Day 36, Sunday July 28^th – Bye Bye Bustards

Today is another early start as we have over 30 nautical miles to do and want to give ourselves some time to look around our next anchorages.  So it is a 5 o’clock wake up for us and off the anchor at 6:30a.m.  The sky is a little dark and not the nicest one to be heading out on, but there is wind blowing in somewhat the right direction.

The wind is somewhere around 15 to 20 knots so we decide to start the sail with a single reef in the main, and a partially rolled genoa.  We are targeting to make Hopewell Bay located just north of Parry Sound, there are a few other areas we can turn into if we want to get off the bay if needed. 

Entrance to Pointe au Baril

Around noon the wind has slacked so we shake out the reef in both the main and genoa.  Shaking out the reef in the main does not go so well, but we will have lots of practice before the adventure is over.   We leave the big water at the entrance to Point au Barrel.  It is somewhat disconcerting transition from sailing out on Georgian Bay to the small craft route with lots of shoals lurking around.  This is our first time on the small craft route and we are amazed at the traffic.  This is Georgian Bay cottage country with a multitude of cottages ranging from small camps to huge homes.  The big ones reminds us that there is lots of money in the world. 

We travel the small craft route for over 6 miles until we enter the top of Shawanaga Bay where we planned on anchoring for the night.   We have a little excitement when we go to drop the main as the dutchmen line has being tangled in the main halyard, a result of our bad job shaking out the reef earlier.  After a couple of attempts we get this problem corrected and head in to find a spot for the night.

We drop the hook around 3 pm and relax for a hour and then head over to visit our new neighbours, Ted and Maria of the good ship Trollop.  We share a beer with them and get some local knowledge from them as they are out of Midland.  Winds have built during the afternoon and are blowing fairly strong when we settle down for the night.  The wind is from the west and the bay we are in runs east-west.  There is no fetch to the waves but the wind is funneled down the bay.  This is not such a bad thing as it gets the wind generator working and with the big delta anchor and chain we have on Jazzebelle we are not overly concerned about wind without waves.  It is the waves that cause drag.

We supper once again around 8 o’clock our dinner time has settled in at this time.  We do have one issue rising on the boat and that is the lack of coffee, we have only enough for one maybe two pots.

By 10 we are once more in bed

Cheers

Dawson and Julie