Day 33 2nd year. June 22. Exploring Georgian Bay and anchorage at Indian Harbor. Miles. 27.7 Total. 3229

Last night we saw some new things- a jet ski Uber Eats driver delivering food to a boat at the dock and a fully completed dock being towed to its new home. What you have to do when you live around so many islands.

We woke to another gorgeous day! Walked a bit on Beausoleil Island, enjoying all the antics of the chipmunks and the song of the various birds.

We left the dock and headed north. Today we will scout out anchorages on our way to Indian Harbor, where we will anchor tonight.

Leaving Beausoleil we rounded Roberts Island and cruised through the narrow channel that leads to the town of Honey Harbor and it’s many cottages and marinas.

Then we passed into Inner Channel at the north end of Beausoleil Island.

We can see why people enjoy boating on Georgian Bay- so many bays and coves to explore! And explore we did. First we wandered into Frying Pan Bay and a Goblin Bay, which will be perfect for family which will be visiting us soon.

Cruising further, we turned off the main channel into Musquatch Channel to explore Longuissa Bay, Brown Bay and Hockey Stick Harbor (its shaped like a hockey stick).

As you can see by the pictures, all these bays are have high granite shorelines with pine forest and a scattering of cottages.

We returned to the main channel and passed many granite islands and into more open water until we turned off into Monument Channel. This channel winds through several granite islands. To get to our anchorage, we left Monument Channel and up into the rocks. Thank goodness for range markers and lots of buoys to guide us along.

We anchored in the small harbor with four other boats, one being our Canadian friends, the McKendrys, who are graciously playing tour guide for us and providing pointers on cruising Georgian Bay. Thus was our first experience in anchoring with a rocky bottom. So far, so good.

This is a picture of our first wind swept pines, so typical of Georgian bay.

We will relax a bit, then put the dinghy in the water to explore these granite rocks and islands.

Reflections on the Bahamas

Reflections on the Bahamas Over the past 10 weeks, we have traveled through Abaco, Eleuthera and Exuma Islands and enjoyed the hospitality of the Bahamian people. We have learned all about the islands, its unique geography - limestone, caves, blue holes and chalk cliffs; and colorful history-pirates and rum running, salt ponds and cotton plantations, boat building and wrecking/salvage. Traveling over 1300 miles through narrow cuts and wide bays to vast depths of ocean, we negotiated the islands and found safe harbors, calm coves for anchoring, bays filled with moorings and marinas large and small. This trip required us to pay close attention to the weather, the tides and currents as we traveled between and through the islands. The Bahamian people are warm and friendly, willing to give us rides, advice and directions, as well as some secret recipes!! We enjoyed hiking trails, walking the beaches, snorkeling the coral rocks and reefs, discovering ruins and ol...

June 4-5. Day 63-64. On to Cape May New Jersey. 53.4nm. Total 1534 miles.

Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay. The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots. The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship J...

Day 98. 2nd year. August 27. On to Manistee. Miles 25 Total miles. 3910.

We weighed anchor on a sunny 50 degree morning. So we put on our sweatshirts and drove from below as we left Frankfort. Going through Frankfort’s channel and breakwater we encountered a few intrepid fisherman and further along as we cleared the breakwater there must have been over a hundred fishing boats. Almost like playing bumper cars, but with boats. Had to negotiate a path between them as the fishing boats were all trolling fishing lines behind them. We were still seeing fishermen 4 miles south of Frankfort. These guys sure take their fishing tournaments seriously! The shoreline that we pass heading south are still sand dunes bluffs some as tall as 200 feet. As we travel, we pass the small town of Arcadia and Portage Lake, each situated on an inland lake which is connected to Lake Michigan by a dredged channel. Interesting to note that the dredged channels were originally small rivers connecting the inland lakes to Lake Michigan. As we passe...

Crustacean Travels

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