Day 23 Monday July 15 – We are alone

So far we have spent very little time alone, a few days here and there through the week.  We once again woke to a hot, blue beautiful day in Matheson.  There was no wind, so we could not come up with a reason to change anchorages so we continued to swing.  Our fellow boaters all upped anchor and headed out, but we could see new boats coming into our cove.

We swam out to the point and then circumnavigated the small island north of Matheson by foot, stopping to do some sun salutations, push ups and a few “warrior” poses to stretch our muscles.  Along the way there were a few blueberries to munch on.

A beaver was swimming along the shore in the water ahead of us.  We watched it for awhile until we got to the east end of the island.  Here there is a little beach and it is extremely warm due to the shallows.  We swam back to the boat as Scapin from Sarnia was pulling in.  They live in Bright’s Grove near Julie’s family.  Airtime also is travelling with Scapin.  They are heading to Caribbean this fall so we can chat with them about the “to do” list etc.

Too much sun on belly.  Got redder over the next couple days

Can’t really remember what we did during the day.  Unless we write it down, the day just passes.  By 5:00 in the evening we were on shore having a sundowner with Scapin and Airtime.  We had also packed for a shore dinner which was excellent, a fire with no bugs.  Normally if we have a fire we do it at nightfall and it is very buggy so we are not so keen.  We like this idea of having a 5:00 fire on shore.  We packed up by about 8:00 and headed back to shore for some reading and blogging time.

By now we realize we had gotten a bit too much sun.  The belly that has not seen the sun for years is red.  Not good.  It gets even redder as the week progresses.  Need to slather on that 50 protection.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 22, Sunday July 14^th – another hot day

Water like glass on way to Amedroz

We awoke to another beautiful day, with sun and heat at the early hour of 7:30.  Al was already up and out fishing hoping to catch a bass.  Today was Karen’s official birthday.  The day progressed rapidly from coffee, breakfast and the cruiser’s net, with a swim thrown in there somewhere.  After breakfast and another swim we considered options for the day.  The water was flat so we knew sailing was out, but it did beckon for a dingy ride. 

Swim at Amedroz

We loaded up the 4 dinghies and headed south from Matheson to Amedroz Island.  This is an island we have passed many times but have never landed on.  On the north side of the island is a nice anchorage for a west wind.   The anchorage featured a sand beach and a small creek flowing into the small bay; great for minnow catching.  From here we headed back to Matheson where we had another swim and lunch.  In mid afternoon a Bald Eagle came and perched in a tree for about an hour.  Around 4 our friends had to start thinking about heading back to dock as they are still members of the working world.  It reminded me of how my Aunt Judy who had been retired about a year, told me that Sunday was her favorite day as she got to watch all the other cottagers on Penage head back to Sudbury while she sat in her Muskoka chair.  As there was no wind for sailing the Trevisiol’s offered to take Al and Karen back to Little Current, an offer that was accepted.  By 6 pm all the power boats were gone and we had moved and anchored out in the bay, with plans to head out in the morning.

By ourselves now in Matheson

We enjoyed another excellent meal and off to bed, a nice end to the weekend.

Cheers

Dawson and Julie

Day 21, Saturday July 13

Little Jamaica

We wake up to a hot beautiful day in Matheson.  First thing after coffee and breakfast is a swim and yoga on the rocks.  Patti, Karen, Beth, and Colleen join Julie for the exercise.  We are pleased at the amount of exercise we continue to get.  It really is a physical existence. 

Calm water for dinghy ride

Dawson and Al busy themselves with an island explore and then scrub the decks.  There are tons of bugs.  Especially some white bugs or skeletons everywhere.

Lunch at the beach

The group decides a dinghy ride and picnic lunch is in order.   We dinghy over to Little Jamaica, Fort Lacloche and then the island to the west of Matheson for lunch.  The little island we lunch on must have regular visitors as there are swings on the beach and a nail polish station set up.  Mark and Hiney Trevisiol have also joined our group for the day.  The women all go for a swim after lunch and decide to swim back to the mother ship(s) which is about 600 meters away.  The water is shallow and warms up like a bathtub in a few spots (and not because someone peed in the water). 

Fort Lacloche



Ladies swim back to the mother ship



The guys pack up and head to Croker on the dinghies.  The water is so still that Croker seems close although it is a bit of a ways away.  Other friends are anchored at East Croker but they are not at their boats unfortunately.  We all reconvene around 5 at the mother ships. 

Karen and Colleen (birthday girls)

Julie has invited everyone for dessert as it is Karen’s birthday tomorrow and Colleen’s birthday on Tuesday.  Julie managed to bake a cake while everyone was swimming as a surprise for the birthday boaters.

