30,000 Islands, Two Small Boats

[WI-Tom]

Here's a closer look--really, just the neatest area to explore by boat.

Day 2.3.jpg

We took a winding route through the islands and channels, with a detour to visit an island marked as "The Mailbox" on the chart. We rowed right past it--turns out the "mailbox" was a black rock in a pile of white granite boulders--a black rock shaped almost exactly like a mailbox, complete with a flag folded down alongside the box.

Then it was back west and into (again) the narrowest channel we could find. For some reason, narrow passages are just really cool.

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It was getting on toward evening, and we had yet to find even a hint of a vaguely comfortable flat tent spot. I had my little onboard boat tent along (no sitting headroom, more of a bivi), but Lance wasn't set up to sleep aboard. Luckily, at the very end of the narrow channel, we found a big rock that was at least marginally acceptable--kind of flat on top. Or so it looked.

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Room for two tents? Yep. Kind of.

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That's actually a photo from the next morning. So, two days of our trip gone. We were about 25 straight-line miles from Killarney, but lots more actual miles sailed and rowed--just as it should be!

[WI-Tom]

Day 3--we headed out with only a vague plan of exploring some of the interior routes as we worked our way farther east (I still had the idea of the Bustard Islands in mind). With channels so narrow, and shallow, there didn't seem to be much point in setting up the sailing rigs. A good call--there wasn't much wind, and if there had been, it wouldn't have done us any good trying to follow the route we ended up taking:

Day 3.1.jpg

Bright blue skies and sun. First we rowed south down a wider channel to check out a couple of sheltered anchorages (Jocko's Harbor was one of them, according to the chart) that looked like they'd have good exploring potential. There was some breeze, but dead on the nose, so rowing was a lot faster, and arguably more enjoyable.

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There's more than a lifetime's worth of small boat travel and gunkholing in the Thirty Thousand Islands, that's for sure.

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It seems like every moment you're facing the same tough choice: spend more time where you are, which is an incredibly neat spot; or press on to find the next incredibly neat spot. The best of the best as far as small boat journeying goes, I'd say.

More later--'nuff for today.

[Dave Hadfield]

Instead of driving to Killarney, which is kind of a backtrack, you can continue on HWY 69 and access the Bay via Britt, and Byng Inlet. We did that with the MacGregor a couple of times.

[Dan McCosh]

We've been to that area a half-dozen times, but you seem to be in slightly different areas. Collins inlet has been a major stopover for years, including Mill Lake and Beaverstone Bay. There used to be a Russian family homesteading on the north end of the bay that would sell you ice they cut in the winter and stored in a barn in the summer. That was the only refrigeration available, for either boats or cottages.
Never been in the Bustards. The mouth of the French River is just north of the Bustards. We've been up the river several times, which can handle fairly large boats up to the last in the series of rapids that mark the river before it enters Georgian Bay. French River at one time was a major town in the lumbering days--early in the 19th century. Remains of the sawmills could be found back in the woods. An abandoned wharf was at the edge of the river, which once handled the boats hauling lumber. The river mouth was where the French explorers first saw the Great Lakes.The bottom end of Georgian Bay is about a hundred miles of open water south. It must have been quite a sight after a hundred mile canoe trip on a narrow river through the wilderness.

[pez_leon]

As a naive Californian I had no idea there was so much beautiful, isolated, first-class wilderness anywhere in the upper Midwest. Until, that is, you published these great threads and articles. Thanks, Tom! I just love these stories.



James

[Dan McCosh]

As a naive Californian I had no idea there was so much beautiful, isolated, first-class wilderness anywhere in the upper Midwest. Until, that is, you published these great threads and articles. Thanks, Tom! I just love these stories.



James

Having lived in the upper midwest all my life, and spent most of my free time sailing on the Great Lakes, I tend to take all this for granted. This despite having one friend who once jumped in a kayak, and paddled and sailed it from Detroit to Florida. Another left Detroit to make four circumnavigations--twice on boats he built himself. Didn't think these were all that unusual efforts. The photos and story are based on a tiny fragment of the northern shore of the body of water that includes Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Georgian Bay--a stretch of similar islands and harbors roughly 150 miles long. The Niagara escarpment that forms much of the shoreline on the western shoreline of the bay is a row off cliffs that tops out a little over 1,000 feet above the water. Other hills lining the shore on the north are formed from rose quartz--literally mountains formed from gemstone. Still, the winters can be a little gloomy.

