Month: February 2018

Every morning at 9 am during July and August, Roy Eaton hosts the Little Current Cruisers Net on VHF channel 71. In addition to weather and news, he invites all boaters to check in with him.  Up to 150 boats may check in on a busy morning. We listen carefully as there are always other boats we are on the lookout for and once they check in with their location, it is easy to make arrangements to meet up with them. Roy has been doing this for 18 years now, and he is truly an ambassador for Manitoulin Island.  Thanks Roy. Once we know where our friends are, we can get together, go kayaking, or hiking as a group and just spend time with them. That part is important to us this year as we won’t see any of them until next summer.

Then it is off to the next destination to see what is new. In Heywood Island we came across a bald eagle's nest.  I was able to photograph him from out in the harbour with my zoom lens. Such a magnificent sight.  We found a small totem pole tucked into the trees on a deserted island, a huge fireplace sitting in a clearing by the shore where obviously there had once been a cottage. We sighted a forest fire about 300' up the side of one of the La Cloche mountains.  Again, with the zoom lens, we were able to capture the flames.  It took water bombers to put out the fire as it was too remote to bring in firefighters. We must have killed a thousand deer flies in one anchorage that were intent on draining our blood supply.  Our only choice was to put up the screens and spend the day below decks reading! Not a bad way to spend an afternoon when it is too hot to be outside. Did I mention I love being retired!

At the end of week 4, we began to make our way west. Our check in date to the US is August 15th so we have plenty of time to explore the islands west of Little Current. We had an amazing sail from Eagle Island to John Island in 35 km of breeze and our buddy boat recorded gusts up to 54.  We were in mostly protected waters so we didn't have any big seas to contend with but it was nice to see our destination, a small well protected cove, appear in front of us. Not an evening for tea for sure! Further on we met other friends and hiked our way up a hill to capture the view.  We left as a group and anchored in Turnbull Island where there were a number of boats we knew and many more we didn't.  So we had a pot luck supper on shore to meet them!  That's what we do up here....meet more and more friendly boaters. Boaters Helping Boaters is the motto here in the North Channel and every day you hear another story of a boat rescuing another boater who got in trouble. It is a small community and we all work together to help each other.

Today we are anchored in Thessalon, a lovely town about 3 hours from where we will check in to the US on Monday. We have left all of our friends and family behind and are about to embark on the next phase of our adventure.  Until next time..............

Adamant 1 has finally shipped her dock lines and is on her way.  The last three months have been full of activity for us.  We have installed all new electronics (thank you Jack at RadioWorld for helping us!), new solar panels and charge controller, ICOM Automatic Identification System transceiver,  Raymarine inboard self-steering system, stainless steel lifelines and our pride and joy, a Lofrans electric windlass! Our son, Darren, was a godsend and did all the connections for us and even went up the mast three times to connect all of the antennas.  Slowly we have been learning how to work all the new equipment.  Everything is tied together electronically and with the learning curve ahead of us it might have been wise to bring our son along with us for the first little while! Adamant 1 also has a website, which needs to be kept updated. I had learned quite a bit about websites at Kerrwil, but looking after one on my own, offshore, without my trusty and helpful coworkers and my son to bail me out, this may be a challenge.  I can see many emails to my son for help! By the way, Automatic Identification System transceiver is a piece of equipment that will alert us to any vessels that may be on a collision course with us.  At the same time, it will alert them that we are there. Because all of our electronics are tied together, we can see the vessel in question on our chart-plotter.  By bringing the cursor over the triangle representing the vessel on the chart-plotter screen, we can identify the vessel by name, see its size, speed and course.  Then we can hail them on the VHF radio and talk to them directly. This is particularly necessary piece of equipment in the inland rivers where the commercial tows are frequent and often hidden by the curves of the river.  With this piece of equipment, we can see them well ahead of time and have time to move over for them. More about that in future blogs when we enter the river system.

We decided to rent our house, so that involved packing and moving everything to storage and moving aboard the boat at the same time. If I forgot something, I will buy a duplicate! On our last day ashore, we brought our trusty 12 year old car to the wreckers! We will need a new car when we return.

Paperwork was another issue that consumed a lot of time. We need a cruising permit to cruise in the US and that can be obtained by calling the US Coast Guard in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan and have them send the application to us by email so we can fill it out.  I have a printer aboard, but I have yet to figure out how I will get the signed application back to them.  Maybe I can hire a fax machine somewhere in Little Current or Gore Bay. Once they have the application back, they will bring our permit to Drummond Island where we can pick it up when we check in. Vessels entering the US now require a ship's station license for the VHF. Navigating a government website is tedious at best and I was relieved a few weeks later to get the station license in the mail.  I guess I did something right! We also need a reciprocal license so we can use the HAM radio in the Bahamas.  For a small fee you get to be totally frustrated with the communications department in Nassau and eventually they send you a call sign valid for most of the time you won't be there! Once in Nassau, we will need to locate said office and repeat the procedure face-to-face to keep us legal! I will keep my cool, perhaps! Besides making sure our wills and Powers of Attorneys were all up to date, we arranged for blue water insurance for Adamant 1, changed to rental insurance for the house and the biggest challenge, out of country travel insurance. Now that we are over 60, the premiums for extended care rise dramatically.  We arranged with OHIP for the two year out-of-country coverage, but we still need supplemental coverage. It was a challenge to find decent coverage at a reasonable price.

So now we are at anchor at Heywood Island outside of Little Current.  We had an uneventful crossing of Georgian Bay (well, uneventful for us as we are used to big seas), and spent 4 days in the Killarney area before heading here. We are finally winding down and beginning to enjoy the trip. Until next time......