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I then started the
generator to make some coffee while Gina prepared breakfast. This
morning we feasted on deluxe omelets, made with tomatoes, onions,
peppers, bacon, cheese, and potatoes. The sailboat that was having all
the anchoring problems last night was gone, and at 10:00 Dreams &
Schemes pulled anchor and headed out of Mary Cove.
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I turned to
channel 78 on the VHF and tried to hail Lime Cutter at
10:30. Ed’s son Kyle from Mytigood answered,
telling me they were docked in Killarney, and the adults were out
for a dinghy ride. Their tentative plan was to motor to Mary Ann
Cove tomorrow (Friday). Props and shafts were being sent from Sea
Ray in Florida directly to Little Current, where they will head to
on Monday to take care of the ‘problem’ that Mytigood
encountered. I didn’t ask for ‘details’, but told him of our
plan to go to The Pool today and we’d be in touch.
At 11:30 I
stowed the dinghy after retrieving the stern anchor lines from
shore. We had to restart the generator in order to get the port
engine going. Evidently the long time at anchor is running the
house batteries down a lot. It was very sunny out, hot, and just a
little wind as we exited Mary Ann Cove at 11:46.
Once out into
the middle of Baie Fine and turning east, I throttled Tick Tock
Too up on plane for a while to make sure we had no excessive
vibration caused from our ‘shoaling incident’. I was relieved
to see that everything appeared ‘A-OK’. We kept the speed up
and favored the north shore of this beautiful fjord heading
towards The Pool. This is one of my favorite runs. You are real
close to the shore and can make out all the detail rocks. With the
emerald water and dark green trees set against the sheer cliffs of
white quartz, it is truly beautiful. There was hardly any boat
traffic out here today.
A half-hour
later we slowed down to line ourselves up to enter ‘The
Narrows’, where Baie Fine literally narrows down. You have to
contend with some large rocks turning in, and the depth gets
shallow near the shores. Local knowledge or advice helps to know
exactly where to go, so as not to get into any trouble. Back in
2004 we followed a couple of larger boats through the pass; and I
have that track marked on the plotter.
We were only
traveling about 9mph, slow enough for Gina to try to clean off the
anchor, which still had some mud left on it from Mary Ann Cove. At
12:40 we rounded into The Pool past Evinrude Island. We jockeyed
the boat to get as near our 2004 anchorage spot as we could.
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Typical Baie Fine
Shoreline
Entering The
Narrows
Turning Corner into
The Pool
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Gina had
lowered the
bow anchor, but then brought it back up when it appeared it
wasn’t set. It had about 50 pounds of mud and weeds on it,
so we tried again. This time we ended up about 35 feet closer to
shore when we thought the anchor was set, and it was getting a
little windy. I counted six power boats and four sailboats here.
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Setting
Stern Line
Instead Of
Anchored
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I
launched the dinghy and took a stern line to shore. First I
tied it to a tree, but ended up securing it to a big rock. Instead Of had anchored a
couple hundred yards from us, farther out from shore and
without tying off. I shut down the engines, and the
tripometer read 365 total miles since Day 1.
Dreams &
Schemes was just leaving The Pool, and a short while
later Andiamo made a pass through. They must have
gotten their impeller repaired promptly and we waved and
gave them (all 10 people on board) the thumbs up sign as
they went by.
We
decided to hike up to Lake Topaz to swim and do some cliff
diving. We had heard about this spot from a lot of sources,
so we just had to check it out. Jim, Laurie, and Mary took
their dinghy and followed us across the water about a ¼
mile to the northernmost shore of what they call Blue Ridge,
part of the South La Cloche Mountain Range. There was a dock
there for larger boats, but we beached the dinghies on the
shore.
We walked
along the shore for a little bit before heading up hill on
the ‘trail’. Yellow markers attached to trees marked the
way, as we trudged up what appeared to be a dried up
riverbed. It was 20 feet wide in spots, and lined with a lot
of mid sized rocks. In some places there was a little mud,
with water coming down from somewhere. This definitely was
not the strenuous steep hike that Frazer Bay Hill was.
About
twenty minutes later as we neared the top, the trail sent us
back down in a tree filled valley. We looked for and found
the appropriate yellow trail markers, and then back up again
for a short steep finale to the very top.
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And wow,
what a view of this beautiful Lake. The striking blue water,
surrounded by tall white quartz cliffs around much of it, as
well as low lying dark green trees. This is known as a
‘dead’ lake (much of it caused by acid rain), which
means no algae, no fish, and mostly clear. There were
several people gathered ‘up here’ and swimming near
shore. We chatted with a family from Toronto that had
chartered a sailboat.
We found
one of the jumping off spots, a flat portion on the rock
about 15 feet above the water (of course it seemed a lot
higher than that). Gina went first, and then I took a turn.
You had to jump out some to clear the rocks. It was
exhilarating for sure. With no algae on the rocks, it was an
easy to climb out at the bottom.
Gina swam
about 100 yards down the shoreline to another spot where the cliff was a little
bit higher. There she climbed up and made another jump. We took pictures then sat
down to take in the view and relax.
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one time, Laurie’s gaze was fixed on the opposite shore,
thinking for sure we were looking at a bear in the tall
grass. A couple of closer looks with the binoculars, and I deduced
that it was actually a tree stump. We
had a good laugh!
Jim had
left to go back to the boat earlier, so the girls and I
packed up and hiked back down the trail to return to the
boats in our dinghy. Down at the bottom, I ran into
the crew of the sailboat that was having a difficult time
anchoring in Mary Ann Cove last night. They told me that
they had fouled the anchor line in the prop and ran ashore. |
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'Cliff
Diving'
Lake Topaz
A
few of us
took the plunge!
Clear
Water
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Jim
Diving |
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| As
we readied to leave, Jim came by via dinghy with some news.
Evidently Tick Tock Too had dragged its anchor line
and was perilously close to the rocky shore. Him and Bill
came to the rescue, and untied the shore stern line and
fastened it to Instead Of. Not a good situation. We
quickly motored back to the boat.
Gina and I got on
board, started the engines, and began pulling up the
anchor, which was covered with mud and weeds in a big black
ball. A big mess, and it was getting caught in the windlass.
Gina then took over the controls while I went up to the bow
with a boat hook and started pulling off the mud and weeds.
It took over 20 minutes to get it all cleaned off while Gina
steered the boat around in circles. She then directed us to
a better spot where I let out over 70 feet of line. We were
still a little closer than I would have preferred, but it
seemed to be set all right now.
A little while later Instead
Of bid farewell, took our trash, and headed off to
Little Current. Not sure if we’d run into them again. Over
the next few days they planned to stop by the Benjamin
Islands and then make their way to Mackinac Island.
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