[WI-Tom]

Instead of driving to Killarney, which is kind of a backtrack, you can continue on HWY 69 and access the Bay via Britt, and Byng Inlet. We did that with the MacGregor a couple of times.

Yep, that makes sense. Killarney is a long way away down a dead-end road. It can't really be any closer to Sudbury than Britt, I suppose. Do you know anything about cheap long-term parking there for a car and trailer, Dave?

Of course, starting at Britt means you'd miss the Fox Islands unless you sailed back west. Depends where you want to visit, I guess. It's all good.

Tom

[WI-Tom]

As a naive Californian I had no idea there was so much beautiful, isolated, first-class wilderness anywhere in the upper Midwest. Until, that is, you published these great threads and articles. Thanks, Tom! I just love these stories.

James

Thanks, James--

like you, I always looked to the West for wilderness (Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Canyonlands, etc.). It wasn't until 2009 that I first visited the North Channel (without a boat that time) and started to understand what I'd been missing, and about half the driving distance. I went back the next year with a boat, you can be sure of that.

Tom

[WI-Tom]

We've been to that area a half-dozen times, but you seem to be in slightly different areas.

I'd bet that's because of differences of where you go in a small sail-and-oar boat vs. where you go in a keelboat, don't you think? I didn't find Collins Inlet to be particularly interesting when I sailed around Philip Edward Island in 2017 in my ALaska--I much prefer the outside route, where you can take in the Fox Islands, Hawk Island, etc. That said, Beaverstone Bay is way cool (though it does have some cottages down by the entrance, and I try to stay away from camping near cottages). There just aren't protected anchorages for bigger boats in many of the areas I end up exploring on Georgian Bay--which, of course, is a big part of the appeal for me.

Never been in the Bustards.

They're great--some of my favorite cruising grounds. But again, it's probably a different experience in a small boat or canoe/kayak than it would be in a bigger boat. Whenever I've gone there, I've never seen a big boat outside the main anchorage at the northern end. They'd never make it anywhere near the eastern shore of Tanvat Island, for example. My impression is that Georgian Bay is one thing to big boats, and another thing (almost) entirely to small boats and paddlers.

Not good vs. bad, or good vs. better, just different. For now, I like the small boat game. It's cheap. It's simple. Seems perfect for a lazy person who doesn't want to spend much money, and can tolerate moderate reductions in comfort to have an experience they wouldn't have otherwise.

Tom

[WI-Tom]

So, on with day two for a bit. Here's where we left off:

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From there, we crossed a wide channel (plenty rocky!) to the east and found a wandering kind of route through a bunch of islands.

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We were mostly using our charts to find the narrowest, unlikeliest paths to follow. It seemed to work, as we didn't see anyone else (I rarely do--if I do, it's almost always a kayaker or two). Stopping ashore whenever we felt like it, of course. Which was pretty often. Lots of my past trips have involved long days of sailing (40+ miles sometimes), but this was not that kind of day.

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[WI-Tom]

This particular narrow channel ran north-south for about a mile, splitting a big rocky island roughly in half. We saw this on the chart and decided to head that way. It was cool. Enough of a S wind to push us along with minimal effort.

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Out at the outer edge where rocky shores meet the big open waters of Georgian Bay, you run into some low slabby islands that are almost pure granite, with no trees at all--the start of the wide belt of shoals that runs pretty much along this whole coast. Of course we stopped ashore to check them out.

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Follow one narrow channel to the next cross-channel which leads to the next bay which leads to the next narrow channel which... Not a bad way to spend a day on the water. At one point we found one of the "inukshuk" style cairns that people seem to enjoy building around here.

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[WI-Tom]

It really is an endless Neverland of pines and granite and (today, at least) blue skies. Being deep in the interior channels like this was a very different approach than I usually take on my solo trips, which tend to be more of the "sail long distances offshore and then hope to find an open channel leading you inshore to an anchorage or campsite" kind of trip. This way was cool, though. Much easier for two boats to stay in close contact on a day like this.

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Our route seemed to alternate between narrow islandy bits and more open waters, as we worked our way east past lots of rocky fingers reaching out into the bay.

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No plans, no worries. A beautiful day.

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More later. Time for dinner in Wrocław.

