Sailing the Great Lakes: Haggis Island to Killbear Marina

Sunday July 11 – We intended to get up early as we wanted to get moving to our next destination – Killbear Marina. It was getting to be time for a pump-out, water refill, and diesel top-off. I was up at 7am, but went back to bed. When Kathi got up to make coffee it was already 9:30am. We had a lot of dew overnight, so we needed the sun to dry things out anyway. I took down the mosquito netting but it was damp in a few places where dew had collected. I hoisted it up on one of our flag halyards and let it dry in the slight breeze and sun. It looked like a ghost flying off our spreaders. We finished up having our usual breakfast: Kathi coffee, orange juice, and Kashi Go-Lean cereal, me coffee, orange juice and a granola bar. We packed up and put away and got ready to go.

We were finally off the anchor before 11am and heading out our new route that by-passed much of the Small Craft route and connected into the Waubuno Channel. It was a little tricky and right at the end we made a wrong turn and actually followed a channel going away from Killbear. We realized our mistake only after a mile or two and turned around and were in to Killbear Marina by 3pm. We have electricity and water at the dock, but no WiFi in the area. My new high power WiFi adapter and antenna cold not hear a thing out there.

We had dinner at the famous “Ship-Shore” Restaurant with its “million-dollar” view (so the Ports book says, I wouldn’t). Dinner was good and a treat to do something different. Back at the boat we sat in the cockpit until dark. The mosquito coil was burning and giving off incents smoke, but the mosquitoes did not seem to notice. We were finally driven down below as I used the zapper racquet to fend them off as Kathi scurried below with me close behind. Looks like only the mosquito netting is our only real defense.

Tomorrow we plan to head to an anchorage at Hopewell Bay. We are doing another outside the Small Craft Channel route, so we need to be extra careful. I did find earlier to day that I could plan out a route on the laptop nav software and individually upload a single route into the Garmin. Much easier then doing it manually, or drawing out the route on the Richardson’s Chart Book charts in pencil. And this time, no excuses for making a wrong turn!

We will try to get up early and fill up on water, get a pump-out and top-off the diesel, and get on our way.