Turnbull Islands

Little wind and none to speak of this afternoon meant I stayed yet another day here in the Turnbull Islands. I am having a hard time trying to decide what to do over the next few days. There are just light easterly winds forcasted until Tuesday night, when some very strong winds are predicted followed by Westerly breezes from where I am going to.  The nearest safe harbor is 45 Nm away which would involve some night sailing to make it in the one trip. I'm tempted to just stay put in this place because it is very safe and beautiful. I have it all to myself tonight.

I'll sleep on the decision and make up my mind in the morning.

John Island

Well it turned out that my hunch of anchoring in a cove on the south side of John Island was the right thing to do. It blew like stink from the north from sunset so I was on anchor watch a lot of the night. Actually I had just half an eye open but my anchor alarm was on all night.

I nearly put my second anchor out but the wind was not meant to be too much and even if I dragged, there were no other boats near me and I would have only headed out of the Bay.  As it was I did drag my 35lb CQR anchor about 100 feet but nothing significant.

I headed east again until noon when the wind died and found myself in the Turnbull Islands. It is very pretty here and I am sharing this beautiful Bay with a lone catamaran.

Not sure what I will do tomorrow because the wind is supposed to be light so I might just stay here another day.

South Benjamin

Another good easterly breeze when I woke this morning so I up anchored and set off from the Benjamin's without any engine. I always like doing that and the same with anchoring without any engine and for that matter, sailing as much as I can without using the yanmar diesel. Well I made good progress of about 15 Nm but the wind died around noon (again!) There was no suitable anchorage near me so I just headed for the nearest cove on the south side of John Island. Boy was that ever a mistake. The wind is blowing from the SW instead of the forcasted north and this Bay I am in is exposed to the SW so my boat is doing some serious rocking and rolling. I could move around to another cove but I'm hoping that the wind will diminish after sunset. The other reason that I don't like this cove is because there is a house with a family on a vacation here and they probably don't like having boats anchoring in front of them.

I did my usual nap, swim, shower and boat chores this afternoon before fixing rice, beans and vegetables along with a good movie.

Little Current

The forcasted weather was for light winds but when I woke there was a good easterly breeze so I quickly got myself organized, ran up to the store and picked up a couple of bags of ice. Good sailing until lunch time which put me in the Benjamin islands. On the way though my telltale at the top of the mast was not working.

So some explaination here. The telltale is the arrow at the top of the mast that tells you which direction the wind is coming from. I got my binoculars out and to my dismay...... Cobwebs!  Spiders! My worse nightmare had come true.  Ok, from now on no more nicey nicey with my 8 legged friends. This is war. I tried going in circles and speeding up without any luck. It was still stuck. I don't like climbing up the mast anyway but when I am sailing, it is even worse. Nothing to it though but to go aloft. This is the second time I have had to climb up the mast while I have been sailing so at least I knew what I was in for.

I think that the problem may have come about from the fact that I have such a good anchor light so tonight I plan on raising my Luci light up the mast instead.

Snug harbor

I'm playing catch up here because I have had no internet at the last two anchorages. Night before last was the pool at Baie Fine and last night was snug harbor.
I caught a rare easterly breeze this morning to head west back to Little Current where I will be staying overnight and catching yet another breeze in the morning to push me back towards Michigan.
BTW i have it on good authority that all the rocks here might look like granite, but in fact they are hardened sandstone or quartzite.

The Pool

I don't have any cell coverage at the Pool anchorage but I'm out on a hike overlooking the harbor and I have a connection here so I am updating my blog while I am able to.

I walked to Topaz Lake along with a lot of people who like to jump off the cliffs to go swimming.

Baie Fine

Had a great sail again downwind to Baie Fine from Little Current. It is going to be tough sailing back against the prevailing wind to where I started. This morning i attended the regular 9am north Channel net hosted by Roy and Annie.

It is very popular among all the cruisers here and they had 124 boats call in this morning.