Delivery Our New Boat Home - Big Water

Part Three of the Big Boat Delivery HOME to Canada

 Departure day from Sarnia Bay Marina. A good looking day, on a good looking boat with a GREAT looking first mate ;-)

 These next two shots were taken by the crew of the aforementioned 'Plan B'.
 The boat looks nice except for those black streaks on the hull, a result of the new black dock lines bleeding. . .

 Insight; I've saved a boating magazine since 2007 that has a 'for sale' ad for a similar model to this  boat & I've been hanging on to it as inspiration. The ad shows the boat on the water with a lady crew member on the bow while it's underway. A great boating shot.
 Well, here I am - my boat, my very attractive lady crew mate and a sunny summer day on the water. . . .

 That's what I call a dream come true, my friends!!!

 Thanks again for sending me these pics, Glen :-)

Video from the fly bridge;

Exiting the marina and back on our way northbound for the last part on the St. Clair River;

This would be the final great lakes freighter we would pass by on this voyage;

Approaching the Bluewater Bridge. This is the bridge that joins the Canadian side of the river to the American side. Ya, we spent allot of time waiting to cross the border into Michigan on that bridge on the many trips we took to see/buy/take possession of the boat. I tell you, it was quite a bit of work to make the deal all come together - but it was exhilarating, exhausting and inspirational - and well worth it!!

 Some video of the approach to the bridge, complete with commentary from yours truly ;-)


The lighthouse on the U.S. (Port Huron) side. Yes, it's the very same we took pictures of from the bridge on the road trips to see the boat & would be the first of many we would pass on this journey;

 On Lake Huron. I've heard the term 'Big Water' used by my fellow boaters, but nothing we've experienced compares to heading out onto a body of water that stretches for hundreds of miles before you.
 One is privy to many emotions, to say the least;

To keep everyone traveling (with pink toe polish) aboard 'Boogaboo IV' as happy as possible, I took a route that at least kept us within view of land;

 A zoomed in shot passing by Goderich and the Sifto Salt Mines operations located there.
 Note also the electrical generation windmills on shore. There are many of those things - 200+ in this region;

 Just before Goderich, we unexpectedly came upon a series of small, bobbing buoys in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Good thing my eyeballs were on the ball, as the buoys came upon us without warning.
 I suspected they were marking fishing nets and shortly afterward, spotted this commercial fishing boat well off in the distance.
 A little disconcerting initially, to say the least, as this was something that I had totally NOT anticipated;

 

 Some video of me talking about what we saw.
 Note also the bounce we experienced at slower speeds. Although the video doesn't quite capture the essence of the water conditions, we were running through solid 5' - 6' swells and they picked up to 6' - 7 footers the next day. Remember that this is taken from roughly 12' above the waters' surface on the bridge, making it hard to get a feel for.
 You'll get a better representation of what I'm talking about when we come to the Flower Pot Island clip. . . .Stay tuned . . .

Safely in Kincardine Marina on yet another glorious day.
 I hadn't even got the boat into the slip here when a Canada Customs officer came over - and waited at the end of the dock - to talk to me. Seems they are continuously looking for out of province registration numbers on the hulls (note the Michigan registration or 'MC Numbers' on Boogaboo). Those fellows roam around from marina to marina to check to make sure everything is in order - proper checking into the country, vessel registrations, taxes paid - you know, the important stuff.
 This wouldn't be the last time we were to be questioned by Custom's guys either, as we would meet up with their compatriots again in Parry Sound;

A shot of the marina from the bridge, looking out on to Lake Huron. Can you see the Big Boy in the distance?

 The Kincardine Lighthouse - this shot taken from the road bridge next top the marina.
 We took a stroll for a bite to eat and were impressed by this neat, clean & well preserved old town;

 The view from the boat, looking north east across the marina. Another spectacular day;

Here's a close up shot of the lighthouse from our vantage point;

 

 Myself, relaxing in my own, unique way - capping off the day. HA!


  Here is the storey of the 'Phantom', as told on the Kincardine Scottish Piper Band web site. . .
 Way back in 1856, on a cold, October day, a small vessel left the Port of Goderich carrying a family from the Isle of Skye, Scotland. It was the final leg of a journey for the immigrant family that intended to farm at Penetangore (now Kincardine).

 The weather was cloudy with a light breeze out of the southwest when the vessel left Goderich. But as the boat approached Point Clark, the sky turned black and a cold wind started to blow out of the west making for heavier and heavier seas.

