Trip to Georgian Bay
Trip to Georgian Bay
I hope you’re getting the most out of the remainder of the summer. This is my first week back from vacation and getting back into the swing of things. As I mentioned briefly in my last recap, we took our boat with another couple and went on a 746 mile trip from Lake St. Clair to Georgian Bay and back over 10 days. These kinds of trips usually turn into a Learning Series more than a vacation and this was no exception. Luckily, we are just crazy enough to enjoy that kind of excursion and so it was a lot of fun. Before even getting to Georgian Bay, I learned that 1) my iPhone can survive overnight in 8 ft of water at a beach in Lexington, MI, 2) the floats in our boat’s fuel tanks that measure the amount of fuel remaining are nowhere near accurate and, on a related note, diesel engines will quit working without fuel even if you’re 12 miles offshore from Alpena, MI and it’s inconvenient. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful and we were able to limp into port on one engine, fuel up, prime the other engine, and be back in business.
The 90 mile trip across Lake Huron was nice. Waves ranged from 2 to 4 ft and we were able to make it across in about 4.5 hrs. Tobermory, Ontario was our first stop once we got into Georgian Bay. After fueling up, we went past Flowerpot Island (see picture) and headed north to Club Island (see picture) to anchor for the night. Here, I learned 1) starry nights with no cities or lights for 50 miles are unmatched, 2) even when it’s calm and beautiful at 11pm, the winds can kick up to 35 mph by 3am, 3) our boat’s anchor will lose its grip in sand with approx. 34.9 mph winds, 4) reanchoring in the same pitch black darkness that made the Milky Way shine 4 hrs earlier without drifting into rocks requires a cool head and some practice (which I now have).
We then headed further north to Killarney, ON which became our base-of-operations for a couple days. The area where we were staying was designed to be traversed by boat/dinghy, whether you were going to a restaurant or the grocery store, they all had docks to tie up to. Super cool town and everyone was incredibly nice. In fact, everywhere we went the people were very nice and friendly. We then spent two days exploring one of North America’s only fjords and one of the largest freshwater fjords in the world, Baie Fine (pronounced “Bay Fin”, not “Bay Fine”). The pictures (see below) don’t do it justice. It is about 10 miles long, between 150-1000 ft wide and up to 200 ft deep. The first day we anchored about 8 miles in and found out that the fishing there was amazing, 12 large bass in 24 casts. On a related note, I learned that if you get a barbed hook buried an inch into your thumb and pushing it through isn’t an option because there is a bone in the way, you can rip it out with plyers without doing serious damage. The next day we went all the way to “The Pool” at the far end of the fjord. From there, we hiked to Topaz Lake where the slightly acidic water prevents any plant life and therefore no real living ecosystem. The quartz and other rock cliffs that line the 92ft deep lake give it its color and provide areas for people to dive into the water, which we did.
We ended up coming back home a day earlier than planned. The weather was perfect the entire time: sunny, 75 degrees and little wind except for the Club Island debacle. But on the Saturday we were supposed to come back across Lake Huron the wind was supposed to pick up with 7-10 ft waves. So, we came down the Canadian coast on Friday and the water was like glass the entire way. In the end, it was one of those trips that I wouldn’t call relaxing but that also wasn’t the expectation. It was our version of adventurous and it was great. Five stars, highly recommend.