Beth and Karen post Grey goose martinis

Mark and Hiney depart around 6 o’clock leaving 10 persons to crowd into our cockpit for cake.  Cake is served at around 9 and the mosquitoes are fierce forcing us to zip everything up and it is very very warm with 10 people crowded in.  The cake is a hit, followed by charades for the fun people.  Karen and Beth have had a few Grey Goose martinis so are enthusiastic about the charades unlike a few of the guys.  After Beth almost heads down the companionway head first we call it a night and hit the sack.

Cheers Julie and Dawson.







Day 20 Friday July 12^th

Dawson blogging from the salon.  Footstool is assymetrical sail

Woke up in Mosquito Cove and headed to Little Current to pick up our guests Al and Karen Kettles-Smith.  We sailed down the Wabuno Channel as it was an easterly.  We got to the town at around noon and able to get a pump out and gas for the dinghy and top up our water tanks.  One water tank does us about 10 days.  As usual we had lots to do in Little Current.  After topping up we parked at the town docks next to a beautiful Tartan 44.   Dawson helped our neighbour Chuck over to the service docks and learns the Tartan had a 100hp engine and bow thruster.  Very impressive!

Time to clean the boat now, and get groceries, then head over to the cruisers net happy hour at the Anchor Inn.  We were expecting Al and Karen around 6, but they texted and were able to get away from Sudbury early so would arrive around 4:00 which is great as we are heading to Matheson to meet up with friends.

Al and Karen, our second set of guests

The happy hour was good.  We were able to meet Airtime which is an Abbott 36 out of Sarnia that is also heading to the Caribbean this fall.  We had met their travelling friends at Covered Portage earlier in the week so had been on the lookout for Airtime.  We also got to chat to Fairytale owners Venetia and Ted who own a Caliber 38 and have done lots of sailing including a trip to the Caribbean many years earlier.  Venetia’s advice was open all the cardboard boxes and packages on the docks, not in your boat as it will keep out cockroaches.  Sounds like a good idea to me.  We will have to keep that in mind once we start travelling south.  There are also a bunch of tugboats in town as they are part of the 100 year celebration for the swing bridge anniversary this weekend.

We hooked up with Karen and Al and loaded all the food and goodies they brought and are off the dock by 5:00.  The winds were suitable to sail up the Wabuno Channel.  We did have to tack but at least we got a bit of sailing under our belts.  Once we got into the north channel to head west, we could no longer sail as the wind had also dropped and time was a marching on.  We ducked behind Hog Island for the first time and there was lots of water, and tied up with our reservations by about 8:00pm.  Just in time for the mosquitoes to get Dawson while he was barbequing.  Dickieson’s, Trevisiol’s and Strange’s were to be our rafting mates for the weekend. 

Al on bow watch as we come into anchor late

We shared a sundowner with our boat mates and headed off to bed in reasonable time.  Hopefully Karen and Al can get some sleep in their “cozy” accommodations.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 19 Thursday July 11^th

The wind has finally died down.  The waves have abated and we decide it is time to head east.  All of our fellow boaters are also evacuating the wave bowl in South Benjamin’s that we have been in for 2 days.  Everyone is anxious to move on.

Dawson rigging DRS

We head out after fabulous coffee.  It is difficult to get underway too early as neither of us wants to interfere with our wonderful relaxing coffee mornings.  Every morning Dawson hand grinds our beans.  We have been dripping the coffee and it is excellent.  We also tend to sleep in until 8:00 and then listen to the 9 o’clock cruisers net show which is almost an hour long.  We are not sure where we will head but know we want to get closer to Little Current as we do not want to risk not picking up our guests on Friday.

Successful launch, (note the life jacket)

We set out with a bit of wind, but it dies very quickly.  Often there is wind until about 11 in the morning, just when we get going, then it dies for the afternoon and picks up at 5 or 6 in the evening for a couple hours.  We are sad we will have to motor.  In an attempt to sail, we head south on the east side of Clapperton, but it does not help.  The iron genny is on for the next couple of hours.  South of Amedroz we decide to head north between Bedford Island and Amedroz, but still no wind, but a shorter distance to Mosquito cove.  As we get closer to Mosquito we decide it would be a good idea to hoist our Assymetrical sail.  This is the colourful sail that is used in light winds,that we may need for the race in a week; definitely a good idea to hoist prior to the race.

We turn west (opposite direction to our destination) to try to catch the light wind. Dawson has rigged the sail which can be a bit tricky and we are ready to hoist.  The sail fills and it is a beautifully sight; a perfect trial run with no errors.  We are very happy with ourselves.  The sail is in very good shape as it has not been used very often at all.  Hopefully we get to use it in the race.