 As the vessel slowly beat its way north, late afternoon turned to dusk and the captain feared he would not find Penetangore in the dark.

 Donald Sinclair, fearing for his family, went down into the hold and fetched his pipes. He prayed for safe passage and then played a lament. The sound of the pipes carried across the water to Penetangore where another piper heard the rich sound. The settler on shore retrieved his pipes and played another lament in return, just as the sky suddenly cleared in the west and the sun set beneath the cold waters.

 The captain, knowing he had to be near Penetangore, headed for the drone of the bagpipes and eventually made his way into the harbour.

 For many years after the narrow escape, Donald Sinclair often went down to the harbour to play the pipes at dusk. They say it was a way to remember his good fortune and to remind others of the power of the pipes. And it's in the memory of Donald Sinclair that the Kincardine Scottish has decided to play at dusk atop the lighthouse on sunny summer evenings. The piper will only appear when the sun sets and will pipe the sun down.

As good fortune would have it, we were lucky enough to witness the 'Phantom' playing on a perfect summer evening. Here's some video of that event, including a panning shot of the marina and the sun setting over Lake Huron;


 A look from the bridge towards Lake Huron and the setting sun;

 Beautiful . . .

 Next time we cross the last half of Lake Huron and enter onto Georgian Bay & Tobermory.

Back to Boating - And a New Outboard Motor!

After the long winter break, it sure was great to be back for another season!! As much as it was a sad time on the final weekend of '09, it was even more exiting and full of anticipation to be returning on Fridays again. Too bad I was too tired on this first Friday to join in at the fire. . . Just tired - not mad at anybody ;-)

After getting most of the stuff back on the boat and stowed away, Anchor Girl got the inside of Boogaboo all spiffed up and I got the heavy grime off the outside. Now all I gotta do is get both engines to go into forward gear. D'oh!

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Well, at least the new dinky motor is running well and performing as expected. Just couldn't wait get it on (the motor, that is) and try it out. Unlike it's owner, this thing is very quiet and smooth running;

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The crowd gathers down by the river to see all the exciting action;

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Graham & I checking our portable radios. Funny thing was that if I got into trouble, how was the radio gonna be of any help :-)

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Saturday night's fire. Alas, nobody wanted to stay up with me at the fire much past 10:00. Seems all the excitement of the first weekend might have been a bit much for everyone. Or something like that;

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The very first official sunset of the 'On Water' season. I'm certainly looking forward to many, many more of these. It's gonna be a great year. C'mon FRIDAY!!

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Anchor's Broke Loose on Georgian Bay!

Cold enough for ya? It was so cold this week - how cold was it? - that the part of Cooks Bay we can see from the Boogaboo house froze completely over on Thursday. That's a first for this season. I'll take that as a positive sign. Now that it's frozen, we can look forward to it's melting :-) PLUS, at 12:47 pm this Monday afternoon, the sun will be aligned over the Tropic of Capricorn and, if you listen really carefully, you will hear it begin it's northward journey of warmth and extended daylight! That means the days start to get longer again and it's only three months til the first day of Spring!! I told you it would go quickly . . .

 So, that means we gotta get on with the show. I know by checking my visitor logs for this site that there's a few of you out there that are here a number of times throughout the week checking for new postings. Tell me, is it because you are excited to see what new stuff you might find, or are you anxious about what I might actually post here??? Don't worry, you can trust me to spare you any embarrassment that I might have in my digital collection. The really juicy stuff is held back for the Year End Video. And the really, really juicy stuff I save for my personal collection ;-) Oh man - there goes two more FFFvIX cancellations :-(

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Now, let's continue on with the Chimney Bay Adventure > > >

It's the next to last day of our anchorage in this spot when we find the Water Wings crew pulling in. And they brought some more nice weather, too;

  Von A gives the Commoboar a wave. Glad to have you here, buddy. HOO-HA, IT'S SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!

Later that day, Anchor Girl & I took a dinghy ride to shore to do some exploring on Beausoleil Island. I'll tell how well that went after we look at this shot of our boats at anchor in the bay of The Bay. The boat on the left (starboard) side of Water Wings was some new friends - Steve & Brenda - that signor Von A. had met the night before at lock 45. It took a lot of coaxing (all 12 of them), but he was able to talk them into joining us out on Georgian Bay;

So, the big hike into the wilderness took A.G. & I all the way up to a small, inland body of water called Fairy Lake on Beausoleil Island. Not that small, really - probably roughly the same size as Chimney Bay. It was quite pretty;