Tom

[Dan McCosh]

I'd bet that's because of differences of where you go in a small sail-and-oar boat vs. where you go in a keelboat, don't you think? I didn't find Collins Inlet to be particularly interesting when I sailed around Philip Edward Island in 2017 in my ALaska--I much prefer the outside route, where you can take in the Fox Islands, Hawk Island, etc. That said, Beaverstone Bay is way cool (though it does have some cottages down by the entrance, and I try to stay away from camping near cottages). There just aren't protected anchorages for bigger boats in many of the areas I end up exploring on Georgian Bay--which, of course, is a big part of the appeal for me.



They're great--some of my favorite cruising grounds. But again, it's probably a different experience in a small boat or canoe/kayak than it would be in a bigger boat. Whenever I've gone there, I've never seen a big boat outside the main anchorage at the northern end. They'd never make it anywhere near the eastern shore of Tanvat Island, for example. My impression is that Georgian Bay is one thing to big boats, and another thing (almost) entirely to small boats and paddlers.

Not good vs. bad, or good vs. better, just different. For now, I like the small boat game. It's cheap. It's simple. Seems perfect for a lazy person who doesn't want to spend much money, and can tolerate moderate reductions in comfort to have an experience they wouldn't have otherwise.

Tom

Our routine had been sailing the length of Lake Huron to get up north, then spending a couple of weeks in the northern islands. This always meant bringing some kind of small boat along. When I was ten or so, we had an eight-foot pram, which was later equipped with a sailing rig. I could disappear all day poking around in various spots. We have towed and deck-loaded a 14-foot canoe as a tender, and at one time or another carried an inflatable kayak and several other inflatables. Lately, the inflatable has an electric motor. A friend had a sizable inflatable that fit in the trunk of his car, which allowed him to motor long distances, and camp on shore. My sister took her trailerable RV around Georgian Bay, and stopped in the parks and campgrounds that are along shore. There are charter services, kayak rentals. We once encountered a girl scout troop paddling more than a dozen canoes together. Boats that access the area range from prams to 80-foot yachts. I remember once we were taking the canoe back to where we were anchored, and when we were passing another boat anchor, some asked where we were going. When we explained, he said "You mean you can have a canoe on a sailboat?" There doesn't seem to be a rule against it.
Unfortunately, last year they started cruise ship operations up north, which I find a little appalling. Can't imagine unloading 500 tourists in a town with about the same population.

[Dave Hadfield]

Yep, that makes sense. Killarney is a long way away down a dead-end road. It can't really be any closer to Sudbury than Britt, I suppose. Do you know anything about cheap long-term parking there for a car and trailer, Dave?

Of course, starting at Britt means you'd miss the Fox Islands unless you sailed back west. Depends where you want to visit, I guess. It's all good.

Tom

We use Wright's when we have to go in there for supplies. Always seemed like a good marina to me. Wright's Marina | (wrightsmarina.on.ca)

There is also a town dock there, and parking may be possible, but I don't know. At least Wright's would be keeping an eye on your vehicle.

The passage west out Byng Inlet is not attractive. Lots of cheap old cottages on the north side -- the south side is Ojibway land. But once you're out, a quick right turn takes you immediately into the archipelago.

This picture is exactly that, a few hundred yards past Cunningham's Cut.

Drake 2020 cunningham's cut 2.jpg

[WI-Tom]

A bit more from day three. At one point we landed on an island near the mouth of one of the channels and had a look around. This is looking north, or a bit northeast, with the open water of Georgian Bay to the right.

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We kept heading east from here, and--since we were constantly dodging rocks and cutting through one narrow channel or another--we stuck to rowing, even though there would have been wind enough to sail. And, as it turns out, this is the mile-long channel I mentioned earlier in the thread, with a different photo--easy to get photos confused!

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Just really really cool to be back here in this kind of terrain--a whole 'nother world from the open water just a mile south or so.

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[WI-Tom]

Finally we ended up at a spot that seemed too good to pass up. Probably a 10-12 mile day--not much in distance, but plenty of good stuff along the way.

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We pulled in to camp in the early evening--actually just about directly north of the Bustard Islands, which were a couple of miles offshore--I still had hopes of making it out there. If so, tomorrow would be the day, but we were running out of time for a week-long trip so I wasn't sure how much sense it would make to go there just in time to turn around and leave.

If you don't mind flat granite, camping is easy in the Thirty Thousand Islands. A freestanding tent helps, since tent stakes aren't all that useful.

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You can see that the charts for the inside Small Craft Route are pretty detailed--even with a short-distance day, we had managed to row off of one chart and onto the next. They pretty much show every little island and rock.

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This was one of my favorite campsites on the trip. But then, there'll all my favorites. It really is an odd combination of being sorry to leave one great spot while looking forward to finding out what the next one will be.

A quiet night--supper, some reading, some wandering around, and just enjoying being the only people around.

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And that was day three.

[WI-Tom]

Day 4. Eerie swirling clouds before sunrise suggested that this would not be the day to sail to the Bustard Islands 3 miles offshore.

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The wind was picking up, SW now, which meant waves were starting to enter the tiny inlet where we had tied up the boats. And so, we hopped into the boats and moved them to a more sheltered space just around the corner, still an easy walk to camp.

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Then it was back to the tents to beat the rain. I had a book, and some snacks. Not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours.

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The clouds hung around after the rain stopped, but I got out and wandered around our island for an hour or so. Easy walking, mostly on flat granite. We finally decided to stick to oars, and row up what looked like a half-mile-long narrow channel leading northeast from camp, a channel that might--just might, depending on water levels--connect up to another narrow channel stretching down from the north to meet it. Our chart said no, but you can't always believe the chart in my experience.

Here's how the day's route ended up like:

Day 4.1.jpg

This was a really cool outing--following an amazing channel, a narrow seam between bedrock slabs, that seemed like it might have been designed for rowing, with rock walls just far enough apart to fit a set of 8' 8" oars in.

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Better yet, the rain was holding off as well.

[WI-Tom]

We kept going, rowing easily, no rush--it's nice to have a relatively unambitious plan for a day like this, with the possibility of bad weather hanging around.

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But the seam did in fact end, as the chart had shown. We weren't going to be rowing through the next bit, a marshy little lilypad pond, shallow draft or not:

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So, we rowed back out. The terrain here on the fringes of Georgian Bay is pretty consistent--narrow channels, rocky fingers of islands, big expanses of pink-gray-gold granite, pine trees. But somehow the sameness never gets boring. Instead, it just gets better and better as you realize just how much there is of this stuff to explore. Which is easily my favorite kind of sailing terrain (OK, it's stretching a bit to call it "sailing" when we were mostly rowing).

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This, for me, is a perfect mission for a sail-and-oar boat: able to sail long passages on open water (25+ miles in a day is fairly typical, but I've done 40+ miles with the right wind), but then perfectly happy to drop the rig entirely and explore the intricate byways and rocky mazes by oars for a few days once you arrive at your next destination. Lather, rinse, repeat. Never gets old.

[WI-Tom]

Once back out of our dead end and back at camp (we had already packed up and loaded our gear, not sure where we'd end up), we headed west out to another one of the main branches of the French River Delta--the Bad River Channel (I'm guessing this branch got its name from the series of rapids that blocks access to the upper river on this route).

Like most of the terrain around here, it was long skinny finger-shaped islands that were mostly slabs and cliffs, all leading from SW to NE along the path of the glaciers that dug out the channels between. Really really cool. We snuck in as close as we could to one of the bigger islands, with the tallest cliffs (I'm a sucker for tall cliffs).

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Attachment 131256

Our chart marked an intriguing narrow slot at the upper (north) end of the Bad River Channel as the Devils Door Rapid. We turned north, paralleling the cliffs of our big island, which looked like it formed the southern side of the Devils Door.

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Halfway up the big island's shore, a little bay gave us a nice spot to land and do some exploring on foot. This is looking north from our landing spot:

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Attachment 131258

There was some interesting slabby scrambling--25' slabs, maybe 5.6-ish in difficulty--if you looked for the hardest route possible (which I did, mostly). A really dramatic position along the spine of the tallest cliffs along the Bad River Channel.

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Attachment 131259

This was turning into a really great trip. The kind of trip that FOGG does best, I think. Able to cover miles under oars (I've had days where I've rowed 10+ miles in morning calms, then sailed another 15-20 miles), and able to sneak into places it would be hard to explore under sail. The Phoenix III, too. Perfect boats for this kind of tomfoolery.

[WI-Tom]

We reached Devils Door, a river squeezed between two big cliffs--quite a doorway. We rowed up to the foot of the rapid--a single straight drop, maybe 3' or so--and went so far as to consider lining our boats up. Or trying to. Luckily sanity set in, and we contented ourselves with rowing up the side eddies to the very foot of the rapid, and enjoying being washed back downstream to the main channel.

