Up early and underway by 7:30 as we are
going to try and make Wingfield Basin (top of Bruce Peninsula) today. It had been a bouncy night, the anchorage is
well suited for a west wind but as the winds had been from the north for a
couple of days the waves were still from the north and were rolling in the
anchorage. Winds are still blowing 20
knots from the West and the direction does not bode well for sailing but we
decide to check it out. It is obvious
once we clear the lee of Beckwith that it is not a good day to head for
Wingfield. Both the wind and waves (1.5
meters) are on the nose; we have no real schedule so make the decision to head
back to Beckwith for the day. We anchor
a little closer in to the beach this time and are back at anchor by 8:05. We have breakfast and decide what to do with
the day.
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| Shoreline at Beckwith Island |
After breakfast we drop the dinghy, put the
motor on and head to shore for a hike around.
The island is quite nice and is part of group of three islands, Beckwith,
Hope and Christian. We had often flown
over these islands, as they are directly under the flight path between Toronto and
Sudbury and had often thought it would be a good place to visit and here we are. The island is set up for camping and is run
by the Christian Island Indian Band.
There is a charge for using the island but there is no one to pay
today. We walk over to the west side of
the island and along the coast. We spot
some small shore birds and take some pictures so we can identify them when back
on the boat. From there we cross back
over to east shore and along the beach.
The beach is quite nice all sand and about a kilometer in length. We speak to another boater, Quinn, on shore
with her golden retriever about the night, it sounds like they bounced more than us as
they are in a 32’ power boat. We are
invited back to join them for happy hour.
We agree to appear around 5 pm and head back to the boat.
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| Chelsea, Quinn and Andrew |
We spend a very relaxing day reading,
napping and eating I can’t remember if we got any work done. Around 4:30pm we head back to shore for happy
hour. As we motor in we stop at 2
sailboats anchored along the way. The
first one Komoko is quite accepting of the invitation and say they will be
right in; the 2nd boat is not so excited. Once ashore we join Quinn and her partner
Andrew at their beach umbrella. They are
quite sophisticated boaters having both afternoon beach chairs and evening
beach chairs. About 10 minutes later we
are joined by Scott and Karen from Komoko.
They arrive at the beach on their jet ski; they are the first sail
boaters we have met who tow a jet ski instead of a dinghy. It
is a good afternoon, it turns out Scott’s parents had done a sailing trip south
so it was interesting to get his advice and comments from a son’s
perceptive. Couple of pieces of
advice 1) stock up on beer in Florida before heading over to the Bahamas as
beer was quite expensive there and 2) if you are having guest coming to visit
make sure they are flexible. It turns
out Scott was set to visit his parents one Christmas in the Bahamas and had
booked his flights, the night before his departure he got a call from his
father stating that they were still in Florida and would not make it to meet
him in Nassau. Scott flew to Nassau,
cleared customs and got on a flight to Fort Lauderdale. He then sailed with his parents over to
Nassau. We finish off happy hour with an
invite from Andrew and Quinn to join their beach fire in the evening. Prior to heading back to the boat we get to see how excited
Andrew and Quinn’s golden Chelsea is to ride on their Jet Ski, not much, but she
accepts it as it lets her stay with the pack.
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| Dawson towing dinghy back to its mainship |
As dinner is being prepared we notice a
dinghy with a young boy in it drifting out, it appears the motor has quit on
him and winds are high enough his rowing is not getting him in the right
direction. Dawson jumps in our dinghy
for the rescue and completes his good deed for the day.
Dinner was another excellent meal. Julie has the ability to prepare an excellent
meal anytime on the boat, with a wide selection. Once the sun is starting to set we head back
to the beach, Quinn and Andrew have the fire laid, the chairs including the
ones we had left in the afternoon set up around the fire, they are excellent
people to hang with. We spend a nice
evening talking and watching the sky, and see an excellent shooting star. We head back around 10:30 and get the dinghy
stowed for an early take off in the morning.
The waves have dropped so should be a good night.
All and all a nice day we will see what the
morrow will bring.
Cheers
Dawson and Julie
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