Lyn's Log, 7th September 2007
Lake Huron & North Passage

We arrived in Tobermory, on the Bruce peninsular where Lake Huron becomes Georgian Bay, on Wednesday 22nd August. The weather had been grey the entire time but we were able to sail quite comfortably. There was a threat of some nasty stormy weather for Thursday, so we expected to be staying put for at least a day.

We wanted to see Ben and Caroline again and to save them two long journeys in one day with little Chloe, we decided to rent a car and drive to them. It took us a while to realise that the nearest car rental company was an hour and a half drive away and that there was no public transport. Fortunately Discount Rentals eventually answered the phone, found a driver and came to pick us up. We came directly back to the rental company, in Owen Sound, from Ben’s and got a lift back to Tobermory. We had a very enjoyable and relaxed time and hoped that it would not be too long before we next met.

Our journey to Lake Michigan was to the west. So we did not venture any further east across Georgian Bay but instead went north to the port of Killarney, and thence west through the North Channel of Lake Huron. This was a fantastic area of rocks and trees. Most of the rocks were white quartz and stood out clearly between the trees. It was amazing how some of the trees managed to cling onto the bare rocks. Mostly the rocks rose sheer out of the water and many of our passages were so close we could almost touch the rocks. There were many shallows and rocks just poking out of the water and we had to watch the charts closely.

In Killarney Bay we met Everett, a Canadian who regularly spends his summers sailing this rocky area. He gave us some more ideas of places we could see and in the afternoon we set off in roughly the same direction but to different destinations. We came into a long narrow stretch of water rather like a fjord, called Baie Fine and visited the topaz lake by foot in the morning. The topaz lake was a twenty-minute hike up through the forest. It was a beautiful lake but not very blue that morning as it drizzled most of the time. Then we sailed past Strawberry Island and its pretty lighthouse, to Little Current. In the morning we sailed to the Benjamin Islands and made our way into a sheltered anchorage for lunch.

Here the rocks were mostly smooth rounded pink boulders, with the occasional white quartz here and there. I have never seen rocks like them before. The boulders at the Baths, Virgin Islands, were smooth and rounded, but grey. The bright pink colour was even more noticeable where the level of the lake had dropped exposing an extra foot or more of clean rock (pic above). It was very cloudy and damp and we eventually left in the rain and made our way to a beautiful sheltered spot through a narrow gap into a small lake, totally alone and with the sun coming out. We were quite surprised just how quiet it was with no sounds of wild life.

The next morning we made our way through an extremely narrow gap in the rocks, called Little Detroit, where, as advised, we announced on channel 16 that we were entering the gap in case there was someone wanting to come the other way. We anchored as near to the town of Spanish as we could get and took the inflatable with the outboard for more than a mile, past the municipal marina to another dock nearer to the town. It was a twenty-minute walk up to the highway, the railway line and the town. Here we enjoyed some fish and chips and managed to restock on meat, vegetables and some other fresh foods. Most of the islands are uninhabited. Coming back to the yacht was a pretty wet experience through a nasty little chop set up by wind over current. Our next anchorage for the night was eight miles to the west, into the wind. We had all the rest of the afternoon to achieve it and had a cracking good sail, tacking about eight times.

The wind was not favourable in the morning as we made our way motoring through a buoyed channel. We needed to go a little further west round another island before heading more south and sailing across fifteen miles of open water. But then I took more notice of a small yacht that had been closing on us from the north. I got out the binoculars and saw that it was Everett. We went together into an anchorage in the adjacent island and had lunch together, catching up on where we had been. We came out and raced each other for the first few miles before going our separate ways again. This time he must have let us get in the lead.

Looking at the charts, we decided to head for Drummond, on Drummond Island, which is in the USA. We had such a good following wind that we made excellent time and arrived at the marina in mid afternoon on 1st September. Customs came down to the dock as we arrived. Everything was going well until they said we could not enter without a customs decal and we replied we did not need it - in fact a British boat is not eligible for the decal programme which facilitates the movement of US and Canadian yachts. Fortunately we persuaded one of the officers to telephone a superior and confirm that we were correct. It is not the first time we have found customs officers ignorant of their own rules, but as they have absolute powers generally we just have to go with the flow.