The amusing part of the story is that when we initially hit the trail to Fairy Lake, poor Anchor Girl experienced a bit of a panic attack. Ya, seems she was overcome by the anxiety of being confronted by a Massasauga Rattler. So, the long & short of the whole trip was that it was very short.
For the most part, users of the Beausoleil Island National Park services are supposed to pay by the honour system. There's a fee for camping, one for staying on the docks and another for using the hiking trails. Being the honourable person that I am, I dutifully went to shore, picked up the form, took it back to the boat and put the appropriate $ in the supplied envelope. Truth be told, I used the toonies we had on the boat and actually overpaid the required $11.60 by a whole 40 cents. Big spender, eh?
So, we got onto shore, deposited the cash & form into the box they have up there for this sort of thing, and got on our way. Anchor Girl made us turn around no more than 3 minutes into our hike for fear of the snakes. . . After a bit of coaxing (there goes that power of persuasion again) I was able to get us back on track to Fairy Lake. But all in all, the whole escapade only lasted about 15 minutes. . . 

Here's some video from the return trip of our big hike;

A.G. took this shot of our anchorage on the dinghy ride back from the hike. All three boats firmly secured on one anchor. Nice spot, eh?

Here's a 'backside shot' of the boats. I think we saw another 'backside' here, too - but we'll have to wait for the Year End Video to see it all. Why do I hear music from The Carpenters?

Here's one from later that evening. Sanja has now joined us & I had just set SunAria's anchor. Ya, like that was gonna be a big help :-) I think this has got to be one of the nicest 'Boats On The Water' shots of the year. All of us at anchor with the late evening sun reflecting off the hulls in a spectacular setting. Even caught the rising moon in the sky! Wow!!

Now, this photo is of particular interest. See those big boats in the background? They are the very same that we very nearly drifted into the next morning!

Video from here. All the coughing you can hear at the beginning was as a result of us all laughing at the sight of those famous Georgian Bay false teeth that we were wearing. I think we may see a bit more on that in the Y.E.V. (Year End Video). As well, there's some comments about the giant Bosnian Burger that Sanja had just prepared. The thing was bigger than a plate!

A beautiful evening twilight sky. No worries about anchors or high winds on this night. Only another great view;

Some video that I took just before we headed out; Von A. was straightening up his dinghy, Anchor Girl was having her morning swim shower and I was looking around at all the boats anchored so close by. Now, it may not appear that the boats were all that close, but when you consider that in less than an hour from the time this was filmed, we would be pulling out of there - four boats abreast - picking our way past not only all those boats, but all the anchor lines that were sticking out all over the place, it certainly felt close! Oh ya, the wind was blowing pretty good at that time too.

Here we are, four boats tied together, heading down into Beausoleil Bay. For those of you who haven't heard the whole story, here we go.

 As you saw from the previous pictures, we were happily anchored and enjoying the day. There was some discussion earlier as to whether we should pull out and head north or just wait another few days there. The weather reports had been calling for some strong winds that day, as well as the next few to follow, so we had planned on staying there a little longer to see how things would pan out with the option of maybe leaving later in the day. With that in mind, I had just ran the gas out of the outboard on the dinghy and returned to Boogaboo when A.G. said she thought we were all drifting. Initially, it didn't appear so, but as soon as it became clear to me, A.G. & Von A. that we were drifting fast - and picking up steam!! Ya, the three big boats behind us were getting really close, really fast! My immediate concern (fear) was getting tangled in their anchor lines.
So, I threw the dinghy line to Anchor Girl, jumped on Boogaboo, started the engines and put her into gear! At the same time I was doing that, A.G. quickly tied off the dinghy, ran to the front of the boat and pulled up the anchor faster than you have ever seen anyone do it before. Meanwhile, Von A had started Water Wings and ran to the front of SunAria to pull her anchor - all the while we are all yelling at Sanja to start her engines and help drive us out of there.
The problem I quickly discovered when I tried driving us all forward (remember that we are still four boats tied together) was that since Boogaboo was on the port-most side of the flotilla, the result of my efforts was that we were moving as much to the right as forward. While we were all running, pulling and yelling back and forth, Sanja was slowly starting her blowers, and generally taking her time to prepare for a leisurely departure. Despite all of our excited yelling, poor Sanja was blissfully unaware of the predicament we were in and had no idea of what was actually happening until we got to Honey Harbour. . .

Here's me - barking out orders like I knew what the hell I was talking about;

Finally out of harms way, we all untied from each other; Safe and sound in Honey Harbour at Paragon Marina.

