Day 49 July 25 Depart Parry Sound for Bying Inlet-Brit

On the deck of Metal Of Honor

My morning, actually evening to me turned out to be a restless one. My phone rang at 3:30AM and no message was left. I   can not see anything on my history, so it leaves me to wonder if everyone at home is OK. It's amazing how we are so connected, yet so far away.
When the sun is up and coffee is on, I try the phone again. Turns out that a call that was made yesterday at 4PM, had just come through. I am very relieved, as I still do not have a signal strong enough to call home.
Our anxious Captain Ron has us moving at 7:30AM due to the length of our adventure today. We sing "row, row, row your boat" , with Ron leading the way to wake ourselves up.
Ten miles out we pass a fisherman in  the bay who appears to be having a great morning catch. Proceeding past the Bay we are facing The Canadian Coast Guard. Glad we do not have to share a channel with it.
By 10AM, the boat traffic is picking up and out comes the 40MPH go fast boats that do not slow down when passing. Oh well, it's a beautiful day.
We hear Magoo on the radio behind us and they decide to pull aside to avoid the winds at Hang Dog turn.
It is quite a tricky turn, but Ron takes it in stride and just as we are starting to turn another small power boat full of the kids and ski tubes etc. cuts between us and the narrow entrance. I cannot even believe what just happened. This was very dangerous for both of us. I am amazed to see this  same boat about 500' in front of us slow down to  turn into a small harbor for lunch and swimming. I guess he was just hungry. I see a patch of "Whale Rocks" and I think of our friend Colleen Phillips (inside joke).

We are happy to pass some racing sailboats near Champlain Monument Island and The Point Au Baril Lighthouse. We slow down even more to watch the whole fleet make their mark roundings. They all had fun except one skipper who did not do something right and he quickly went overboard in the cold waters.

We hear from Jim and Carol Schebil, on Shy Fox who are in The Benjamin's today with The Zot Yacht and other friends.
The shoreline is full of cottages, old and new with a great variety of construction layouts. The rocks make for some unique configurations.

Next to boats, the second most popular mode of transportation seems to be small sea planes. How fun!

We arrive at St. Amants Marina and fuel up and pump out. We have wonderful service with three staff members working on the boat all at once. Unfortunately for one of them, he drops our waste cap overboard into 12' of cold water that is not clear enough to see the bottom. After trying to decide who's going in for a swim, he gets help from the other two and the owner in getting it replaced. A temporary is in place and he takes off in a car. I overheard that they pooled their tips from the day to pay for it. Maybe they can get the original and sell it some day and retrieve their loss.
Metal of Honor pulls in next to us for the evening. The captain is extremely happy to be safely tied up and we celebrate!

Day 47-48 FR, SA - July 23rd and 24th

Henry's Restaurant on Frying Pan Island

Dinner for the birds too

Got moving late today. It rained through last night and into today. Either the wildlife does not like the rain either, or there just isn't much of it near the water in these parts.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we crossed the 45th parallel, so , we are closer to The North Pole than The Equator.

Feels weird to be in 90' of water in channels that you could "reach out and touch" something.


As we near Gill Pt., I notice what looks like a birds nest. As we get closer it appears that mama eagle is feeding a pretty healthy young eagle that appears to be getting closer to her size.

Mint Julip and Sassy are with us at another bridge opening waiting patiently.
We were all headed to the same marina and they both had issues of needed repairs. So, while they both took there boats to another marina for service, we had great Internet, and lost it when they came back as their boats are bigger and blocked the signal. At least we got our emails checked and a weather check before the signal become so slow it was useless to try and blog.

Walking to dinner, we passed a really neat concert hall and we met some of the "players" at The Wellington toward the end of our meal. Maybe we'll go there tomorrow, Ron seems very interested. PS: The food was great. Ron had prime rib and I had lasagna.

The laundry room is one busy place here and I tried yesterday  morning to get in. I got up extra early to get one load of bedding in and was beat to the punch by another early bird! However, was on track by 7:45AM to get the load through.

 The local grocery, named Sobey's has a free shuttle to and from the store, so we took advantage to buy some of the heavy and bulky things like pop, water, paper towels etc.

Still bad Internet, but got a blog page in today.

Day 45-46 July 21 - 22 Beacon Bay Maintenance and Henry's Fish

 Today was planned as a maintenance day to put on the new anchor light, and after routine engine checks, Ron found a potentially bad problem. The captain found a stripped screw that could have caused us to lose a shaft and prop. Thank goodness he's learned his way around the engine room so well. He fixed it well enough to get us safely home, however, it will need service at TBM when we get home. Our icebox decided to take a dive today. It is being used as a cooler for produce and lunch meat, juices etc. We'll have to cool it with ice blocks, but this is more of an inconvenience than a big problem. We still have an ice maker and a small refrigerator/and even smaller freezer. It takes about 2 novelty pieces of ice cream, a frozen piece or two of meat and maybe some frozen veggies. Enough to cover us . We'll not die of starvation at our current sizes :).
The laundry room is not too far from the pool, so, in between, I launder the sheets, rugs and stuff that will take forever in our washer on board.
This night we watch spiders weaving their webs and check out the new anchor light before going down for the night.

Ron's up early on Thursday to get sunrise photo's and we pull out an hour late (9AM). Missed a Skype call from Lynda, however, over the last couple days I have Skyped with  Mom, Dad, Erik and Sis. Although Ron and I have met great people, and we are having fun together, I am missing  my girlfriend company. We pass many island houses and kid's keeping cool in the water.  I am not a fish eater, but I enjoy every bite of my meal of whitefish at this famous restaurant.
We are able to explore the island a bit by foot to a helicopter pad that brings guests to the Island for lunch or dinner. The restaurant also brings in many small ferry boats from the surrounding marina's as well as planes landing close by and letting person's off at the docks for dinner.
The best fish I have ever had is enough to call this stop successful since I usually "choke down" fish dinners with lot's of tarter or cocktail sauce. Henry's is awesome and I would recommend that if ever you are nearby these waters that you plan to stop for lunch or spend the evening at their docks.
I only want to mention this once, but, it's been a theme lately in these water's.....inconsiderate boaters. I hope they just do not know better, because the other option is that they are A....H....'s. There a two photo's of many that I have taken on today's blog....and this was just after the boat did the same thing to us when going by. I would hate to think that of all the friendly people we have met that there are such inconsiderate boaters.

Day 44 Through The Chute and the end of TSW

Today's the big day! We've been hearing about The Chute for a long time. It's a lock of sorts, but there is a machine/railway car that goes under water at the entrance. Straps are put under your boat just like when you are hauling in or out. You are lifted and set on the deck of the rail car and go over train tracks to be lowered into the final stretch of The Trent Severn.
We anticipated a long wait here, but we were waved right in!
What a ride.
We pass the vessel Steadfast with Mark and Susan Perlick at the helm from NCYC before the chute heading in the opposite direction with friends on another boat. Mark and Susan helped us find some great anchorages 2 years ago on our first visit to The North Channel. Although we both are members of the same Yacht Club, NCYC in La Salle, we had never met them and ran into them at Meldrum Bay. Great things just happen out here!
The last lock of the system is supposed to be easy, however, rude boaters made it a bit frustrating for the captain.

We finally go through with a couple power boats, Two Turtles (lopper's), and a wave runner PWC. After the bridge narrows and more rude boaters coming at us, it's smooth boating all the way to Beacon Bay Marina where we enjoy a swim and relax.