Where WhimSea Takes Us

After a good night's sleep we off loaded the rest of Debi's stuff from the boat and said goodbye and made coffee. We were off the dock by 7:15 and on our way to Isle Royale. We were hoping for good wind and a quick run to Windigo.

It's 30 miles from Thunder Bay to Windigo and 120 miles from Windigo to Knife River. Since we have to clear custom's, we'll need to make a quick stop at Windigo at a minimum. The plan was to touch and then keep going towards home, if the wind cooperated.

We were only at Windigo for about 15 minutes, then we headed back up the Washington Channel. There was some wind coming down the channel making it seem like there was more wind on the lake then there actually was. On the lake, we really just had lumps.

The overnight passage was spectacular. There were very few clouds over the lake, affording us a marvelous view of the stars and the milky way. With no moon in sight, there were a number of falling stars as well.

Along the shoreline, thunderstorms were building and provided us a light show with every flash of light. Luckily though we didn't get wet on the way home.

We made it back to the marina by around noon or so on Saturday. Troy and I had a nice long shower, followed by Beacon Berry Burgers at the Lighthouse and a long nap through the heat of the day.

The day started warm and bright in loon harbor. I got some pictures of the lumbering equipment that was left over in the bay where we anchored overnight.

We're heading back to Thunder Bay today and since there wasn't a lot of wind to start with, we motored through the loon harbor area, getting some pictures of the bays and islands.

As well as a lighthouse whose name escapes me right now.

It's sad to be homeward bound. But we've had a very good time and seen a lot of the lake and the area along the way. The boys keep calling the hills around us 'boobies'. It stared earlier in the trip when they looked at the hills and said they look like boobies, then the next day, talking to some locals and getting directions, the locals actually told us to head towards the boobies for a certain period of time. I think maybe they have an obsession!

As we left the Loon Harbor area, the wind really started to come up. It was (of course), on our nose and we had to steer 10 degrees off so as not to slam through the waves that were growing. Eventually Troy decided there was too much wind and the seas were too rough, so we raised the sails and headed towards Isle Royale for about a half hour until we could turn towards Thunder Bay again.

Before we turned though, we took a huge wave over the bow. I think about six gallons on water went into the hatch above the table below. Oops, Debi was sitting there reading a magazine and she got a bit of a surprise.

We tied up at the Thunder Bay marina (where they now have power), had a great dinner at The Keg and off loaded a bunch of Debi's stuff from the boat. Dave would be traveling back to the marina with us.

We awoke to a very heavy fog in the morning. We had some coffee and Troy and I took a walk around the town while we drank it hoping the fog would lift as the sun got brighter. Eventually it did and the bay opened up, so we left. We passed through a large series of islands and the fog seemed to keep coming and going around them. We just hoped it would lift enough to allow us to take pictures of the Battle Island Lighthouse.

Luckily it did and we got some pretty good pictures of the light.

The wind came and went througout the day, eventually ending with went. So we rolled the jenny in and out a couple of times, but ended up motoring. Here's Debi at the helm during one of the motoring times.

On the plus side, the rock formations in Loon Harbor were pretty amazing.

The path to our anchorage was absolutely beautiful. Islands, bays, some low areas that could be beaches combined with cliffs and hills. Beautiful.

Eventually we dropped the anchor between Spain Island and one other island. The harbor made it look like we were on a small inland lake, it was so protected. We anchored near the site of an old lumbering site. The remnants still lay on the beach at the edge of the water. The boys rowed over and took a look at it. They also picked up some rocks for me too paint.

Later in the evening we had one last dinner on the grill and a game of hearts before heading to bed.

We awoke to sun and glassy water. The plan was to head to Rossport for the night. We would gas up, pump out, water up and get good long showers in. Bonnie's book says Rossport is the place to stop along the north shore and the Richardsons map said they offer showers and laundry facilities.

Motored out of the Slates we saw some great rock formations as well as some excellent photos of wildlife.

Once we existed the slates, the fog came in. That damned fog stayed with us the whole way across and into the entrance of the islands. Since we had to motor anyway, we had breakfast along the way, Troy's famous orange crusted french toast. It tasted awesome!

After we passed Breadrock, though we didn't actually see it with the fog, it began to lift and revealed beautiful islands. Greens bluffs and high hills. The only things marring the beauty were antennas and towers.

Rossport was a pretty small town. They no longer offered laundry or shower facilities and the bathrooms had become biffys. Oh well, we could still get a shower in on WhimSea (and of course, we all did) with the awning up, the cockpit was pretty cool with the wind coming off the lake, though the sun was pretty darn bright and powerful.

We had dinner on the dock's picnic table with a linen table cloth, napkins and a lantern in the middle. Buffalo steak, potatoes and salad made it a wonderful feast.

We awoke to a fog that burned off with the sun and revealed a gorgeous bay. Here's some pictures. Dave dighy'd around a little bit and picked up some rocks and took some pictures of caribou bones as well as WhimSea. Dave spotted a caribou swimming across the entry to the bay. That was really cool.

After some breakfast pizza, we gathered up rock hunting supplies, water and Dave's shower gear and went ashore.

The rocks were absolutely amazing, broken shards of slate, greenstone and all sorts of rocks with minerals and material melted into them.

When we returned, we needed to try and pull up the anchor. Troy and Dave thought it was caught on something based on our location and the anchor's. Eventually, Troy drove over it, freeing it from the mud below. It was absolutely caked with it.

We motored out of the harbor and into a fog that had been rolling in. After existing the Slates and heading south, Troy and Dave got the lines out while I steered and Debi got her shower in.

The fog hung all the way around the Slates so we couldn't even get a picture of the light. With the fog and the warm weather, no fish either. So we decided to head back to our anchorage at Pike's Bay.

The fog followed us in and it was kind of difficult to maneuver in the islands. Its so easy to get turned around in the fog. Luckily the fog cleared as we came up to the burnt out barge and we could see we were headed in the wrong direction. We turned and headed to the anchorage. It took a little longer to drop the anchorage this time. There were some dead heads sticking just under the water surface we either hadn't seen before, or we disturbed pulling up the anchor. But eventually we were anchored and settled for the night.

We stayed the night off the cabin on McColl Island. The next day, after breakfast, we were preparing to head ashore when Troy grew concerned about some of the logs that came near the surface, our scope and swinging radius and the wind. He and Dave surveyed the situation (with Dave in the dinghy) to determine whether or not we could go ashore when the wind pushed WhimSea around and we hit one of the logs. Though it wasn't a hard hit, it was enough that Troy decided we should up anchor and head to the next anchorage instead of going ashore here.

We motored around and stuck our nose into a couple of little bays and inlets, surprised by the deep water so close to shore.

We did spot a caribou on shore grazing in the open grass near the burnt down barge. Here's a picture of the caribou and the barge.

Both were pretty darn cool to see. The caribou couldn't care less about us, or the campers that were nearby. The barge was a great hulk at the edge of the water. Pretty awesome.

Eventually, Troy agreed to try the anchorage called Pike's Bay. It's known for its shallow depths (unlike lots of other anchorages on the Slates), at 17-20 feet, but with slash on the bottom, folks recommended buoying the anchor. It looked like it would provide all around protection once we entered the narrow passage and it sure did.

On the way into the bay, we passed by this rock. Check out the scraping alongside. Clearly there were rocks in the glaciers as they went scraping by how many thousands of years ago. Pretty cool.

We arrived in time for me, Dave and Troy to get in a shower before it started pouring rain. Seemed like a good day for lounging around, playing games and cards and it sure was. Later in the evening the fog rolled into our anchorage and closed us in.

The alarm went off at 6:00am, but I didn't think we would be going anywhere. It sounded like there was quite a bit of wind out there. Troy was thinking maybe we wouldn't go, maybe we would, maybe head up to Red Rock instead.... regardless we wouldn't go anywhere soon. So, I went back to bed.

Dave and Troy stayed up though and had a bunch of coffee and talked about options. We decided we could either stay put, go to Red Rock or press on for the Slates. We decided we would head out to open water and see what the lake was like then. Given we would have to go up to Red Rock and back again and it would take a lot of time, we pressed on for the Slates instead.

The seas were lumpier then expected and with the autohelm out, we would have to steer. Troy took a watch and then Dave. The motion was pretty bad though and there were lots of naps taken to pass the time. It seemed like it would take forever.

Troy and Dave were napping when the islands materialized out of the mist. They were a dark blue in the whitish grey mist. Ominous looking since they were so high and we didn't see them until we were ten miles out.

Troy came topside about a hour later. The swells were getting worse. Probably because of the storms that seemed to be circling around the lake. There was definitely some unsettled weather out there.

We finally arrived at the islands and they are magnificent. The rock looked wild and uninviting. Hardscrabble trees determinidly growing out of them, splitting them with their roots. Caves appeared here and there. Islands, islets and rocks jutted out of the water in unexpected places despite the 200 foot depths.

After we entered the main channel, we expected the wind to die down since we should have had some protection, but it didn't. There were some storms converging on us at the Slates. I took as many pictures as I could, though its awfully hard to get the force of it in a picture. To illustrate, the wind went from one direction at 20 knots to the entirely opposite direction at 30 within a minute.

Troy put WhimSea's nose into the wind and we waited it out. It was moving very fast so it didn't take long. Then we turned back on course.

