Leg 18 of our 2022 cruise up north
(to read about Leg 17, Covered Portage to Killarney, click here)
Yesterday evening I was talking to a couple on a powerboat anchored near us as I paddled by on my stand up paddleboard.
“We saw a bear swimming from that island right there just the other day!”
We definitely know bears swim around here, and were hoping to see one at a safe distance. I replied, “Cool! We’ll keep an eye out for him!”
“We also have seen rattlesnakes try to board boats here. I noticed you sent your wife ashore to tie to that tree…”
Oops. I forgot about the rattlesnakes.
A little while later, when I was back aboard Priorities, Kristin was by the swim ladder rinsing her feet.
“WHOA THERE’S A SNAKE!” I heard Kristin exclaim. I was a little worrie at first, but it was followed shortly after with a, “GRAB MY CAMERA!”
I guess we were okay. Though it swam to the surface about two feet from her, it didn’t really look like a rattlesnake. The Massasauga Rattlesnake is supposed to be very timid anyway. I think, or that’s what I remember.
We were in The Bustard Islands, a first for us ever, on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. We had sailed and motored east from Killarney, Ontario, 26 miles away. Further behind us lay the North Channel, where we had been cruising for the two previous weeks.
The Bustards are actually the farthest east I’ve ever sailed on Priorities. For reference to Americans, it’s farther east in longitude than Cleveland, Ohio. It’s not the farthest north for us… that was several years ago at Isle Royale on Lake Superior. Our Lake Superior trip was also the furthest from home I’ve been on Priorities, but we are still nearly 400 sea miles from our home port of Milwaukee, WI. We probably won’t go further east this time, so most of the rest of our trip will be west or southbound after here.
The Bustards is a neat archipelago that is part of the French River Provincial Park. There are a handful of cottages, but it’s mostly wilderness. Comparing it to the North Channel, it’s a cross between the Benjamin Islands, with a lots of pink granite, and McGregor Bay, with lots of islands and passages to explore and get lost in.
We each took our paddleboard around a bunch of the passages and islands right by the Bustard Islands Harbor where we anchored. In the dinghy, we traveled to the far east end of the eastern harbor in addition to traveling most of the way south on the Wick’s Passage. While we didn’t see any bears or rattlesnakes, we frequently heard loon cries echoing all around us. We also saw a few mink.
By midday today, we arrived back at the boat to find things had grown uncomfortable in the harbor, especially for us. When we arrived yesterday, there had been two boats anchored in the center of the the Bustard Islands Harbor. This harbor isn’t particularly large enough to handle much more, at least when using a decent amount of scope. We chose to set a bow anchor and tie the stern to a tree. Unfortunately the position of one of the other boats prevented us from setting our anchor as perpendicular to shore as I’d prefer. When we got to our boat we found the winds had picked up more than expected. I think our shore tie line had slipped in the cleat a few feet. The wind was also perpendicular to the boat at around 15 knots, with rocks a mere 15 feet from our rudder. We were sorta pinned into a corner. If either our anchor dragged or our tree line failed, our rudder would hit the rocks pretty quick. Not comfortable at all!
Eventually we decided we wouldn’t be able to sleep well knowing how precarious things were. However, “escaping” from our pinned in position would involve risk, too, so we spent much of the afternoon aboard and monitoring everything until evening. We hoped the wind would calm down a bit near sunset, at which point moving would involve less risk.
Fortunately, that’s what happened a little while ago. The winds calmed a bunch, Kristin and I had developed a plan to escape, and we moved to a vacated spot in the harbor with just a bow anchor. I did have to go ashore to recover our shore tie line in the dinghy, but that was easy!