Julie relaxing

After about an hour we douse the sail and it gets repacked into its sail bag to be stored below deck.  Now it is time to anchor and have our traditional Gin and Tonic reward for a good days work sailing. 

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 18, Wednesday July 10^th, a very blustery day

Neighbour on the roscks

Dawson hoisting anchor for Greg Miles

The Day started off with a bit of excitement.  During the night the winds had built as predicted.  The only issue was that the wind had stayed to the south long enough to set up waves from the south.  These were able to roll up into the anchorage and get the boats rocking.  We were out of bed at 5:30 to check things out, Dawson looked to the east and said “I think Irish Wake has dragged”  but then noticed that the crew of Irish Wake was on the deck, within 30 seconds there was 3 blasts on Irish Wake’s air horn stating that he was in distressed.   Within 5 minutes there was 4 dinghies over at Irish Wake, with 3 of us pushing and one pulling on a line from the bow.  After 15 mins we had managed to push her off the rocks.  I jumped aboard to hoist the anchor.  She then moved over and re-anchored on the west side of the bay with the rest of us.



Julie sewing the sail cover in the wind

We spent the rest of the day working on the boat and watching the boat walk around her anchor. Julie did a sewing job on the sail cover as the boat tossed and turned with the waves.  On a number of occasions Dawson called Julie to deck to say we were dragging only to have Julie point out that we have just stretched the chain out.  We did leave the boat for about 30 minutes going over to the shore for a quick hike down to the southern point. The hike was nice as we were now 24 hours of rolling back and forth.  No seasickness though, but Julie did take a preventive gravol.  On the bright side our wind generator was spinning around providing some energy for the boat.

We had another excellent dinner and headed off for bed around 10 in the evening.

Jazzebelle blowing at anchor

Cheers

Dawson and Julie

 

Day 17, Tuesday July 9th

Day 17 July 9^th – Watching our son on TV in a Bar

Awoke to another beautiful morning, we had anchored only 5 miles north west of Little Current as we had to be in port and on the internet for Ross’s race at 11:15.  Ross was running in the finals for the world university games.  We tied up to our “usual spot” on the wall at Little Current and made our way up to the Anchor Inn.  Our plan was to dally over breakfast while watching the race.  Just after setting up our computer and ordering breakfast Bruce O’Hare, the owner of the Inn came over.  His wife had told him of our plans to watch Ross, so he offered up the use of the big screen tv on the bar side of the Inn.  This was a much appreciated offer which we immediately accepted.

Julie watching Ross race on the big screen

It was very exciting to watch Ross on the big screen and was neat to reflect back on all the races we had watched.  From the 1^st race out in Falconbridge (small community in Sudbury) where Ross 1^st showed his talent to now watching him run in Kazan, Russia, with us standing in bar in Little Current.  It was a good race with Ross taking 9^th and his fellow Canadian Jeremy Rae taking the silver.  We are very proud of the boy, although his communication skills must improve as we have not heard from him as of this posting.  From Kazan he is off to Helsinki, then Sweden and finally Belgium as he is staying to train and race.  He will be back in Canada August 6^th.

Calm waters of South Benjamin's

We leave Little Current after the race and head to the South Benjamins.  Winds are predicted to be relatively strong (25 knots from the West and North West) so we are thinking that the Gut on the South Benjamins would be good, we were kind of right.  We arrive to find 4 other boats anchored in the bay with all crews up on the rocks enjoying the evening.  Once we are confident the anchor is set we head over to meet our new neighbors.  Two of the boats are out of Midland and the other 2 out of Michigan with the boats being kept on Lake St. Clair.  It is an excellent evening; during the conversation it comes out that the skipper of Irish Wake is a singer songwriter, Greg Miles,  when he was not working in GM Engineering office.  Greg even enjoy his 15 secs of fame after posting his song “I didn’t quit my day job, it quite me”, this was during the layoff in the car industries in 2009.  His posting was seen by media with him appearing on 20/20.  He is now fully retired having retired 2 weeks ago.  We convince him (was not hard) to hold a concert that evening at the back of his boat.  Around 8 o’clock the concert begins with Greg playing in the cockpit and us in our dingy tied to the back.  It was as one of the other boaters said reputably – Awesome.

The concert is over at dark with all of heading back to our boats.   The wind has started to pickup, from the south west, not the best for us, we let out some more chain and head to bed.  We have a good anchor and all chain so we are very confident on our not dragging during the night. 

Cheers

 Dawson and Julie