Georgian Bay to the North Channel

     

        We spent the next five nights - Tuesday, July 18 through Saturday July 22 - in Georgian Bay.  I’ve said previously that cruising in Nova Scotia is like cruising in a painting, and this Bay is no exception.  It was stunning scenery, and we were lucky to have really nice weather most of the time.  For those of you hoping to come to this area, our anchorages were off Bass Island, Sandy Bay East, in the Bustard Islands between Tie and Strawberry Island, the Bad River Channel and off Key Hole Island.  

Each place was unique, and we were not alone in most of them.  The anchorage in the Bustard Islands was particularly busy.  In that one we were one of three boats anchored by itself - all the others were rafted together.  Directly across from us was a raft of twelve!  We think this is a sort of marina without docks.

It is common here to back up to the shore, drop anchor, and then run a line to shore to tie to a tree.  In some of the anchorages there are even cleats or rings embedded in the rock wall; we’ve not used these, but we have seen others tie up to shore that way.  

In the Bad River Channel we took the dinghy around to explore the many other smaller channels, some of which offered some rapids around the ledges and small islands. 

Bad River Channel gunkholing

We met some folks in another dinghy - who also came from Maine! - who mentioned the abundance of wild blueberries.  Dan spent a few hours ashore gathering a couple of containers’ worth.  

Another thing worth mentioning are the many beaver lodges.  They seem to be in every anchorage and most rivers.  In our Bass Island anchorage we were treated to beavers swimming all around us as dusk came on.  Beavers are nocturnal, and they really are very busy - there were three of them just swimming back and forth, back and forth.   

Fuzzy beaver picture.

        

        We left Georgian Bay on Sunday morning and officially entered the North Channel.  There are several ‘entrances’ - we went through the narrow Killarney Channel, past the small town of Killarney and on into the waters that open into the North Channel.  We cruised up into the Baie Fine and settled into Mary Ann Cove, partly because there was room and partly because there was a hike to the peak of the small mountain that overlooks the cove. The hike takes you up to the quartz peak for a fine view.  Full disclosure - we didn’t make the actual peak - we couldn’t find the trail head and did some bushwhacking until we disturbed some yellow jackets and I got stung on both legs.  We did find a peak, some feet below the real peak, and that did give us a satisfying view.  We were preparing to make our way back down when we literally stumbled onto the real trail and took that way back down.  Much easier than bushwhacking!  

Tommie resting on the tonneau cover on the flying bridge.  Sometimes after a day of cruising she is just worn out.