Mon Aug 14: Baie Fine to Little Current Town Docks

The star gazing ended about midnight and we went to bed with visions of shooting stars and comet dust in our minds.  Our anchorage continued to treat us kindly, we were visited by no thunderstorms so it was a  calm, quiet night.  When we woke up we found that the smoke from the Quebec fires had returned! It smelled like a giant campfire and visibility wasn’t great. 

This area along the North Channel is surrounded by white quartz rock mountains (hills really by western standards) and in the distance the white rock looks a bit like snow. 

You can see the quartz mtn in the distance.

The sun struggling to shine through the smoke.

You know I love me a good reflection! I am much more appreciative of rocks and their reflections when we haven’t spent the night being afraid of them… 

While the wind was low we jumped in the dingy to go up the skinny channel to see The Pool. It turned out to be quite crowded, with at least 8 boats, plus a couple of cottages.  We are so pleased we found our little spot with no one around.  Yes, Kim, the dingy goes up and down via Mel/Rick power, but it’s a good exercise and we won’t dread it anymore!

Our first shot this year of Blue Horizion from the dingy.

Geology shot in honor of my dad!

After our quick tour of The Pool we pulled in the anchor and headed down Baie Fine towards McGregor Bay and on to Little Current.  As we cruised slowly out of the bay we noticed a number of small Zodiac type boats with 8 or 10 people on each and at the Okeechobee Resort (at the mouth of Baie Fine) there were a lot of people on the shore. It’s a pretty remote place, so that was confusing—-until we rounded the corner to see our Viking cruise ship friend hulking offshore.

I think this guy is following us!

Token lovely lighthouse!

Strawberry Island Lighthouse

At the entry to Little Current there is an old swing bridge that opens only on the hour so we had to kill some time to get through at the 1 pm opening, so we went even more slowly than usual.  Which means we were traveling at about the speed of molasses dripping from the jar onto a spoon…

Hooray-swing bridge finally opening!!

Little Current is a small town located on a narrow channel connecting Georgian Bay to the North Channel. Technically after we cruised through Killarney we were in the North Channel, but it really starts after Little Current.  The narrow channel really does have a current, and it isn’t little.  As we waited for the bridge to open we noticed a 4 mph current pushing us toward the bridge and the town.  This current switches back and forth every few hours - not sure if it is a tide thing or what, but it is noticeable.  

Little Current and the swing bridge are also the gateway to Manitoulin Island that you can see on the map below.   Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world and so large that the island itself has over 100 lakes!  

Not sure you can see it, but the channel is narrow at Little Current

It was not a very cute town, but it did have everything we needed to provision prior to moving out to anchorages on the North Channel.  After a quick lunch we headed off to the grocery store.   

We stayed at the Port of Little Current municipal marina that was actually very large.  With room for about 80 boats it is well located and has fuel and pump out services.  We found the marina staff - a group of about 4 teenage boys - to be sorely lacking in the customer service department.  These young men could learn a thing or two from the young people who worked at Wright’s Marina where we stayed a few days ago.  They did what they needed to do but didn’t seem very happy about it. 

Blue Horizon at Port of Little Current

During our walk to the grocery store we came across this automated pizza machine and decided that we had to try it for dinner.  While Rick prepared some zucchini on the grill, I walked up to the machine, ordered pizza, payed and 3 minutes later a freshly cooked pizza popped out.   What a crazy idea!  We are thinking about how to get one of these and put it close to every college campus.  

“Hot, Authentic, Artisanal Pizza” - from a machine! What will Italy think of us?

All the smoke in the sky made for a spectacular sunset.  Good night all!