Entering The Georgian Bay

Thursday August 10, 2017.  We were finally done with the Trent-Severn Waterway.  No more locks.  With Port Severn in the rear-view mirror (okay, boats don’t have rear-view mirrors, but I digress), the next phase of the Loop is the Georgian Bay.  We headed mostly north and a little west about 150 miles to the town of Killarney.  What Georgian Bay is famous for is rocks!  Locks of rocks.  In fact, they call this part of eastern Lake Huron the “30,000 Islands” because, well, there are lots and lots of islands.  The good news this year is that the water level is somewhat higher than normal.  The bad news is that many of the small rock islands that would be visible in times of normal water levels are underwater this year.  Fortunately, the Garmin Blue Chart Mobile App we are running on our iPads has been pretty accurate.  So far, anyway.

There was a buoyed passage through the many islands and rocks called the "Small Boat Channel".  And that's normally the course you would take as it keeps you away from the open waters of eastern Lake Huron.  But there are places where the channel was very narrow and possibly shallow where you would have to turn the boat in circles to make it through.  If you don't want to follow the Small Boat Channel, there are places where you can exit to the west for more open water.  We did much of the small boat channel but also did some open water passages when the water was calm as that could be a faster way to our destination.

                                               Lighthouse In The Georgian Bay

                                                             Lots of Rocks

Our destination on leaving Port Severn was Henry’s Fish Camp, a trip of about 43 miles.  Henry’s Fish Camp is a famous Georgian Bay location where you can stop in for a great fish and chips dinner.  And if you eat there you can also stay overnight on the docks at the restaurant.  Sadly, this year the Henry’s Fish Camp restaurant was closed.  Though the docks were still available.  Apparently, the owners of the restaurant could not find enough people to man the restaurant for the summer.  Who wouldn’t want to live on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere serving greasy fish to cheap boaters?  The pay was likely bad and the tips even worse.

Rather than stay on the docks at Henry’s Fish Camp, we found a nice anchorage called Crowe Point a couple of miles away.  We are not yet great at picking anchorages.  This one was well protected from west winds only to have the winds clock around to the east.  There was no concern of dragging anchor, it’s only that the waves hitting the bow of the boat at night (called “bow slap”) make it hard to sleep.  Also, after we anchored, we figured out that the squiggly lines on the chart indicated underwater power cables running from cabin to cabin across the bay we were in.  And we concluded that we might be anchored too close to a power cable; the concern being that it could be hard to raise the anchor in the morning if it catches on a power cable.  So we moved the boat to different spot.   

The coolest thing at this anchorage was when Nancy saw a bear swimming across the bay.  While I was searching for the camera, Nancy saw the bear exit the water and amble away.

                                        Black Bear Swimming Across the Bay