Tuesday July 27 – Got up around 6:15am looked around – some boats had already moved on – went back to sleep. Got up again around 8:40am and made coffee. I got Kathi up at about 8:55am to listen to the Cruiser’s Net out of Little Current. This time we heard Mast Transit report in as being in Lousia Island. We cheched in when it came to the Baie Fine area (and that is pronounced Bay Fin) and Roy, the main guy who does these broadcasts, still does not quite get our name correct: Uglyon, Ugreeon – we will have to stop by when we are at Little Current and give him one of our sailing cards (I had business cards made up that are for our sailboat). After we confirmed with Roy that Mast Transit was at Lousia and we had checked-in, we shut it off the VHF and got our act together to head to The Pool. We had many warning about how “weedy” it is in the pool, but since this was our first and probably only trip up Baie Fine, we wanted to experience the whole thing.
No problem pulling up anchor and we were on our way. Kathi was watching other sailboats as the approached the “narrows” into The Pool and based on her observations of how they were going I rerouted us on the fly on the Garmin. We made it in without issue. It was very weedy, but we avoided the big weed growths that appeared on the surface. The weeds were just below the surface a foot or two down as we chose our anchoring spot. This of course wreaks havoc with you depth sounder and scares the crap out of you now and then, but we are also used to Put-In-Bay and all the weeks that can be in there. We dropped the anchor in about 20ft of water and backed the boat up towards a low rock wall with some good trees on it. I went out in the dinghy pulling the extra anchor line and tied it to one tree and hauled the stern of the boat about 50ft from the rock wall. The depth fluctuated between 5.5ft and 11ft – damn weeds! Kathi went for a swim and checked out the depth. She pushed herself feet down as far as she could through the weeds off the bottom of our transom ladder and could not touch bottom – I figure that means at least 10ft underneath the rudder. We have about 90ft to 100ft out on the main anchor line to make sure we have a good hold.
We did see a few powerboats and a small sailboat come in and try to anchor. Pull-up and leave – well, try to pull-up! The all had quite a bunch of “salad” on their anchor lines and anchor. I am not looking forward to our hauling up the anchor.
We had French Canadian Pea Soup and chicken hot dogs for lunch. After lunch we rested for an hour and then got our act together to hike up to Topaz Lake. We dinghyed in to the access point next to the Provincial Park Ranger access dock and up the trail. Compared to the Frazer Bay Hill trail, this was a walk in the park (the Killarney Provincial Park to be exact).
We met some people on the trail who told us if we had not been here before to make sure we went to the ‘overlook’. From the ‘overlook’ you can see The Pool and where we are anchored. Then down to the lake where there were a bunch of other people – one whole extend family with grampa and grad kids. Kathi took off and swam across the length of the lake (this concerned me a little as she went alone and with no flotation device). After I could not see her, I headed half way across the lake until I saw her heading back. I was a little pissed at her for doing that as what would she do if she got into trouble? The main ‘extended family’ group finally left and we were pretty much alone and it was a lot quieter. There was on other couple swimming in another little cove and then two early 20s couples showed up and I told them where it was safe to jump and dive. They were jumping and diving in the right spot – off a rock wall that went down deep. One of the heavily tattooed guys did a couple back flips of the rock. It was interesting. We dried of in the sun and just before leaving spied a pair of khaki shorts. Kathi picked them and there was a wallet with an OH driver’s license, credit cards, and a few hundred in cash. We put it in our backpack and headed down, hoping to run into someone heading back up the trail looking for the shorts. As we arrived at our dinghy and the access dock we were quite surprised to see a “tall ship” anchored at the head of the pool! The “St Lawrance II” was the name and it was probably about 80ft in length. I snapped a photo and got over to the dinghy. As we were pulling out we saw the ‘extended family’ group returning on their “party boat”. We shouted out “David Herderer” and he was the skipper of the pontoon boat. They were about to send some of the teens up to get the shorts, but we were there just in the nick of time! I told him we took a $50 as a reward – the wife said no problem – but then I told them we took nothing – guess we should have!
We dinghied back past the square rigger and I good a close-up photo and then back to our boat. It is supposed to blow West 15 knots overnight, then up to 20 knots from the Northwest in the morning and 25 knots in the afternoon – rain after midnight with a chance of thunderstorms ending at noon. We will see what we do: stay, go back to Mary Ann, or head to Little Current (which will have a Big Current under the bridge if it blows that hard from the Northwest!). Looks like we may stay put until Thursday.
And yes – tomorrow is another day…
Baie Fine chart with The Pool at the eastern end.
Where we anchored and tied off in The Pool.
A'Ghrian at anchor in The Pool.
A'Ghrian tied off to the rock in The Pool.
The Pool viewed from the 'Overlook" at Topaz Lake.
Topaz Lake where we went for a swim.
Our surprise neighbor in The Pool - The St. Lawrance II, a training sailing vessel and 'tall ship"/Square Rigger.
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