Nothing like a good ice cream cone to calm the nerves;

  Steve waves goodbye as we head off from the gas dock. As this was their first trip up this way, he & Brenda were more concerned about making it back to their home port on Lake Scuggog in time, so they bid us farewell at this point;

Water Wings leads us out of Paragon Marina and onward and northward. Remember folks, like I keep hearing, 'it's red right north' from here;

Coming up next, the journey continues as we head north for three fun filled days and nights on and around beautiful Echo Bay. . .

Time Wasted?

Tonight we (I) mark one more post on this Blog. Big deal or just a lot of time wasted?

 Well, I can't think of it as time wasted. More like an uplifting experience for myself. If you have been following along, you will have noticed that most of this stuff has been created during the off-season weeks. How else am I supposed to pass my time & get the message out?? Sure, there's the ever present winter weekend Home Improvement projects. That does pass the time during the daylight hours, but, despite the fact that the boats are out of the water & all put away for the year, I still find myself reviewing & reliving the in-water boating experience. How could I not?

 I know I've said it already, but despite the crappy weather we had, I can say that this year was another great one. And full of wonderful memories. Memories worth sharing. With my line of work (I've been at it for over 20 years) the vast majority of what I do is second nature. OK, so there's the odd time I misfire my nail gun and end up swimming in the Pefferlaw River . . . But, apart from times like that, I'd say 85% of my day doesn't require a whole lot of intensive thought. Hey - just ask my customers ;-) I'm sure they'd vouch for my singing abilities - or lack thereof.

 Singing = Happy :-) Happy = Maintaining what little sanity I have left. Yes, I do allot of singing at work. And thinking. And a good majority of that thinking surrounds our boating time adventures and how fortunate I am to be able to continue with the experience. In case you missed it, there was a draw for the new Lotto Max lottery this past Friday. Fifty million dollar first prize! Ten one million dollar second prizes. No, our number didn't come up. Not in the Lotto Max draw anyway. As far as I'm concerned, I won the life lottery long ago and am enjoying all the wealth that my life continues to present to me.

 Too bad I never came to this realization sooner, but I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. Sure, I could use more money or more time to sleep in on the weekday mornings, but all in all I have very little to complain about. I often consider how our lives might change if a windfall of $millions was thrust upon us. A new car? Got one. Bigger house? Don't need it. Bigger boat? THAT is on the horizon. . . . . I'm always looking at that bigger Sea Ray ;-) The point I'm trying to make (for any of you who are still listening) is that in my view, I'd be a lesser person if I had won a big cash lottery years ago. I know that, because with the change in circumstances that $million would have brought, I would have missed that beautiful sunset I'm sharing with you at the top of this posting. And I'm sure that I would have missed most of the experiences I've had the good fortune to be part of over the past few years. We don't have enough space & time here to review ALL of those experiences, but I'll share what I can. Those same experiences that fill 85% of my day. . . Still listening?

 Ok, enough of Paul's philosophic musings and on to some more recent memories & sanity maintenance. Tonight's pics are from the last weekend of the 2009 in-water boating season - the weekend of October 17th/09. And yes, we simply must look at a couple of the late Friday afternoon sun, slowly setting over the Pefferlaw River; Despite being cold at night, the days were sunny. At least the weather bid us farewell in a nice way. Graham & Anchor Girl get Friday evening's smoke - I mean fire going. Winter coats and double layers of shirts & sweats; The sun sinks away. Beautiful; Unfortunately, this is what happens to a shore power cord when you have two heaters running continuously. Don't tell Sue, she's got enough to worry about in that joint; With no wind on Saturday afternoon, it was quite pleasant to kick back on the deck; The last BBQ of the season. Sniff, sniff; Robin brought out a bottle of bubbly to toast the season. Thanks, man; Look, it's the premium stuff, too. The wine was pretty good, as well; Saturday night's fire. We ended up this year with just about the same amount of firewood left over as we had last year. Should be enough for the first couple of fires next year. I'll be sure to save whatever fire starting wood I can over the next few months, too; Sunday morning greeted us with a layer of frost. Like my self portrait?; After a good breakfast at the restaurant, we took Boogaboo over for the final pump out & it was out onto the lake for the traditional last cruise of the season; The lake was spectacular and we cruised slowly up to the top of Georgina Island - past all the American fishermen. These guys travel form as far as Michigan to catch what they call the best fish around;   Sure am looking forward to getting back to this place next year . . . .

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the July 1st Long weekend trip. BlackFly Mountain at Lost Chanel - cant wait!