Monday, July 16, 2012

Byng Inlet to anchorage at Bustards Island Harbor

Days on cruise:  115

Distance traveled:  24.4 miles

Travel time:  3 hours, 7 minutes

Total trip odometer:  2,538 statute miles

We’re nearing the end of Georgian Bay and will enter the North Channel soon. Among other things, we’re now in territory that is so remote our cell signal is no longer 4G. We know you don’t care about that, but it does mean our blog post today will be all text, no photos. The signal is just too slow to upload photos.

IMG_5688

Leaving Byng Inlet, we wound our way through more of the narrow, shallow, winding channels for which Georgian Bay is famous, repeatedly finding ourselves approaching red and green markers only 30 feet apart, at which point we had to make a 90 or 120 degree turn QUICKLY in order to avoid rocks a few feet away.

P1010772

For people who enjoy puzzles, navigating here is a dream come true! We find it interesting and somewhat tension-inducing, but not actually scary. We feel hyper-vigilant might be the best way to describe it. We work as a team, one driving the boat, the other providing necessary assistance with navigation by evaluating the chartplotter, the paper charts, or standing on the bow while the boat moves at idle speed looking for rocks in our path. P1010775

We’re now at an anchorage that required the most circuitous routing to enter we’ve yet encountered. There are two other motor vessels and one sailboat in the cove with us, none Loopers. One more big sailboat came in to look around, but apparently decided it was too crowded and moved elsewhere.

IMG_5691

It was cloudy and cool-ish this afternoon, so we plunked ourselves in comfy chairs on the sundeck to read junk novels for the afternoon. Very pleasant, and not something we’ve had time for much since last December. We plan to stay for another layover day tomorrow, and if we keep doing this, we might run out of time/season and have to winter over here in Georgian Bay! We understand we’ll have to trade in the boat for a pair of snowmobiles if that happens as the lake freezes over, so maybe not?

No comments: