Penetang Harbour, ON to Midland, ON

Unable to get off the dock on Sunday afternoon. We were forced to stay the night. The winds didn’t really relent until the early morning hours. So, we didn’t have much of a choice.

In order to avoid having to pay for a dockage that we didn’t want, we rose at about 5am to get rolling towards Midland. My dad, being spooked by a van pulling into the marina lot, decided to forgo coffee until once out into the channel. Free from the dock and in the middle of the channel, my dad cut the engines and we just drifted in the early morning; as there was no wind or wave action yet. I went below and made coffee for us and we enjoyed it in the cockpit as the sun was clearing the tree-lined horizon of the channel.

At around 6am, the channel began to show signs of life with a few boats headed out and some fisherman finding their favorite spots. With coffee out of the way (which is our morning ritual), we powered up the engine and started to navigate out of the channel.

The trip from Penetang to Midland was a short one. Only about 10 or 12 miles in total. Very uneventful. But that’s ok! We pulled into Midland Bay a little before 8am and tooled around the different marina outskirts to kill some time; as we needed to hail Bay Port marina to find us a slip because we were 4 days ahead of schedule.

Bay Port marina is a huge and sprawling place. There are several hundred slips and nearly all of them are full! It’s well laid out though, and navigating the alleys was easy. They put us in a deep water slip with plenty of room and even had two dockhands waiting for us on arrival. That helps a lot!

We spent the rest of the day taking down the sails and prepping the boat to have the mast stepped (removed). We stored the sails and I spent a good chunk of the day photographing and documenting our rigging layout so that when it came time to re-step the mast, we knew where everything went. Very important!

On our way to dinner we ran into a group of very nice people who were just leaving a classic wooden cursing boat on the other side of the dock. We chatted with them for a bit and one couple was even nice enough to give us a ride into town. If you’re reading this, THANK YOU!

We had a great dinner at the Boat House consisting of pizza and bear and made our way back to the boat and collapsed for the night. I’m not sure what the next few days will have in store, but I have a to-do list about a mile long.

Stay tuned over the next few days as we make our way toward Port Severn to enter the Trent-Severn Waterway on Friday, July 18th.