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Attachment 131260

But it looked like this was going to be as far up the Bad River Channel as we were going to make it. There were other gaps and other routes on the west side of the island, but the chart seemed to suggest that they would all involve getting upstream through various rapids as well. And I for one didn't feel like working that hard, when what we'd find below the rapids would be just as good as whatever lay above them.

So, we turned east up another narrow, probably dead-end channel, and started looking for possible campsites.

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An endless supply of rock-walled passages leading everywhere and nowhere.

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This little bay/campsite was nice enough, but it wasn't quite inspiring enough to motivate us to stay for the night:

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[WI-Tom]

But eventually--fortunately just as the channel we were following did, in fact, dead end--we found a perfect spot: a little shallow bay tucked between a low slabby island and a 10' cliff that ended in a perfectly flat expanse of granite that would make for easy tenting ashore.

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This was one of my favorite spots. But then, they're all one of my favorite spots.

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We had plenty of time to laze around--it was either camp here, or go back out to the Bad River Channel and hope to find something as good as this. Which would involve covering some miles, since we hadn't seen anything great on our way up the channel.

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June days are long, but eventually it was time to head for the tent in case the mosquitoes arrived.

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Maybe our lowest mileage day yet. We were less than a mile (straight-line distance) from where we had started. But it was far enough.

And that was day four.

[The Jeff]

Thanks for sharing these threads, it's always great to see how other people get out there and what adventures can be had. It's fun following along in Google Earth and looking at different channels and calculating distances. I think you've won me over, I'm going to make it a point to go up there and explore this area for at least a week. Don't know when it'll be, but let's say within the next 10 years. Once Long Steps is built and tweaked to my liking and my boy is a bit older.

[WI-Tom]

I don't think you'll regret the drive when you make the trip.

Seems like a good bet for cruising with youngsters. Sailing long days would probably get boring fast for a kid, but in Georgian Bay you can stop almost everywhere, and rarely need to make a long passage if you're not trying to cover long distances. By mid-July, water temps are quite nice for swimming as well. (Keep in mind that's the perspective of a Wisconsin swimmer).

Tom

[WI-Tom]

So, time for day five, which turned out to be maybe the most memorable day of the trip.

A side note--when I crawled out of the tent, I found that the water level had risen significantly overnight. I had tied up my boat to a boulder that was sitting up high and dry on a slab of granite below my tent. But in the morning, the slab was under water a few inches deep, and my boulder had become tiny little island. Which made me think about something from our last campsite.

When we had to move the boats to a more sheltered harbor, I had (as usual) tied the painter to a tree, and pulled the bow of the boat slightly up onto the muddy shore. It was secure enough there. But when we launched later that morning, my boat seemed awfully hard to push back into water deep enough to float it.

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I asked Lance if he had pulled my boat farther up onto shore, but he said no. That seemed a bit weird, but I didn't think much of it at the time. Now, in retrospect, it's pretty clear to me that the water level had dropped--you can even see the wet line on the rocks showing where the level had been when I first beached my boat (luckily not far enough to leave my boat high and dry). And now it had risen again. I hadn't experienced this kind of fluctuation in water levels in Georgian Bay before. I assume it might have had something to do with being at the mouth of the French River.

Or, maybe the local effect of a seiche.

And then, a bit of googling led me to a new (to me) discovery: although the Great Lakes are usually described as non-tidal waters, they do actually have a small true tidal action, with spring tides being about 5 cm max.

So, all these years I've been dealing with tides and I never knew it! I guess after fifteen years of tidal sailing here, I'm ready for the coast of Maine after all! This "tides" stuff is easy!

Anyway, with my brother needing to be back at work on the next Monday, it was time to start heading back west. So, we got moving early, maybe even before the sun came up, knowing we had a few miles to row before we'd be in water unobstructed enough for it to make sense to raise the sail.

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Skies looked promisingly blue. At first...

[WI-Tom]

We were about 26 straight-line miles from the boat ramp at this point in the trip.

Attachment 131357
Day 5.1.jpg

We figured that it would be good to make as many westward miles as we could today, giving us an easy short-mileage day to get back to the cars and start the drive home. I kind of thought we might camp somewhere in the vicinity of West Fox Island, which would put us within seven or eight miles of the ramp. But, prevailing winds are NW or W around here, mostly, and we wouldn't know what they'd be until we got out to the open water.

The blue skies faded to gray as we rowed our way down the Bad River Channel.