Here are just some of the pictures we took showing the storms.

After they passed, we continued into the Slates, looking for a dock that is called the Come and Rest Dock on McColl Island. Bonnie talks about it being somewhere we might be able to nose up to. We thought we might as well try anyway.

We did find the dock, but it's pretty small (seen in the picture below) and front a little cabin on McColl island. Luckily the ground nearby looked great for anchoring and had decent depths as well. Though we buoyed the anchor, we dropped the hook and settled in for the night.

After dinner Troy and I went topside to look at the stars. They were just peeking out. It was a beautiful night with the islands all around us we felt very protected. A friend told me when she visited the islands she found them a little spooky. When I looked around, I didn't find them spooky so much as abandoned perhaps. Forgotten even. They felt as though very few people visited there.

Friday morning and we were up early for showers and the last bit of offloading before sending the boys off to find an Ontario fishing license for Troy and I. It took them a surprisingly long time, but they did eventually come back with a license.

Looking out towards Thunder Bay, it looked like we would have very little wind or waves to contend with and the dinghy races going on inside the break wall seemed to confirm our thoughts. We decided to shove off thinking we would have breakfast along the way.

Boy were we surprised when we got outside the protection of the break wall. There was quite a bit of wind and good sized waves as well. We pulled out only 100% of the jeny and made our way to towards the Giant. We would need to round a buoy marking a shoal, clear the giant and a couple of other islands before we could turn to port and take the waves more off of our quarter. Unfortunately, Bob (our autohelm) decided to quit on the way across the bay so the boys took turns steering. The wind and waves were pretty taxing so we pulled out the charts and tried to decide if we would continue on to the Slates, or find a place to anchor for the night. With this much wind and no autohelm, we decided to anchor.

Moss Island looked like our best bet. Troy had scoped it out on the charts as a pretty decent halfway point to the Slates. It looked like a snug anchorage with protection from most directions. We headed in and found out that Bonnie's book was right on, though having Dave on the bow on the way past the shoal into the anchorage was good too.

The anchorage was pretty amazing, fully protected from all wind and very secluded.

There's a fishing station on Moss Island that was being used by a couple or three guys, who were enjoying the day. After we anchored and got settled, they motored over to say hello and gave us some other places we might try anchoring in the area.

We had dinner and enjoyed the evening, heading up on deck before bed to enjoy the stars. Where we found a seagull sitting on the gunnel of the dinghy! Mike must have followed us!

No moon yet, so the stars were all out. We all head to bed, planning to make an early start of it the next day.

We're leaving the island and on our way to Thunder Bay. It's always hard to say goodbye to Isle Royale. There are so many areas not yet explored. The anchorage at Five Finger Bay was pretty awesome. There were little islands and islets everywhere it seemed. The island has some pretty awesome rock formations.

Today we'll pick up Dave and Debi in Thunder Bay, re-provision and then tomorrow make our way to the Slate's. There's some trepidation about anchorages on the Slate's. Troy has found a couple that might work. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I've only been to Thunder Bay once, by car. Of course Troy and boys were up last year with the TransSuperior and they got an opportunity to see the city from the water. The entry into the harbor was pretty amazing. The Sleeping Giant looks over the harbor and there are lighthouses on the islands on the entry. It was pretty amazing.

There's even a building on the base of the Sleeping Giant, check it out:

We arrived at Thunder Bay Marina to find it under construction, which meant no power on the docks. Oh well, I guess we'll be staying off the grid for a while longer.

We fueled up and watered up and got a pump out, then went to our slip to tie up for the evening. I called Dave & Debi and found out where they were on the drive. It appears we had a little time before they would arrive, so we decided to walk up for some lunch.

We walked up to a little Italian restaurant a few blocks away and had a quick bite. Then we returned to the marina and off loaded garbage and watched the world go by.

We were taking a walk up to the Yacht club building to watch the small boat race in progress when I spotted Dave and Debi walking down to the boat. so we came back and met up with them, said a quick hello and got to work unloading their car and loading up WhimSea. Before we put everything away, we walked up to the steakhouse, the Prospector. The boys had visited this place last year during the TransSuperior race and enjoyed the food and the service. We had a good dinner and finished up in time to get back to the boat and begin unloading before the fireworks started. It was Canada Day after all.

The first boom hit, Troy was watching out from the cockpit and Dave was up the companionway like a shot. I joined them and all three of us hollered for Debi. We were perfectly situated for the fireworks since we were facing the park and they were being blown off there.

The fireworks were pretty awesome. Not quite as good as last year's Fourth of July on Rain or Shine, but still pretty darn good.

We finished unpacking/packing WhimSea and brought the last load to the car before heading to bed.