Our departure from Britt went worlds better than our arrival. Although, I was still marginally anxious despite the 30ft deep channel. Nevertheless, we escaped the channel with no incident and began the rather extended trek out into Georgian Bay. For, being as rocky of a place as it is, the entire entrances to these safe harbors are sometimes upwards of 3-5 miles long from port to open water. Which was fine, we took our time and stuck to the proper channels until we were free of the minefield.
It was a beautiful, albeit chilly day on Georgian Bay. The sky was full of puffy white clouds and it reminded me a little bit of fall. Which is far to early in it’s coming! I even heard that we are to be hit by a cold front sometime in the next week bringing nominal temperatures to 8C (46F)! Where’s the sunny and 75F weather??
The trip to Parry Sound, ON from Britt was roughly 30 miles or ~7 hours. Unfortunately, the winds were not in our favor to sail (wrong direction and less than 5 knots). So, we opted to motor. Nothing of any significance really came from the trip. However, we did get a hail on the VHF from another sailboat, Shiver Me Timbers. They had just come up from Tampa, Florida by way of the ICW, Hudson River, Erie Canal, and Trent-Severn and planned to spend a month or two up in Georgian Bay and the North Channel. Which is just the route (in reverse) that we will be starting in under a week. We had a ton of questions for them. Most imperative to us, though, were the depths in the Trent Severn. The gentleman from SMT casually mentioned that he drew roughly 5.5ft and had run aground, hit some rocks, and possibly a sunken log along the way. He made it sound like no big deal! But, after the events on our way to Britt, my dad and I were a little grief stricken about what misfortunes may lay ahead of us. But, I guess if you do this enough, it just because a part of the normal course of business. Boat long enough, you will run aground. No matter how superior of a navigator you are.
We said goodbye and wished good luck to Shiver Me Timbers and began to make another long entrance to our next anchorage in Parry Sound. Again, due to the rock riddled shoreline of Georgian Bay, the trip in took us roughly 1.5 hours. I had identified a little spot on the chart plotter that looked like it would give us good protection from the wind and waves. Turns out it was the place to be!
When we arrived in Kilcoursie Bay, there already was a trawler and two sailboats anchored. The bay was pretty much one big beach/camp ground and there were people everywhere! It’s the most life that we have seen throughout this entire trip. There were even four of five school buses full of kids that showed up and invaded a section of the beach off our bow. They were loud and obnoxious, but they were having fun. A little while later, another small sailboat showed up in the bay to anchor. Busiest anchorage we’ve had to date. There were also a number of smaller pleasure craft running around dragging kids in inner tubes and anchoring right off the beaches for a BBQ dinner.
After all the kids packed up and left, it was an incredibly peaceful evening. I finished another book (A Call of the Wild) in the cockpit while the sun set. We are unsure of our designation for tomorrow. Parry Sound is a very large, well, sound; and we may stay another day to explore the other areas contained within. Not taking the small craft routes has put us a few days ahead of schedule, so we have to make a call on our plans tomorrow morning.
