The Georgian Bay/The Big Storm

The past week has had so many highs and lows it is going to be difficult to give you a sense of what we have experienced, but I will do my best. We had just finished the Trent-Severn Waterway when I last blogged and we stayed in Midland, Ontario for a couple of days until Jen and Jeff went to Toronto to fly home. We miss the extra hands on board, and our chef, but without the locks to handle we were OK. We hooked up with another looper couple who had done the loop in 2005-2006 and they assisted us in mapping out a course through the Georgian Bay so that we could eliminate some of the worst of the narrow channels. The terrain is rocks, rock and more rocks! They are both under the water and above the water so you have to be extremely careful to follow the marked channels and not take any short-cuts. We have included some pictures to give you an idea of what we have navigated through during the last week. The area has a rugged beauty, but you can ooh and aah over just so many rocks and trees and then it's time for the beach! We anchored out for four nights because there are not many towns and marinas up here and our traveling friends anchor most of the time during their traveling so we just followed along. They gave us many tips on how to anchor safely and we got pretty good at it by the third day. They also took many of the pictures we have included as we could not have taken our own shots as we traveled.

We left an area of the Georgian Bay covered with flat gray rocks and went through a very tight passageway called Collins Inlet. The terrain changed dramatically into high rock walls on both sides that were covered with trees and looked like a Norwegian fjord. We anchored in Mill Lake and were surrounded by rock walls on all sides. A number of other loopers came in and anchored also so we dropped our dinghy and went visiting. The middle of the afternoon it became very quiet and we watched a storm cell approach us from the west. The wind rose very quickly as the cell reached us and within minutes it was roaring like a tropical storm at more than 60 mph and lifting water off of the lake and rotating our boat sideways. It was terrifying, but we kept our heads, and Flint started the engines so that we could have power against this wind. We were being pushed toward our friend's boat and he was listing about 35 degrees as the wind pushed him. We narrowly missed hitting him when our anchor let loose and we were attempting to bring it in with the windlass. Flint powered the boat and headed away from them to give us more room to maneuver and to keep us off the rocks. The line became wedged in the windlass and I couldn't release it so we changed places and I ran the boat until he could get the line loose. All this time we were dragging the anchor behind us, which made it a little harder to keep control. He finally was able to release the line by loosening the drive mechanism of the windlass. This put the anchor into free fall so he brought up the remaining line, chain and the anchor by hand. The anchor had a "christmas tree" of weeds on it that had to be cut off before we could put everything back in the anchor locker to be ready to reanchor once the storm was done. We changed places again and I guided the line and chain back into the locker as Flint ran the windlass. It is amazing what physical feats we can accomplish when we have to. The wind lasted for about 45 minutes and the driving rain for about an hour and a half. We just went around in a circle at a slow speed until we were ready to anchor again. We are so grateful to the Lord for guiding our thoughts and bringing to our minds what tasks had to be done each step of the way. There was no panic and we were both pretty cool-headed during the process. After we were able to anchor again, we both kind of fell apart in tears to release the pent up stress. We are both fine and the boat had no damage. We thank you all for your prayers as we experience this trip for we know that God's hand is upon us at all times.

We had invited our friends to join us for dinner that evening and we had a good time enjoying each others company and reliving what we had been through that afternoon. They are full-time cruisers who have been traveling for about four years and they had never been through a wind that strong before. Later that evening we saw another storm cell approaching on our radar and we stayed up in the pilot house in our rain gear, just in case we had a repeat of what occurred in the afternoon, but all we got was a lot of rain, thunder and lightning. An unforgettable experience that has made us a little wary of anchoring, but which increased our confidence level as we saw that we were able to handle an emergency of that magnitude.

We stayed in the anchorage another night and saw two moose watering themselves in the lake. It is a beautiful place and we are very glad that we experienced it, but we feel like we are ready to get back to the States. We are considering forgoing some of the places in the North Channel that most of the loopers visit before they leave the area and just head for Michigan. We are just not "mountain" people and we need the fun of visiting new towns each day and meeting new people. After we left the anchorage, we arrived in Killarney, Ontario on Wednesday, and we love this town. They have a little red bus where the fishing boats bring in their daily catch from the Georgian Bay and they filet the fish, fry them and serve fish and chips out of the bus. It is some of the best fish we have had (other than what Flint and Jeff caught) on our trip. We are staying at the Killarney Mountain Lodge, which is a resort where people can either stay in their lodge rooms or on their own boat at the docks. They have a restaurant, bar, swimming pool and sauna that is available for all their guests. Luxury in the wilderness! When we arrived Flint realized that he had been here before in 1970 when he was doing a cable TV antenna survey in Sudbury, Ontario. It is definitely a small world!

We had a fun day biking through Killarney and picking blueberries by the side of the road. We saw a black snake, but did not approach too closely. Our repaired props just came in from Midland today and we will be leaving with our friends for Little Current tomorrow. We have decided that we can enjoy rocks and trees and anchoring for a couple of more days so we will be continuing through the northern side of the North Channel with our friends before we head for Michigan.

Thanks again for your prayers and keep it up!