You know how Tina Turner starts out the song, Proud Mary, with “….nice and easy….” and then switches to “nice and rough..”, well that’s where we are today. We left the safety of the Pointe au Baril Lighthouse and the small boat channel behind and headed out to open Georgian Bay. We have been doing pretty easy protected boating on the entire Great Circle Loop and have not been out in 25 knot winds and 4 foot roller coaster following seas since we left Lake Michigan in 9/08.
Welcome back to the Great Lakes— eastern Lake Superior is only 200 miles away and has 9 foot seas and gale force winds at 40 knots. We know how to do this but forgot to batten down everything so things were flying everywhere. We were traveling with The Last Whale, a 48 foot Whaleback Krogen with a height of 20 feet and also equipped with stabilizers, but even they dipped a little. Here’s a view from our cockpit but Joe and Leila told us that our little Baby Grand would disappear in the waves and when they send us that picture, I will post it here. As former sailors, we are accustomed to following seas and surfing to the next wave—it’s those darn beam seas that we can’t do well now.
We’re safely tucked in now at St. Amant’s Marina in Britt in the Byng Inlet. We will probably be here a few days waiting for winds to go down so we can travel to the Bustard Islands to anchor. This is a great place to hang out—great dining at the Little Britt Inn, great company with the trailer sailors, Loopers in Wright’s Marina, would-be Loopers who happen by to chat and “Happy Hour” with boaters here in St. Amant’s.
Welcome back to the Great Lakes— eastern Lake Superior is only 200 miles away and has 9 foot seas and gale force winds at 40 knots. We know how to do this but forgot to batten down everything so things were flying everywhere. We were traveling with The Last Whale, a 48 foot Whaleback Krogen with a height of 20 feet and also equipped with stabilizers, but even they dipped a little. Here’s a view from our cockpit but Joe and Leila told us that our little Baby Grand would disappear in the waves and when they send us that picture, I will post it here. As former sailors, we are accustomed to following seas and surfing to the next wave—it’s those darn beam seas that we can’t do well now.
We’re safely tucked in now at St. Amant’s Marina in Britt in the Byng Inlet. We will probably be here a few days waiting for winds to go down so we can travel to the Bustard Islands to anchor. This is a great place to hang out—great dining at the Little Britt Inn, great company with the trailer sailors, Loopers in Wright’s Marina, would-be Loopers who happen by to chat and “Happy Hour” with boaters here in St. Amant’s.