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Attachment 131358

Still, it didn't seem unduly windy. We kept going, following the long fingers of rock that stretched down the channel toward the big open water. We figured we'd row out all the way to the last shoals at the mouth of the Bad River Channel--Temple Rocks--and raise the sails there for the journey west.

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It was a headwind--so, maybe a SW wind on the open water--which wasn't as bad as it might have been. At least we'd be able to make a long board on each port tack, with a shorter starboard tack leg to take us offshore again. Not a dead beat, anyway.

[WI-Tom]

At Temple Rocks, once into reasonably shoal-free open(ish) waters, we raised our sails.

Day 5.2.jpg

This was the moment when I lost any interest in using one of those fancy metal-ring mast travelers that are so popular with some sail-and-oar enthusiasts. The logic of such a set-up is obvious: if you want fast transitions between rowing and sailing, what could be faster than hooking or unhooking the yard from a traveler ring? Even better, a metal ring keeps the yard close to the mast even when reefed, preventing the otherwise inevitable sagging away that happens when you reef down.

The problem with my boat is that the beehole for the halyard is very near the mast tip. And I have to hoist my sail all the way up as high as possible to have any hope of visibility underneath, and also to prevent my downhaul from bottoming out when I tension it fully. A metal-ring mast traveler does not function at all well when it has to be hoisted right up to the very tip of the mast, with the yard tight against the beehole. Those who use this set-up successfully all seem to have a mast tall enough that they do not need to hoist the yard that high.

A further complication for my Alaska is that the alternate center mast step that I use is about 12" lower than the mast step at the bow for the ketch rig. If my mast were in that higher step, I would not need to hoist it so far on the mast.

Well, whatever. It seemed like such a good idea in principle. I was trying it on this trip because I really wanted it to work. But somehow when I hoisted my sail at Temple Rock, the yard got all the way up the mast, six or seven feet above my head--just as I was moving to cleat off the halyard before tightening the downhaul--the yard popped off the hook, and the entire sail/yard bundle came dropping down on my head and shoulders, a big mess with lots of the sail in the water, and the boat not all that far away from some rocks. (For some reason I left all that out of the Small Boats article... )

So, that was it. I instantly decided, no more mast traveler ring for FOGG. I re-rigged with my old method of tying the end of the halyard directly to the yard with a constrictor hitch, which allows me to hoist the yard right up to the beehole in the mast with no problems. The knot takes only a few seconds to tie, and I only have to tie it (at most) once a day--usually less often than that--because I can drop the entire sail/yard bundle onto the thwarts with no need to disconnect it from the halyard when I drop the rig.

Anyone else have similar problems with a traveler ring set-up, or am I the only one?

Tom

[WI-Tom]

But despite the delay caused by my blunder--Lance had to circle around a bit while I sorted things out--we were sailing soon enough.

Windy enough to be interesting, but nothing I would consider serious conditions. There were some waves, but they didn't seem big. Then again, I usually sail alone, with no way of judging wave size from a reference point outside my boat. So it was interesting to see how even these not-so-big waves could hide a small low-freeboard sail-and-oar boat in the troughs:

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As anticipated, the wind direction out on the bay gave us one long board on the port tack before coming about on a shorter starboard tack to work offshore again. Neither of us use a GPS, so I make no claims for accuracy here, but the first six or seven miles of our route from Temple Rocks must have been something like this:

Day 5.3.jpg

Out boats seem to perform very similarly in these conditions. The Phoenix III and the Alaska point about the same, but the Phoenix III would win any short-tacking battle because it loses much less momentum at each tack, and comes about much more quickly than the Alaska with its long straight keel. But here the tacks were long enough that the Alaska's extra 3' of waterline, and extra 9 sq ft of sail area, evened things out. I did have to luff up and wait a bit at times to keep reasonably close, but the opposite is also true in many conditions. Very compatible boats overall.

We had lots of chances to cross tacks as we worked our way west:

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And some stretches where our timing lined up enough that we were sailing parallel courses for a while:

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This last one is one of my favorite photos, too--it really seems to capture the feel of the occasional long sailing passages on a two-boat trip. Big big water off to the left, 50+ miles of fetch.

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[sp_clark]

Enjoyable distraction reading these posts Tom as I contemplate once again having it out with the plow's berm sitting at foot of my driveway....

You get snow in Poland too? That maybe why you're putting these trip records up for The Rest of Us Back Here?

