And a glorious warm,
sunny day it was! Just right for a mega-run to McGregor
Bay (see chart above). With winds not yet near
30 km/h, we popped the chute and were soon passing a
mini bird sanctuary (below), that appeared to be
part of James Foote Patch south of Bedford Island.
.....
....
.....
Alas! It was too good to
last! By 1100 hrs our SW wind dropped off to nearly
nothing. We doused the chute (too much effort!) and
gybed to port for two reasons: try for more wind
funneling along the shore (the Rous Islands) and, if
Doug steered just right, we were in the shade of the
main which provided welcome relief from a now
oppressively hot sun.
To help while away the
time, we recalculated the speed formula for a Wayfarer
that Al had read somewhere but forgotten: one knot =
6080’ per hour, i.e. 6080’ in 3600 seconds. Therefore,
16’ should take 16 divided by 6080 x 3600 sec., which
we estimated to be about 10 seconds (actually it’s
more like 9.5 seconds, now that I’m out of the sun!)
Thus, at 2 knots, Whirlwind should take 5 sec.
to go one boatlength, etc.
Using a nice,
biodegradable Kleenex, we soon established that we
were doing just over one knot. Shortly
thereafter, the one of us who had not used the
bushes on Clapperton that morning, got an overwhelming
call from nature and got to put droop hiking to an
entirely new use. In an increasing wind, our helm did
not get a reliable time for half a boatlength based on
this evidence, however.
With a double sense of
relief, we proceeded in increasing, rather cool SW
winds and lowering skies. We made the grand entrance
into Little Current on a planing spi reach but were
forced to douse near the town wharf when the swirling
winds, now gusting to 20 knots, urged us to prudence.
The current being with
us, and the swing bridge opening still almost 40 min.
away, we decided to shoot the bridge with the mast
down. We chose a sheltered looking dock about 200 m.
from the bridge to start the operation under
controlled circumstances. Al misjudged the momentum of
a fully burdened Wayfarer and we almost knocked over a
No Trespassing! sign. Of course, anyone could
see that we were not “trespassing”. We were mariners
in distress!
Soon the mast was down
and I was reminded of the old Good News, Bad News joke
about the galley slaves’ captain wanting to go
water-skiing, as Doug bravely fought to keep Whirlwind
on course as the upper ten feet of mainsail kept
filling with 20 knots of gust and blowing the stern
off to one side or the other. The tiller was also not
too mobile, what with mast, spreaders and sail hanging
all over it. We could have used the boom crutch, I
suppose, but who knows how much a further raised
mainsail would have blown us off course???
Anyway, we made it
nicely through the starboard span of the bridge and
quickly headed up into a relatively sandy spot just
east of the bridge. Almost there - but Mr. Murphy
never sleeps: When I tried to quickly raise the board,
the gooseneck was perfectly positioned to block the
manoeuvre and we suddenly crunched to a halt. But all
was finally fixed, although it is harder to lift the
mast with sail and boom attached...
Once clear of the town
and the bridge, we were on a nice broad reach, and the
spinny seemed called for once more. A couple of
minutes later, we cleared Gibbons Point. I looked over
my shoulder and saw what looked like a mini-squall
coming at us. We downed the spinny in record time and
battened the hatches just in time to take off on a
planing reach past Strawberry Island. At that point
the threatening clouds disappeared and we were left
with a glorious 15-18 SW wind and warm sunshine.
A gybe at Mary Point on
Little La Cloche, and we were on the home stretch. One
more hoist of the spi and we settled into a nice
comfortable surfing/planing port tack broad reach.
Little La Cloche was going past a lot faster than last
time! While Doug was marvelling how well balanced and
light our fully loaded Whirlwind was feeling,
Al cast admiring glances at a gorgeous 40’ wooden
ketch that was slowly creeping up from astern under
genoa alone.
When he finally got
fairly close, their helm yelled at us and we headed up
to see what he wanted. Thus he finally got our wind
and went by saying: “You’re doing 7.5 knots!!!”
Hard to believe, but we’re gullible!
Remembering the
disturbed winds off McGregor Point from Wednesday (and
Al’s frequent dumps at Fanshawe in similar
conditions!), we doused the spi and settled down to
try to find island #1104 and Rick Cantwell in
Pathfinder Bay. There were so many islands, however,
that we ended up following Wednesday’s Interlake which
was going in the right general direction.
When we followed to his
dock, he asked: “Didn’t I see you recently?”
After confirming this to be true, we got directions
which included a camouflaged satellite dish (below)
as positive identification......
.....
Soon we had found the right
spot and prepared to beg for a space at Rick’s dock -
but it seemed no one was home...
Although we knew we had
a standing invitation to stay at Wilma Starke’s island
across the bay while she was away in Detroit, but we
decided to get out and at least stretch our legs
first.
.....
.....
Whirlwind was well
protected at this dock (above) which was
not at that time graced by Rick’s lovely wife, Gina. And
suddenly, there was Rick (below), virtually
unchanged in the 12 years since he had whipped Ralph
Starke and me in the 1985 Outer Bay Race.
.....
.....
Poor Rick! He had finally
been getting in a day of rest after a summer of
frantically trying to keep the island and its 13
buildings in reasonable repair. A rest that had been
especially welcome after a major party the night before!
.....
.....
We assured Rick that we
could easily sleep in the boat, but he would hear
nothing of that and insisted that we take the main guest
cabin. With justified pride, Rick pointed out that he
had power-washed the wood walkways which looked like new
(above) but had earlier looked like these docks
on which we unloaded some of our gear (below).
 ..
...
.....
.....
As we finished our
unloading, we met Rick’s sister-in-law, Judy (from
Oakville!) and her son, Connor, returning from McGregor
Bay’s sole store at Birch Island. These two demonstrated
the use of the island’s wheelbarrow for those extra big
loads, and we were soon ensconced in the guest cabin (above
and below). And before Doug could even
think about today’s dinner, there was Rick putting some
extra burgers onto the BBQ - leftovers from last night’s
party, he claimed.
.....
.....
.....
At “dinner”, we met the
charming Gina (above), Rick and Gina’s daughter,
Chelsea (below), and Kara, Judy and Bob’s
daughter. Gina brought along a fine spinach salad that
even the non-salad Uncle Al enjoyed.
.....
Even some little mermaids were in
evidence.
.....
We discovered that, in his
other life as a collector of exotic seeds who is doing
very nicely, Rick and his family live in California
north of San Diego, while brother, Bob, and family live
much closer to the “cottage”, in Lively, just west of
Sudbury.
While the kids played
accidents and ambulances with their stuffed toys after
dinner, the sailors (but not Gina!) adjourned to the
main lodge where we enjoyed drinks, music and the
exchange of stories.
During the course of a
most entertaining evening, we heard a lot about Rick’s
seed collecting escapades as well as discussions of
sailing tactics, including Rick’s claim that it’s
faster to raise your centreboard while tacking into
the current in McGregor Bay’s Blasted Channel. By 1
a.m., the discussion had moved to the guest cottage
with bedtime around two - far cry from our
sunset-related bedtimes of the past few days!
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