Bob and Gail's Next Adventure: Days 136-140

46° 09' 43" N 82° 37' 24" W – Beardrop Harbour

46° 04' 50" N 82° 12' 34" W – Croker Island

44° 57' 15" N 83° 17' 4" W – Robinson Bay

Drummond Island - sorry, I forgot to get the co-ordinates

45° 51' 58" N 84° 43' 7" W – St. Ignace

We left Kagawong shortly after 8 to make a quick run to Croker Island. We knew there was a front coming in, so we didn’t plan on going far. Good thing, because the comfort level was very low, a rough ride to say the least. The really rough areas were short, thank goodness, and we were at our anchorage in less than 2 hours. The rain had just started as we anchored, closer to shore than we liked, but OK – we THOUGHT. It was a windy day and water was very choppy – so funny how that would have bothered me just a few months ago – now it’s just choppy water. Bob worked on boat projects and I did some cleaning. We played some games, read, and I made my shopping list for when we get back to the states. We kept an eye on our position all day and we looked to be holding fine, even with the stronger winds. The winds died down in the evening so we expected a fairly quiet night. It was not to be. Our anchor alarm went off around midnight, we pulled in 10 feet of our anchor chain so we weren't so close to shore and kept a watch on our position for awhile. It appeared that we were drifting bit by bit so Bob finally started up the engines and we pulled anchor and reset it in deeper water. This time it held well and we were able to get back to sleep. This morning the sun was out, no rain and NO WIND!! Off we went to our new anchorage in Beardrop Harbour – (haven’t seen any bears yet or their droppings). It is a very popular harbor with 11 boats so far! Lots of people dinghying to shore as we will tomorrow. We spent today re-configuring our next week as tomorrow will not be a good day to cross the North Channel. Saturday and Sunday sound perfect. Saturday we will cross to Drummond Island to check in with customs as we enter back into the USA and Sunday we will transit the last bit of Lake Huron to Lake Michigan!

As for today’s journey – calm seas and blue skies!

Can you say “Billboard”? On the water???

Anybody know what kind of bug this is? They are all over our boat!

Turtle Rock

After looking at maps so much, even the clouds start looking like islands – that bay, while very protected, looks a little shallow for us J

Our home for the next two days. At least that was the plan.

Our night in Beardrop Harbor, while peaceful waters prevailed – the mosquitoes also seem to like it. I went outside to get a picture of the gorgeous sunset...

And managed to let in about 200 hungry mosquitoes! We spent the next 5 hours hunting them down! Every time we tried to go to sleep we’d hear the dreaded whine again! Sleep finally came and we both slept in that morning! Very unusual for Bob.

In a surprise weather revision, Friday afternoon was forecast to be good traveling weather to cross the North Channel, making Saturdays trip to Drummond Island much shorter, so we decided to go ahead and cross. It was a shame to leave our beautiful quiet anchorage but couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The crossing was quite good, a beautiful sunny afternoon and fairly smooth water. The anchorage on the other hand was anything but! We were open to the swells coming off the lake. The good news was that our anchor held beautifully despite the rocking and rolling! Didn’t get a lot of sleep L.

Saturday was off to Drummond Island to check back into the USA. Another smooth day of travel following two, new to us, Loopers – Chemistry and Manatee. The marina was quite busy but managed to get us all docked and we met the new Loopers we had followed in, as well as two more! Checking in was easy – the customs agent came right to our boat, checked our documents, asked a few questions and we were done. We had a nice docktails on the dock with all 5 boat couples and retired to an early bed to make up for too many lost nights sleep – peaceful – no mosquitoes, no swell – just sleep!

We both woke up well rested and ready for another smooth ride to St. Ignace Marina, where we plan to spend two nights and tour Mackinac Island on Monday.

Another surprise – my wave app – which has been quite accurate so far – predicted 1 ft waves and 0 swells for today.

This is a picture of one of these 1' waves crashing over our bow! The sailboat, on the other hand, is flying through the water “wing and wing” – both sails out to catch the wind from behind.

Needless to say, I am spending the day down below (it's rougher up on top) and not moving about the boat unless absolutely necessary. The crazy thing is that the app still insists we are in smooth waters! At least it’s a beautiful sunny day and wind is coming from in front of us and not the side. I still managed to perch on the door sill and get a few pictures.

We saw a commercial cargo ship for the first time in two months!