Sailing the Great Lakes: Fox Island Harbor

Wednesday August 4 – Got up at our usually leisurely pace. Did our usual check-in with Roy at the Little Current Yacht Club Cruiser’s Net, and finally hauled up anchor around 10:30am. There was some good wind coming from the northwest and there was plenty of room in the McBean Channel from Matheson Island to Fox Island, so we were able to tack. It was a good sail and we were able to keep sailing all the way to the top end of Fox Island – then the wind was on the nose and it was blowing 10 to 15 knots, and besides getting into Fox Island Harbor is a bit tricky. We motored the remainder of the way to the “tricky” part. The Gramin worked well as expected, although I almost turned right too soon up a false harbor entrance, but Kathi made sure I corrected my route appropriately.

When we arrived here there were 6 powerboats already here: two tied up to the rocks to the West, two smaller ones hidden in a little shallow cove a little further north, and two 50ft pigs rafted-up right in the middle of the anchorage with multiple very long lines to trees on shore (they were Canadians and should know better). There was one other sailboat anchored (a 42ft Jeanneau) and a tri-maran trying to anchor in the shallow waters at the very end. We pulled up behind the “pigs” and dropped anchor, letting out about 90ft of rode (anchor line) in 19ft to 16ft and then used our other anchor line to tie to a tree to shore. The tri-maran guy seemed freaked by the wind we were having and the lack of space (due to the “pigs” taking up most of the anchorage). He made two tries at anchoring and then left. He did not look or sound happy. It was probably for the best because, even though I thought we would be good in a West or Northwest wind, it was wiping up the mouth of this harbor. It would die down at sunset a bit, but we had a constant 10 to 15 knots. The good thing is that there were not any waves and the rafted-up “pigs” were kind of a wind break for us too. All in all, I think we should have made a bee-line to Eagle Island when I saw the anchorage there as we knew the wind would be strong from the West and then Northwest.

We mainly swam around and lounged, and I watched our anchor, tie-off line, and position closely. We definitely do not want to drag anchor here as about 50 yards behind us is a deadhead (submerged tree/log with a plastic milk container tied to it and shallow rocks). Things looked like we were holding pretty well. We cooked up some lake trout with onions, grilled zucchini and yellow squash, and mushroom risotto. It was very good!

We had heard on the Cruiser’s Net that some boat crews had stayed up late and saw Northern Lights, so when each of us got up to do our business in the middle of the night, we took a look – nothing. We did have rain overnight, but it was pretty quickly over, and the skies did clear for us to see plenty of stars. But no Northern Lights.

Chart of Fox Island Harbor on the West side where we anchored.

A'Ghrian at anchor with another Jeanneau - One Love.

View of the "pigs" anchored in the middle of the anchorage in front of us with lines tied to shore to the right, blocking everyone else from anchoring in the harbor.

Sunset the first night.

Thursday August 5 – I got up around 8am and started making breakfast: coffee, peameal bacon, egg-in-toast with cheddar on top – but first I wished Kathi a Happy 32^nd Wedding Anniversary! Yes, today is the day. I got Kathi up around 8:30am when breakfast was ready. As usual we turned on the ‘Roy Show’ (as Kathi calls it) on VHF 71. Roy did his usual weather, news and sports reports and then was about to start into his check-in routine when he said he had a special announcement: yes, he wished us a Happy Anniversary and asked us to check-in first. What a guy!

More rain and thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon, so we decided to go for a walk on Fox Island. I was a little concerned about leaving the boat in this wind as it was now building to 15 to 20 knots. We took the dinghy to a little barely protected landing formed by the solid rock shore and tied it up around a large rock that had cracked off. We hiked all the way to the Southwest end of the island on the Eastern shore of this harbor. The hiking is overall pretty easy except for the rough rock terrain. The interior of the island is a mix of grass, large rock surfaces and trees.

When we started out we passed some of the “pigs” tie-ups and they actually had taken an anchor line, removed the anchor and wrapped the chain around a tree. This is a very big NO-NO as you are supposed to tie-up leaving the least amount of damage as possible!

Near the end we found little coves and inlets formed by the glacier scrapped and weathered by lots of water flow. We could see many other islands including Croker, the Benjamins, and Clapperton. We also thought we were alone, but then saw the crew from One Love across the inlet swimming in a nice pool. They had dinghied around the point and up the inlet. All that hiking for no privacy – Kathi took a skinny dip in a nearby hidden pool as I acted as lookout.

We hiked back just in time as another set of storm clouds were moving in from the Southwest. I got the windshield back up just as it started to rain. As last evenings storm, it passed pretty quickly and the sun came back out, but the wind just got worse and kept on and on. It is now 7pm and we still have gusts over 20 knots. We did have gusts over 25 knots earlier.

Starting dinner, we are keeping it simple tonight, just burgers and corn (probably will have some salad too)… hope the anchor continue to hold in the damn wind!

We plan to move over to Oak Bay and Hotham Island tomorrow, and I hope the wind drops a bit overnight so it is not too hard to get out of here in the morning!