Sailing the Great Lakes: Another day in Tobermory

Sunday June 6th - Got up around 7:30am but it was pretty cold, still raining a little and very windy. Ventured out and quickly came back and back into bed. Maybe around 8:30am we actually got up and made coffee. Had a bagel (we have power so we could use the toaster), Kathi had Kashi Go-Lean cereal with soy milk (yuck! on the soy milk). After breakfast I fired up the Fugawi navigation software and started plotting our route to Wingfield Basin at Cabot Head. Turns out the other couple in the 36ft Beneteau next to us is going to head there tomorrow (Monday June 7th) too. Weather forecast was for high winds and more rain this evening clearing overnight, with sunshine tomorrow. So we ended up staying here another day.

The Beneteau couple (Norden Passage is the name) are headed up to the northern part of Lake Superior. They have 20 amp solar panels (not like our 1.8 amp one), life raft, survival suites, and a wood stove in the boat. They highly recommend going up there, but we ain't ready for that type of cold! The evidently do this every summer and says he is a ski instructor making $150 and hour teaching. She is British, but not exactly sure from where.

Tomorrow's sail should be pretty easy - we are supposed to have winds from northwest 10 to 15 knots. Once out of Little Tub Harbor, really only have two way points - one south of Flowerpot Island, and the other just outside the entrance to Wingfield Basin. If the winds stay light we my pop the spinnaker up (that big pink "Victoria's Secret" sail).

After getting the route all set up, and once the sun came out we decided to take a hike on the Bruce Trail (it actually goes from Niagara Falls all the way to here in Tobermory) to the visitor's center. We watched a movie about the Fathom Five and Bruce National Parks, walked through the museum exhibits, and then head out further down the Bruce Trail. There is a tower and we went up it to have a view of the area. You could easily see Cabot Head (where Wingfield Basin is), the Tobermory "tubs" and islands the form the passages between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. After the tower we took the trail to Little Dunks Bay with a nice view to the east and you could easily see Cabot Head. There was a house and a moored sailboat in a little pocket in the southwest corner.

Then we hiked back past the visitor's center and into town. Kathi wanted to see where the late 1800's steam tugs sank so we walked in such a way that we ended up at the head of Little Tub Harbor. There was a "viewing platform" with stairs down to the water, but you could really see nothing... by then the sun was to the more to the west and the tugs are in 40ft of water.

We followed the boardwalk along Little Tub back to the Fish & Chips place (around 3:30pm) and had a beer, fish tacos, fish bits and chips. The wind was calming down so we thought we might take a dingy trip into Big Tub Harbor to have a look at the two wrecks in its far end (maybe around 4:30pm we gave it a try, but of course we had to bail out the dingy from the previous overnight rain). The sun was out and the wind had calmed a bit, but wouldn't you know it as we headed out of Little Tub the wind picked up, some high clouds filtered the sunlight, so with the wind out of the northwest and us heading in that direction, I got my ass wet from trying to go into or diagonal to the little waves (to run the RIB dingy I sit on the side tube to steer). Kathi sits on the port side on the seat and stayed pretty dry. When we finally made it to the wreck sight, there was no strong sun to penetrate the clear water depths of 15ft to 20ft where the two wrecks were. I thought I saw something coming up towards the surface, but really could not see anything. So we headed back to Little Tub, and of course the wind was lighter, the thin clouds moved on revealing more sunlight as we left Big Tub.

Back to the boat... Kathi decided she was tired and took a nap... I tried and succeeded off and on to get a wireless connection to post this blog... We will probably be out of touch until we reach Lion's Head (town/harbor down the east side of the Bruce Peninsula) unless I decide to pay $50/mo for broadband from Verizon through my cell phone - NOT! (well maybe it there is adequate cell data coverage).