After a night spent rocking at anchor (considering designing a seatbelt for the head) as the wind shifted to the NW, we awoke to a cool and bright Tuesday morning. It seemed as if yesterday didn’t happen at all. But we listened to the Sudbury 8 am news and then the Cruisers’ Net at 9 am and realized that, yes, it did happen, and it was worse than we ever imagined.

Power was out all over Manitoulin Island; Little Current was expected to have it back by 9 am but it would be longer for other areas. Trees and lines were down all over the island and even as far north as Sudbury. Other communities on the mainland also had no power. The Cruisers’ Net was operating, but out of the operator’s boat in the Little Current harbour, not on the more powerful radio at The Anchor, and we were only able to hear part of the broadcast. But a trawler was lost off Clapperton Island, didn’t hear any casualties so assume all got off. The local Little Current yacht club suffered severe damage to its buildings and many of the boats as well. One boat checked in and they had been torn off the town dock wall but came in OK. Several others had ripped sails and were thanking those that had come to their assistance. Four boat sheds were afloat off Strawberry Island light. And the list went on.....

What was most remarkable was that the freight train that we had heard were winds of between 124-150 kph. No, that’s not an error. We were stunned when we heard this. Meteorologists were tracking down reports of tornadoes as well.

We did check in with the Net and also heard that our friends on Golden had arrived in Little Current but we haven’t connected with them yet. What a way to welcome visitors!

The weather for the day was 15 knot winds lessening in the afternoon. So we decided to wait awhile before we headed out. About 10:30, we upped the anchor and left our little shelter, now an official Hurricane Hole to us, and headed east into the Bay of Islands. This is a beautiful area scattered with islands of all sizes and shapes and rock types and colours. On the east is the Whitefish Reserve and on the north shore is Whitefish Falls.

Whitefilsh RiverThis is a small hamlet on the Whitefish River which is about 100 ft wide at the mouth, 18 feet deep, completely lined with wharfs, each big enough for a small runabout. It’s like the Wal-Mart on water, row after row of parking. There are a couple of fishing lodges, a town dock big enough for 2 small outboards, and the power was out so nothing was working. We didn’t really need gas but if we go into a small place, we will top ‘er off anyway, but not today.

So, it was back out through the Bay again and onwards, westwards, to Oak Pt. and anchorage between Hotham Island and the mainland, which is the Sagamok Reserve. We passed the north end of the Waubuno Channel on our port side, and past Belcher Rk (!!!) on the starboard and carried on past Amedroz Island (which is incorrectly spelled Amendroz on the chart), past Fox Island to the south side of the channel with the Benjamins below it and turned in to the anchorage at Oak Pt. One of the interesting anchorages en route is behind Hog Island, north of the marked channel. This is near the Hudson’s Bay Trading Post of La Cloche. The Island used to be called Rattlesnake Island “because of its abundant slithery population. It underwent a name change when an enterprising employee at the Post had a bright idea: turn the island into a feeding ground for swine!” I don’t know if there are any snakes or hogs still there and we didn’t stop to check.

Oak Pt/Hotham Island is quite a large anchorage with many hidden coves. Sailboats kept coming in all day long and turning in behind one of the islands. We can’t see their masts from here so they must be hidden somewhere. There are several power cruisers in our area, all anchored and stern-tied to the rocks. The lessening of the wind in the afternoon as promised by the weather people didn’t actually happen until about 6 pm but right now it is quiet.

We anchored and then tried a stern tie to shore using the Danforth in the rocks. Naturally it took two tries to get it right and on the second try the west wind decided to pick up a wee bit and Phil is yelling at me to pull in the line from shore to the boat. I was just trying to hang on to the rope as the wind decided to shift her away from the rock. Have you ever tried to hold a 29 ft boat? In a wind? Luckily it was just a gust and we got her tied in for the night.

Water's Edge Shore-tied at Oak PointTomorrow we will decide if we move on to Spanish or spend another night here. Phil was reading the Ports Book on Spanish and it has so many things to offer, breakfast at the town dock, laundry, PIPO, free trips to town, all the necessary stuff, that we may never leave there! We do need to get to a dock soon as Phil has to charge up his power drill just in case there is a “maintenance day” some day soon. It takes about 12 hours and we only run Gennie for 2 hours at night and maybe 1 in the morning. This is enough to keep the refrigerator and portable cooler cold - the refrig runs off the battery all day - and the secondary cooler operates while we are cruising. Most importantly is to ensure that the boat batteries are topped off just in case we have to make a quick start up of the boat.

Tried to get a weather update on the VHF but think there may be power outages or something as they were rebroadcasting to-day’s weather for tomorrow. We got a little confused at first as they were saying the weather for “Tuesday will be” and we thought maybe we had missed a day. Finally figured out what was wrong.

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