Day 342: Monday, August 12, 2013
Port to Port: Regatta Bay to Golden Sword Island
Underway: 6:28 am Motor Off: 2:45 pm Miles Traveled: 49 Stayed At: Anchor
Mile 17 to Mile 63 and Mile 5 to Mile 8: After a beautiful, quiet night in Regatta Bay, we left early to put some miles under our boats on a perfect travel day – bright sun, light winds and temperatures in the 70’s. Spiritus goes faster than us so they dawdled until 7:30 am and caught up with us late morning and continued on past the Cunningham Islands to find a good anchoring spot for the night for us.
Navigating in the small craft route on Georgian Bay is not for the faint of heart. It would be a lot less stressful (and less risk of disaster) to be sailing in the middle of the ocean. The route is fairly well marked but you need to be very careful not to drift out of the channel (rocks everywhere) and be a mind reader in some areas trying to figure out what the buoys mean. We missed one left turn that didn’t make sense and had to take a detour around some more rocks to get back on track. Never a dull moment though.
We did get to actually sail for a couple of hours when the route took us out into the open bay. What a joy to have the sails up again – we added a few points to our speed and the sail kept up steady in the lumpy swell hitting us from across Georgian Bay. Plus we look a lot prettier with our sails up.
Even though we had a long day (in miles), by early afternoon, we found Spiritus relaxing at anchor in a private little protected bay just east of Golden Sword Island and we soon joined them. The amazing thing about Georgian Bay is you could probably anchor in a different cove or bay for a lifetime of vacations and never stay in the same place twice. Life is too short.
After finishing some boat projects, we all made our way to Spiritus for happy hour and conversation. It is a treat to share the stories of our days and lives with each other. It’s a highlight of everyday.
After happy hour, we stayed on Spiritus to have dinner and play another brutally competitive game of Quiddler. I don’t know what happened – I must have been tired or distracted by the amazing sunset – I didn’t win this time. It didn’t help that in one hand I was dealt a CZQWRTY (or something like that) and I ended up with minus 42 points for the hand. Eddy quietly laid down hand after hand and won just barely beating Linda – a fact he enjoyed sharing with her over and over again. Hopefully I will have a chance to reclaim the title of Quiddler Champion soon.
We may have a down day tomorrow – the weather is supposed to change and kick up some wind and a little rain. Maybe we will get a nap or two for a change.