Sailing season's still 'a few weeks' off near these coordinates; ice still on the ponds & many lakes, much to the surprise of the ice fisherfolk....

[Dave Hadfield]

Yes about the sieche, which is a rebounding wave pattern running back and forth across the lake, but there are two other effects:

- a simple wind-tide. The weather patterns on the Lakes are typically 3-day-blows. A cold-front sweeps across and the NW wind blows for at least the next 2 days. It piles-up water to the SE, often 4-6 inches or so. Then the wind backs to the SW, and blows again until the next cold front, reversing the water flow -- and creating the continuous nasty cross-sea which is prevalent there: rollers from the NW and surface waves from the SW, then vice-versa.

- intense local low-pressure areas. If two or three large T-storm cells converge over one section of a Lake, they can raise the water level there, and by reaction reduce the water level in other places. I grew up on the St. Clair River just south of Sarnia at the bottom tip of Lake Huron. Very occasional a sieche will coincide with a Low, and the river shuts off for a couple of hours.

Anyway, as you have discovered, any experienced Great Lakes sailor never gives up westing, west-longitude, if they can avoid it. Every mile gained to the west is a victory. That's the reason for the Small-Craft-Route. It's not just cottage-access. It's to allow boats to get westward by staying within sheltered waters.

[WI-Tom]

Enjoyable distraction reading these posts Tom as I contemplate once again having it out with the plow's berm sitting at foot of my driveway....

You get snow in Poland too? That maybe why you're putting these trip records up for The Rest of Us Back Here?

Sailing season's still 'a few weeks' off near these coordinates; ice still on the ponds & many lakes, much to the surprise of the ice fisherfolk....

We had a white Christmas, and a few snowy days, but very mild compared to what I'm used to from NW Wisconsin. Temps mostly in the 40s F or above. Still a few remnants of snow on the pavement yesterday, but hardly anything--though it did snow quite hard for an hour or two, it all melted right away.

The river never froze this year from what I recall. So, if I had me a good rowing boat, seems likely I could row comfortably on many winter days.

Tom

[WI-Tom]

Yes about the sieche, which is a rebounding wave pattern running back and forth across the lake, but there are two other effects:

- a simple wind-tide. The weather patterns on the Lakes are typically 3-day-blows. A cold-front sweeps across and the NW wind blows for at least the next 2 days. It piles-up water to the SE, often 4-6 inches or so. Then the wind backs to the SW, and blows again until the next cold front, reversing the water flow -- and creating the continuous nasty cross-sea which is prevalent there: rollers from the NW and surface waves from the SW, then vice-versa.

- intense local low-pressure areas. If two or three large T-storm cells converge over one section of a Lake, they can raise the water level there, and by reaction reduce the water level in other places. I grew up on the St. Clair River just south of Sarnia at the bottom tip of Lake Huron. Very occasional a sieche will coincide with a Low, and the river shuts off for a couple of hours.

Anyway, as you have discovered, any experienced Great Lakes sailor never gives up westing, west-longitude, if they can avoid it. Every mile gained to the west is a victory. That's the reason for the Small-Craft-Route. It's not just cottage-access. It's to allow boats to get westward by staying within sheltered waters.

Good to know--thanks! I totally agree on not giving up any westward progress. Although, sticking to the narrow seams inshore and rowing is pretty effective at gaining ground when the wind is against you, if you have a small enough boat that rows well.

As for the water level drop, it was very fast that first time. I beached my boat, and maybe 1-2 hours later the water level was several inches lower. I have no idea how quickly the water rose at the next campsite, but that was two mornings in a row when I noticed it. It has probably happened on other trips but I wasn't paying enough attention to notice it.

In other news, it seems 95% certain that I will be returning to Georgian Bay in July. With luck, we may cross paths on the water yet!

Tom

[WI-Tom]

OK, so after six or seven miles, making fairly good time, I was getting to where I wouldn't say no to a break ashore (about where the red X is in the image below). It can, of course, be tricky to approach the shores through all the rocks, but as it turned out, good old Hen Island, our first campsite of the trip, wasn't far off our path. No reason we couldn't stop in for a bit of a ramble around on shore, maybe some lunch, and continue sailing afterwards to make more miles.

Day 5.4.jpg

We didn't have boat-to-boat comms with no VHF, and I had managed to get way ahead of the Phoenix III, but our sails were still visible. I knew Lance would see what was what when I turned toward Hen Island, and he'd follow along.

