August 13 to16 — Of fog, loons, and great sailing days

Sawyer Bay, Saturday, August 13
With groceries aboard, ourselves showered, laundry done, and the boat pumped out and fueled up, we headed back out this morning. Our destination was to be Sawyer Bay almost 15 miles across Thunder Bay. But it was a gorgeous sail on a gorgeous day and pretty soon I was making noises about making some long passages toward the far corner of the lake, near the Slate Islands (the section that we didn’t get to inspect well last year when we realized we were running out of time). I voted for a day’s crossing to Edward Island, approximately 40 miles away.

Thunder Bay's Sleeping Giant and a passing freighter

We have tremendous respect for the Thunder Bay sailors. These folks are among the best in the world. The bay of Thunder Bay is about 15 miles wide and a bit more than 20 miles long. It is the most unpredictable body of water we’ve ever seen. Nothing else comes close. The steep rock bluffs of the Sleeping Giant’s feet are 640 feet high and some of the peaks of the Giant’s body are 1,800 feet. That’s the western side of this bay. The southern and eastern sides have more high bluffs, the sprawling city of Thunder Bay (formerly the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William), and the wide and hot prairie beyond to the west. This combination of influences is able to kick up the wildest of weather.

The state of the weather from one side of the bay is never the same. Sometimes there’s nothing going on in the center and wind blowing madly in opposite directions on both shores. Sometimes it’s calm near land and blowing like stink in the middle. We never know what sail plan will work or when we’ll lose the wind or see more than we can handle. Yet the Thunder Bay sailors go out several times a week to race around in whatever the bay has concocted for them and everyone here must face the unpredictable conditions of the bay anytime they want to cruise anywhere else (or return home). Our hats are off to them.

The first week of our cruise has been a shakedown cruise in every sense. I feel sometimes as if what we’re really doing here is sailing or motoring the Engineering Department (that’d be Jerry) from port to port. Today was no different. About the time we got to the part of Thunder Bay that was blowing like stink (it was at the foot of the Sleeping Giant this time), Jerry noticed that the alternator wasn’t charging. He began the basic research by checking belts and so forth. Then, as I made lunch below, he contemplated his options. I was really bouncing around in the galley and was relieved to hear that he wanted to make a short day of it in order to troubleshoot the problem and return to Thunder Bay for parts if needed. So we went back to Plan A and picked up a mooring in Sawyer Bay.

After digging in two cockpit lockers and under the galley sink, Jerry found a bad connection, moved a fuse to a new slot, and we were back in business. Neither one of us wanted to go back to Thunder Bay, but it is a much better source of parts than Rossport, the next pocket of civilization to the east.

So the alternator is alternating again. Power to the people. It sure is nice traveling with the Engineering Department aboard. We’ll be off once more in the morning headed east in search of loons, moose, and caribou. In the meantime, Sawyer Bay is a beautiful place to spend a day. There are four more sailboats in here and one trawler. There’s room for lots of boats in this bay.

Otter Cove, Sunday, August 14
Today we motored, we flew the spinnaker, we sailed wing and wing, and we rolled the jib in and out several times. We also dropped the anchors with the windlass (second time for that). While doing all that, we moved about 45 miles in an easterly direction. Mystic wore all her outfits and we did too: sweats and jackets in the morning and we were too hot in our shorts in the middle of the afternoon on a downwind run with the spinnaker.

Evening in Otter Cove

I should mention that our GPS navigation is reliable once again. We had a spare GPS receiver aboard that’s working without a glitch. The problem that caused the other unit to drop out appears to be in one of the cables leading between it and the computer. We’ll go cockpit diving soon to retrieve that unit (that runs from near the galley table through a bulkhead and the length of the port cockpit locker aft to the transom).

Otter Cove is a favorite anchorage. It was made more special by a loon serenade this evening. The loons may not have viewed it as a serenade, however. Jerry saw an eagle fly by . . . inspiring the chorus of nervous loon calls. We enjoyed the performance just the same. (Before we left the next day, we saw several more eagles in Otter Cove.) There are two boats in here with us: a sailboat and a powerboat.

Morn Harbor, Monday, August 15
It was extremely foggy when we awoke in Otter Cove. We were amazed that neither the Environment Canada broadcast nor the NOAA plain language forecast mentioned fog. Environment Canada loves to predict “mist and fog patches,” an expression that makes us laugh when the fog patches are as prevalent as they were today. We can hardly see a boat length ahead of the bow and laugh about the day’s “mist.”

Leaving Otter Cove and heading into "fog and mist patches"

Our second time anchoring has “initiated” the anchors and rodes. Everything in Otter Cove came up covered in thick black clay mud. The beautiful white 8-brait rodes will never be quite the same. In addition to bringing up a lot of mud, we also managed to capture a large log with lots of spiky branches. The two anchor rodes were entwined around this log. We spent a half hour or so doing what might be described as mud wrestling: releasing loops and twists of rode as the log slowly rolled and shifted its weight sometimes in a helpful way and sometimes in not so helpful ways.

We thought we’d use the power washer to clean the muddy deck up after the fight, but learned that it only works with city water pressure. It doesn’t have a pump to pick up water from the lake in which we’re floating. Apparently there’s an accessory that will make it work aboard after a mud bath such as Mystic had today. We could use a couple of baths too. We’ll slow down our mad rush east and get showers and downtime tomorrow. We felt we should just keep moving while the weather was good. Now that we’re close to Rossport, here in Morn Harbor, we’re ready for a couple more days at anchor before we need a pumpout and supplies again.

Leaving the fog behind as we head for Morn Harbor

Today we traveled approximately 25 more miles east from Otter Cove to Morn Harbor. The first several hours this morning were in dense fog. There was very little wind throughout the day. NOAA and Environment Canada both called for “light and variable” winds and that pretty much describes it. We motored or motorsailed all day. It was not one of those lovely sailing days we’ve been raving about.

Fog: Jerry's at the wheel, Karen keeps an eye on the radar and navigation.

We did drop into Woodbine Harbor on our way here, thinking that we might anchor there instead. But we had trouble finding a depth that felt right for anchoring. It’s fairly deep in there. There was a sailboat in the back where it shallows a bit, so we decided to move on. We were glad to see two or three loon chicks thriving in there.

On this vacation we’ve been seeing “faces” everywhere: in the rocks, in the clouds, and even in the trees. They’re humans, Picasso-like abstracts in some cases but sometimes pretty realistic. We’ve also seen elephants, camels, trolls, dragons, and frogs.