Georgian Bay: Port Severn to Midland

Well, I am almost a month behind on the blog but Deb has been doing such a great job posing picture albums on Facebook at CarouselCruising  that I feel some of the pressure is off! The other thing is that updating the blog is very tedious without a fast internet connection and we have had very few of those recently.

Entering Georgian Bay

We  left the Trent Severn Waterway system on July 26 and entered into Georgian Bay at the top of Lake Huron. Georgian Bay is one of the premier cruising grounds in the world, according to many. The waterway here can get quite busy but as we entered the bay we saw only a few other boats.

The navigation charts have "recommended routes" marked in red lines. The recommended routes are intended to be safe navigation areas with proper depths and distance from hazards.

Well, soon after we entered the Bay, we encountered a VERY narrow spot on the Recommended Route. The opening between the buoys was only a few feet more than Carousel's width AND the rout takes a 90 degree turn between the buoys! We approached the spot dead slow with the engines in neutral and using Carousel's inertia to move forward as we centered on the channel between the buoys, Mike put the port (left) engine in forward and the starboard engine in reverse. Carousel pivoted nicely around the red buoy as the green buoy just passed across the transom. Mission Accomplished!

The rest of the trip was pretty easy as we approach our first Georgian Bay stop, Beausoleil Island, 

part of the Georgian Bay National Park. The same pass that allowed us to stop overnight at the locks in the canal system is valid at the National Parks. We docked at the "Cruisers Dock" with a few other boats. We enjoyed a celebration steak dinner, the sunset, and a campfire. Since we had also now entered the Great Lakes, we paid our respects to the Great Lakes Cruising Club (GLCC) by hoisting their blue and white burgee on the port spreader. The GLCC is a great resource for detailed harbor descriptions throughout the Great Lakes. But, importantly, is was GLCC members who originally charted the "recommended routes" through the Georgian Bay in the 1930's and 40's.

Midland, ON

On the 27th we departed for a short 1 1/2 hour cruise to Midland, Ontario for a stay at the Wye Heritage Marina. Our purpose there was two fold. First we were going to depart Carousel for several days and fly back to Galena, IL for Mike's high school reunion and to meet up with some old friends. Second, we had been experiencing a little vibration on the starboard engine and we wanted to get that addressed before going much further. We had been talking with the marina on the phone for about 10 days about our stay. They were helpful in lining up a shuttle to take us to the Toronto airport. However, they hadn't made any arrangements internally to look at our engine issues. We departed Carousel on a Wednesday with the commitment that they would look at it "in a few days" and call the local Caterpillar guy. Well, that didn't happen. When we returned almost a week later, finally they arranged for the Cat technician to come by the next day. In about 30 minutes, he diagnosed that we had a bad fuel injector that was stuck closed. Simple enough fix, but the part was in Mexico and would take 2-3 days.

With that news, we shifted our plan and rented a car to do some land cruising. We also found out the next day that the part might not be arrive for 3-5 days. Well, Mike called the Cat dealer in northern New York, found the injector. They would have it at their location near Buffalo, NY the next morning. We called our secret weapon, our daughter Maggie who lives in Buffalo and she committed to picking up the part at 7AM the next day, before going to work (she starts at 8AM). When Maggie mentioned the early morning pick-up to her good friend, Kimberly Clendenning, a member of our church in Commack, Kimberly volunteered to take on the morning pick-up. Kimberly is going to school in Buffalo and working there this summer. The next morning, Friday, Kimberly was at the Cat parts store at 7AM, part in hand in about 20 minutes.

With that news, Mike told the marina to schedule Cat first thing Monday morning and Mike and Deb drove to Buffalo on Saturday morning, met up with Maggie and her boyfriend Brendan; had a nice visit with them and picked up the injector. We had an enjoyable day, seeing how homey Maggie has already made their apartment.  Of course, while in Buffalo, they took us for lunch at Duff's for a lunch of buffalo chicken wings!

On Sunday we visited some historic sites around Midland and the Monday morning repair went without a hitch. Mike asked Cat to mail the the parts that they had ordered to Killarney Mountain Lodge, a marina that we would visit in about 10 days. With that, we would now have spare parts on board should we ever have that problem again. We did some final provisioning, as there would be no ports for the next 5 - 6 days and were ready to set off to Georgian Bays 30,000 islands on Tuesday morning, August 9th.