Where WhimSea Takes Us

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.