I sailed up to the entrance to Hen Island's harbor and landed on the east drumstick (which is not quite attached to the main island so you have to approach by boat or swim). I figured I could get some good photos of the Phoenix III. But when we turned off the wind to head toward Hen Island, the Phoenix III's balance lug rig had really been making up ground, moving a lot faster than FOGG with its boomless standing lug, apparently. I barely had time to grab my camera and get into position at the tip of the east drumstick before Lance was there--and it had seemed like I was WAY ahead.

5.23.jpg

He dropped the sail and rowed up into the bay, just a few minutes behind me (if that).

5.24.jpg

[WI-Tom]

We landed on Hen Island's nice sandy beach again, that was that. Time for a nice break, maybe some cooked lunch (or was it breakfast--I often don't really remember to eat before jumping in the boat and setting out in the morning), before continuing our westward journey back toward Killarney.

5.25.jpg

So far so good. And then, out of nowhere, completely unexpected, a cold fog swept in and pretty much cast us adrift in an endless white mist.

5.26.jpg

Nothing much was visible offshore. The mainland was less than a quarter of a mile to the north and we couldn't see any sign of it.

Hmm...

[Dan McCosh]

This has been great photo tour of the 30,000 islands area, accessible by a small boat. It's a little confusing, however, to call this "Georgian Bay." As noted earlier, Georgian is an arm off Lake Huron, about a third of the area of Lake Huron itself. Dunno what constitutes a bay vs. a lake, but it is a very large body of water, with the 30,000 islands a small part of the northern shore. Calling the islands Georgian Bay is something like calling San Diego the Pacific ocean. Nomenclature aside, the "bay" itself is prone to the typical upper Great Lakes weather systems. As noted earlier these include the "three-day blows" mentioned by Earnest Hemmingway. Having been stuck harbors on these occasions, might note that we once spend three day at anchor in a protected harbor during a 30-40 knot gale that prevented many from using substantial Avon-style dinghies to get to the shore--or back to the anchored boat. Also problematic are the summer thunderstorms. One was so severe it began tearing off roofs in Little Current, and sunk a boat anchored in a protected harbor. Fog is an other issue, which can set in quickly and make navigation tricky offshore. All this is to say the open waters of Georgian Bay are no place for a small boat not intended for offshore sailing. (Think more like 30 miles offshore in the Atlantic.) As for shore camping, the area was long notorious for mosquitoes so intense at night it was tough to be outside at all. For whatever reason, this hasn't been so bad in recent years. Still, it is a very pleasant place for poking around among the channels and wilderness islands.

[WI-Tom]

Dan,

I agree with your comments, and Dave's, about potential weather hazards. I was pinned down by high winds for 3 days (coincidence?) in Black Bay on one of my earlier trips. It would have been virtually impossible to go anywhere on the water in my little boat; even rowing in flat water in those winds would not be sustainable. When I finally did set out, I only managed a few miles under oars that first day (still windy, no rain, no patience to stay in place) before I had to find another spot to hide out in. My tent didn't stand up too well, either, as it really needed to be staked out--but I was on granite so the best I could do was tie big rocks to it. Even then, I spent most of one night holding up the tent from inside. That said, it's generally very friendly to small boats if you stick close to shelter and stay ashore when you need to.

As for nomenclature, of course the Thirty Thousand Islands is only a small part of Georgian Bay--we only had 7 days, and boats that at their very best, in favorable winds, might manage 6 knots at peak speed, average more like 3-4 knots, maybe. Obviously there's a difference between the open water of this big arm of Lake Huron, and hugging the shore. But hugging the shore is what sail-and-oar boats mostly do, at least when I'm driving them. And those shores are the shores of Georgian Bay, eh? I'm not sure what else I'd call it.

I agree that the mosquitoes have not been as bad as old stories make them sound. I've had only one bad mosquito night when I anchored out and slept aboard without bug netting for my boat tent, back almost 10 years ago now. Otherwise, as long as you have a tent to escape to when dark hits, they haven't been a problem for me at all. Certainly not at all during the daylight hours. Often not even at night; once you get past the initial swarms at first dark they often disappear.

The advantage a small boat like ours has is that it can tuck way in close to shore, surrounded by land on almost all sides. Even in that 3-day blow where I was stuck, the boat was never in any danger at all (though I did have to bail it out a few times from the rain). It's hard to sink a boat that's tied to shore in shin-deep water.

Tom