KILLARNEY, NORTH CHANNEL

Sunset at Bustard Islands

A grey, rainy day at the Bad River anchorage

Woke up to a sky as grey as yesterday, but after a cup of coffee, things started to lighten up a bit. It had stopped raining, so I got out on deck and scrubbed/washed most of the insect remnants off the boat and organized the stern anchor a bit so it would be easier to deploy. The bay we are anchored in is the run-off for the Devil’s Door Rapids which drains a considerable amount of the watershed around here into Lake Huron.

The river above Devil's Door Rapids

Since I had seen photos of other people do it, I revved up the dinghy and we went upstream through the rapids into some beautiful rivershed areas. It really wasn’t that much of a rapid, and was pretty easy to run, but it gave us a diversion for the morning. We then took the dinghy (at high speed) out to the mouth of the Bad River, about a mile away, to see just how bad it was. It looked OK, with no whitecaps in sight, so we decided to get back to the boat and head up to Beaverstone Bay - the 14 mile “outside” jaunt. As we got back to the boat, another boat had just come in and was anchoring next to us. Elaine asked if it was rough outside, and they replied “not at all,” so we took off.

It wasn’t bad, only about a 1 foot sea and we even thought about bypassing the small boat route and heading direct to Killarney, but decided we wanted to slow down and see the scenery, so went into Beaverstone Bay and through Collins Channel - both very pretty.

Granite walls in Collins Channel

We did have some electrical issues along the way, although we traced them down to a slightly discharged house battery bank. Since we had been anchoring out for a few days and it had not been sunny, our solar panel just couldn’t keep up with our usual electrical demand. Normally, one would run their generator for an hour or two every day to charge up the batteries, but, for the past couple of years, we have relied on the solar panel in sunny Florida. This far north, especially with the rain and clouds, the solar panel is just not as efficient. We’ll have to monitor that situation a bit closer than we have in the past.

A narrow part of the channel

We continued on to Killarney, the “entryway” to the North Channel - one of the most popular and beautiful cruising grounds in the world. We decided to stay at a marina for the night so we could wander around town and pick up a few things we needed and plug in to electrical power to make sure the house bank of batteries was fully charged. The infamous Herbert’s Fish & Chips is here in Killarney. It used to be a fish & chips take-out stand in a converted school bus, and everyone stopped by as they passed through Killarney. Although still a take-out place, they now have their own building where the bus used to be parked. We stopped by for a take-out dinner, went back to the boat, opened a bottle of pinot noir and ate on the flybridge as the sun came out for the first time in about three days.

It looks like I have reasonable internet connectivity, so I’ll try to include a few pictures from the last couple of days…

Even with all the clouds last night, a nice sunset

Notes from Elaine

So our boat's name is IMPROV and our hailing port is San Francisco (okay, we are from Corte Madera, but close enough, plus we stamped our hailing port as "San Francisco" on our boat before we bought our house in Corte Madera and everyone knows where San Francisco is located). What happens is everyone assumes (me included, until a few years ago) that we came from San Francisco (I guess through the Panama Canal) so I have to explain that we started the trip in Florida (still, a long ways away) and we kept the boat on the Atlantic coast and have traveled here from Florida. In fact, you can stamp ANY location on your boat as your hailing port, including Denver, Colorado or Winnemucca, Nevada or Timbuktu. My ignorance of the boating world increases. 

However, having said that, my husband has been boating since before I met him (me, not so much). We have owned a boat most of our married lives, but never really embarked on such major expeditions as the last few years. My friends and family say they could never live on a boat for months at a time but I beg to differ. I KNOW my friends and family, and they COULD do what I am doing - because I am a BOAT WIMP! Plus our boat now (albeit, tiny) has all the comforts of home - AC, heating, microwave/oven, stove, refrig/freezer, full head with shower and two "staterooms" (which are the size of a queen size mattress).

Dave is an excellent captain and boat handler, but we share navigation duties throughout the trip. I prefer to handle the boat in rough seas so I don't get seasick.  I prefer to navigate. Since Dave docks and undocks the boat the ultra majority of the time (I only have the confidence to do it during the calmest waters) I have become proficient in line handling. My confidence has soared during this trip.

So I head into the North Channel, Canada, brimming with confidence, until I display my lack of knowledge once again. There is a Michigan island stuck in between all these Canadian islands? Are you kidding me? Who drew up these international boundaries anyway?