Rolling from Britt to Collins Inlet 8-18-10

We’ve had a great time here at Britt with lots of boaters hunkered down due to the 20-30 knot wind on open Georgian Bay. The main conversation is weather, exchanging stories of other windy adventures and offering guesstimates about when the wind will abate. The weather gurus (Passagemaker, Environment Canada, National Weather Service and the dock boys) all agreed that early Wednesday morning would offer an opportunity for less adventurous travel.

We set the alarm for 6am, were away from the dock by 7 and all looked good with a forecast of SW 10 knots building to 15 by noon. Our plan was to take the small boat channel to the Bustard Islands, but that quickly changed when we got to the channel entrance and started having Chartplotter problems. I coasted in neutral while Bob tried to fix it but could not get a sailing line (preferred route to travel) reading at all. With all the twists and turns, multiple islands and 5 foot water depth levels in spots, we did not want to try this section without all our technology working. Besides, weather on open Georgian Bay was reportedly easy.

Wrong….very wrong. We set a course for the Bustard Islands. I wanted to go there for the name alone, but by 9:30 am, we had 15 knot wind and 2-3 building beam seas so the relatively treeless, unprotected and poor holding ground of the Bustards was not a good choice. Wind also made entrance to the Bad River area hazardous.

We continued on the same course to Beaverstone Bay as the wind increased to 20+ knots and 3-4 foot beam seas which really rocked and rolled us. We were battened down but the waves were so close and constant that it rattled the cabinets open, spilling the contents and that has never happened before. Bungees and duct tape to the rescue.

I told you that I would log the good, the bad and the ugly and we now have a new ugly—the toilet (head) overflowed. Our cruelly-named joker valve is probably wearing out and could not get a good seal with all the jarring motion. Bob and the autopilot steered; I had toilet duty—insert your thoughts here.

We turned into Beaverstone Bay at 12:30pm and had 4-5 foot rolling following seas and luckily the entrance is wide and deep as it was hard to steer. All the Beaverstone anchorages had whitecaps so we continued into the Collins Inlet through some skinny 5’1” water to get to a Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC) anchorage recommendation at Mill Lake. We dropped the hook in 8 feet of water and began to relax after 50 long hard miles.

Oh, and the Chartplotter problem—nothing really wrong at all except that the sailing line is missing only on the first 5 miles out of Byng Inlet west on the Garmin add-on chart. More importantly, the toilet is working fine, too.