Day 350: Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Port to Port: Blind River to Thessalon, Ontario
Underway: 7:56 am Motor Off: 1:00 pm Miles Traveled: 32 Stayed At: Marina
Mile 82 to Mile 114: Thessalon will be our last stop in Canada (if all goes according to plan). We exchanged our leftover Canadian money back into US dollars and spent the last of our change on ice cream. Thessalon is another place where we stopped in 2002 – back then, the municipal marina was only a couple of years old and it basically hasn’t changed much since. It is still a good deal though. We were the only transient boats in the marina this time. The season is winding down. We heard from a Looper boat last night that Spanish Marina at the beginning of the North Channel was closing for the season already. That’s a little freaky.
Our little travel group split up a little today. Spiritus headed straight to Drummond Island to check back into the US at customs and we headed, with Carina, northwest to Thessalon. This will make tomorrows jump across less than 3 hours and we can have some time to explore near the marina at De Tour.
Our journey up the coast was uneventful – warm sunshine, calm seas and a light breeze made for perfect travel conditions. We even got a little wind assist for a few hours making the trip a lot more fun. We were tempted to take a left and head for Drummond Island about 4 miles before Thesselon but we decided to relax and stop one more time in Canada for old times sake.
The marina hasn’t changed at all from 2002. Just aim for the blue roofs and it will guide you straight in. The two girls on duty greeted us on the dock, tied us up and even laced our extra dock line nice and neat. This place is a bargain – the bathrooms are clean and spacious, the staff is very helpful and the lounge on the second level is really comfortable. I remember the girls sprawling out on the carpet upstairs and catching up on their trip logs here in 2002.
After we docked and checked in, Cindy and I grabbed a couple courtesy bikes and went on a tour of downtown. We were early enough to do a little shopping before everything closed at 5 pm. We found the pizza place where we hoped to eat dinner but it was closed – I guess the guy randomly picks which days he wants to be open. We got a few groceries, exchanged our Canadian money back to US money, checked out the library internet, found a family restaurant on the edge of town that looked promising for dinner and staked out an ice cream shop for dessert. What more could you ask for.
I spent a couple hours updating the blog and checking the weather before going back to the boat to get Cindy and we went out to a nice dinner. It would have been perfect if I had remembered to save half of my dinner for tomorrow. I may not have room for ice cream in a couple of hours.
These small towns along the north shore of the North Channel and Georgian Bay are all connected together by the Trans-Canada Highway. Thessalon is lucky in that they have a normal downtown without hundreds of semis driving through day and night. It’s struggling but some of the businesses seem to be doing well. The stores in Blind River were all located right along the busy, noisy highway. I like the former a lot better than the latter.
I hopped on my pinkish red one speed cruising bike again to look around the edges of town for interesting picture op’s and had a déjà –vue moment. I was riding along the river going along town and suddenly remembered walking along here with the girls in 2002 and finding an ice cream social at one of the local churches. It is really weird how our brains work – why would I still remember that and what triggered the memory as I bicycled along. Strange.
Right now I am sitting in the library – they reopened after a two hour dinner break – and am looking forward to bringing some ice cream home to have with our fresh peaches – they aren’t Mountain Lion but we tested them and they were delicious. I’m drooling already.