunch at
10:30 because when I eventually got to look at my watch, I saw that it was now 2:30. We must have spent at least an hour getting
the boat anchored.
Clark kept
finding things to do on the boat related to cleaning up the mess we had made anchoring. I kept harping on the fact that he had to go
out in the dinghy and retrieve his line and my fender. Eventually I guess he figured out that I was
going to keep nagging about my fender until it was returned to me, and he went
off in the dinghy to bring it back. His
assessment of the spot he had chosen to tie the boat was that it was a focal
point for the wind so that it was windier there than other places in the
anchorage. Figures!
Eventually
the anchor must have dug itself in because the anchor alarm stopped sounding
every two or three minutes. Clark
decided that everything was secure and we could take the dinghy out to go
exploring since it was already deployed off the swim platform. We decided to go visit the other anchorage to
see if any of our AGLCA friends had found their way to that anchorage since at
least two boats from the group had The Bustard islands on today’s agenda. We found five or six sailboats over in that anchorage
but no loopers. They must have all been
sane enough to sit out the winds and wait for a calmer day to travel.
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| Exploring the Bustard Islands by Dinghy |
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| The other anchorage choice had many sailboats present |
Most of the
dinghy ride out was interesting and dry, but at one point we came out into
water where the wind was whistling through, and we took spray from a wave over
the boat. The water is cold. The wind is strong. The combination made for a cold shower and
colder dry off. Fortunately I was not
facing forwards when we got hit, so I didn’t get a face full of water, but I
did get an earful of water. Besides that
it was my faithful green and orange coat that took a bath as well as my
backside. After that I kept my head down
and my hood up!
After exploring,
we returned to Sea Moss, and I helped a little with the cleanup, but Clark did
most of the work to get the boat in order and the dinghy stored on the swim
platform for tomorrow’s travel. I
started working on this blog entry.
Around 6:00 Clark came and asked me about dinner. He wanted to eat Al Fresco at the table up top
and did not want to dine with bugs, so he was anxious for me to cook the meal,
so we could enjoy dinner without uninvited pests.
At every
opportunity I have looked at the sad offerings of vegetables in the grocery
stores or at the marinas and found the selection not worth buying. Tonight, however, I wondered if I should have
been less picky as we consumed the last of our green vegetables. We are anchoring out again tomorrow, and I
have meat and potatoes but no veggies to add to it. I just hope that when we get to Killarney I
can replenish my food stores with fresh vegetables and a few other items that
are either low or fully depleted.
We finished
dinner around 7:15 and thought about how much we seem to pack into each and
every day of this adventure. With the
exception of my addiction to the Facebook game ‘alphabetty’ and snatching up my
Kindle whenever I can get a minute, which is not very often, we find our days
are full of boating activities that keep us both moving and focused like
studying charts and spotting buoys, dodging rocks and deploying anchors, doing
laundry and cleaning the boat, exploring the area by kayak, bike, or dinghy, …
The list never ends including watching beautiful sunsets.
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| Cloud Cover at Sunset |
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