Writing you from Lake Betsie. How appropriate is that!
Dick, just about the time you were writing your message we were thinking that we wanted to write you and tell you we appreciated your invitation to get together for dinner and meet your wife Suzanne and to say we are sorry that it didn't work out. That area just got too hot and humid for us and we needed to go north.
Bill, you and Karen would love to do The Loop !! Keep it on the front burner. We'll be doing the southern part of The Loop starting next Feb. and crossing our wake probably in May sometime, if that fits in your scheme at all.
Jim, in talking to people on our travels who live in Florida, we've been
advised that to avoid the heat we'd be happiest if we got to your neck of the woods in Feb. or March. You're a local -- what's your take?
Since we last wrote we have done the Erie Canal and the Trent Severn Waterway for starters. Well over 70 locks later we can say we really like
em' !! By far the most fun was not really a lock at all -- Sea Pal got the ride of her life on a trolley rail car type lift that raised & carried her over a road and then down an embankment into the water. It's called the Big Chute and it's a tame roller coaster ride for a boat. You'd all love it !!
We loved the scenery and towns along the way of both the canal systems. As was mentioned in another thread, but not here, we had the pleasure of spending time with Rich and Kathie the crew of Annalee, who live near Utica. That was no doubt the most pleasurable highlight of the Erie Canal part of our trip.
The Trent Severn is gorgeous and the Canadian dock masters are real PR people !! Our conversations with them along the way, made it especially
enjoyable. Tying up at the lock walls, that are at either end of most locks, was a very pleasant way to enjoy the towns and hamlets along the way.
Weather has definitely been a factor in our travels. Leaving the Trent Severn Waterway we traveled up the northeasterly coast of Georgian Bay to Parry Sound, where we spent more time than anticipated, waiting out summer storms on the water. When we got a weather window we continued north to Point Au Baril Station. The northeasterly coast of Georgian Bay is called the area of Thirty Thousand Islands --- it requires you to be hyper - attentive to all your navigational aids, which includes your first mates observations and instructions ( !!!) as those 30,000 islands are made out of
"disaster to your props" granite. The really, really hard stuff !!!
The name Point Au Baril name derives from when the fishermen would but a barrel on the shore with a lantern on top to guide them into the harbor. We stayed at the end of the channel where it was too shallow for other cruisers to be. We waited out more weather there as we greatly enjoyed watching the comings and goings of the locals.
A couple of nights in Killarney rounded out our Georgian Bay adventure and a meal at Herbert's Fishery where you eat at picnic tables in front of the fishing boat that just caught your whitefish. Doesn't get any fresher than that !! Then it was on into the North Channel. Very beautiful, clear green water. Stops in Little Current and Gore Bay. We met our new cruising friends, Ray and Judy, in Little Current after a frustrating attempt at anchoring in the North Channel. Our windlass jammed part way out --- had to get to a dock to pound it out. What, you don't carry a really, really huge screwdriver and a big rubber hammer either ?!!! As Ray said, had we been successful at anchoring we would not have met them. Believe me they are worth what we forfeited being in that cove !!
Ray took an early retirement from the Army Corp of Engineers as a tugboat captain. Talk about useful knowledge !! On another attempt at anchoring our guru said the area was too crowded for the possible weather coming in. How right he was. The next morning they got 40 knot winds in that cove. Everyone was going every which way !!
A little over a week ago we went through customs and sadly took down our Canadian courtesy flag. We loved Canada. We loved the scenery. We loved the helpful, outgoing people. The prices of everything ----- not as much!!
In Mackinaw City we received our second visit from our dear friends the Haases, who Betsy has known since her Phoenix, Az. days. They now live in interior Mi. and first traveled with their RV and car to visit us for Canada Day when we were on the TS Waterway. With them we took the ferry to Mackinac Island. Did the touristy, but fun, horse drawn buggy tour and did the new butterfly conservatory. Never had been in amongst a gazillion of those before. Fun.
The next day we were driven to Sault Ste. Marie where we fortunately were able to see two 730 ft. freighters go through the really humungus locks. They were traveling up to Lake Superior to pick up wheat and coal. We couldn't hang around for the 1,000 footer because we had to make a stop at Wallmart to buy a wet and dry vac to replace the
one that the first mate blew up the day before after a huge gnat invasion !!!
To be forearmed is our best insurance for not having another flying animal
takeover.
Ended our Mackinaw City stay with a tour of the Coast Guard ice cutter, named of course, the Mackinaw. The approval for it's commission came 11 days after The Pearl Harbor Invasion. It took 3 years to build and was badly needed to enable the freighters to transport iron ore for the war effort. It was replaced 5 years ago by a new ice cutter. Both these ships were near our marina and Betsy thought their bright red and white color paint colors were most attractive !!!! Go figure.
So now we are on Lake Betsie which is right off the east coast of Lake Michigan in the town of Frankfort. Earlier in the week we anchored out in Charlevoix & then at a marina waiting for the parts to come in to change the oil and fuel filters for our Hondas. Then last night in Leland. Both Charlevoix and Leland are upscale summer communities. Lake Michigan has the most beautiful green clear water. Much like the North Channel.
Tomorrow promises to be another good traveling day so we shall continue south. All things being equal, we should be in Chicago by the middle of next week. We need to be back home by the early part of Oct. So Sea Pal's got to be pulled out of the water by mid Sept. The time reality of doing the rivers south from Chicago is coming in on us.
A few observations. Our 25 foot Sea Pal is almost always the very smallest cruiser in a marina, at an anchorage or tied to a lock wall. But, and this is most important, it is also almost always the vessel from the furthest home port !!! So there.
The last observation is --- the most beautiful part of our trip so far as been traveling through 14 mile long Collins Inlet, just before we arrived at Killarney,Ontario. Why was it the most beautiful? Maybe because it reminded us the most of the gorgeous Pacific Northwest cruising waters we
have at home.
So until next time. Promise we'll write sooner so we won't have to write so much. Our laptop crashed a week or so ago so this message is by the Burks' and the typos by iPad .
Sea Pal's crew, Bob and Betsy
Three observations
