At my last post we had blasted our way into Kincardine and settled in for the night. We ended up staying there Saturday night while we dried out the front bunks and bedding, sopped up the carpet and tried to determine the source of the darned leak, to no avail. We sort of looked like the Beverly Hillbillies for a few hours what with the mattresses on the foredeck and bedding hanging from the flybridge. Oh well, it worked and all was put back in place by sundown. During the day we biked up to Canadian Tire, a kind of mini Wallmart, primarily a tire and automotive store, but you can buy just about anything there as well. In their parking lot is a two story red bus like you would find in England. It has been coverted into a fast food service that sells hot dogs, burgers and the best French Fries in the known universe. Each year we look forward to having lunch there, it is one of the highlights of our trip. Saturday night, in celebration of the National Holiday known as Civic Day, there was a parade down mainstreet with around 20 bagpipers wailing away. They walked and played down the street to a small park, took about a 10 minute break where it is said they sample some scotch then proceed on a return trip. Not suprisingly, they sounded much better after they had few pulls on the ole jug. Here are few pix from Kincardine:
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The Light at Kincardine, at dusk a bag piper comes out on the catwalk and plays till the sun dips beyond the horizon.
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The Beach at Kincardine has very fine sand and the water warms nicely from the western exposure.
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The sunsets over Lake Huron are spectacular, this one did not capture it very well but does reveal the sunshine in my life.
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The Bella at dock
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Another angle
Sunday morning we headed to Mills Lake via Tobermorey for fuel. The trip to Tobe is about a 90 mile trip and can be either pleasant or not-so depending on the wind. Fortunately, it was with us and there was a nice 1 meter following sea. It was during this leg we discovered that the mystery leak was not coming from any area below the toe rail. As we would come off a wave the nose would crash into the back of the next wave, but no water would wash over the deck as did happen when coming into Kicardine. So, upon inspection I found a crack about 3 feet long on the foredeck near the anchor pulpit. Although quite small or fine, the crack must be the way water is getting between the hull and interior wood then filtering down to the bunks and eventually the floor. It is our intent to have the foredeck repaired this winter, so hopefully we will not encounter break over waves until then. Ironically, rain water has not produced this problem.
We pulled into Tobermorey around 3 PM and were given the come ahead to the fuel dock in order to top off and fill up the water tanks. Once tied up and engines off we noticed the generator had died somewhere along the trip. I figured it was the fuel filters and so we decided to spend the night there and change out the filter. We were assigned a dock that moored us against the wall adjacent to the main pedestrial sidewalk. Quite honestly it felt as if we were in a fish bowl. Countless people would stop and stare at our boat. Many wanted to chat about it, and of course we were happy to oblige. We met a nice couple that had been out for 3 weeks, retired of course, and they were from an area close to us downriver in Grosse Ille. They came by for cocktails and told some good stories of their venture. We ended up getting a few new gunkholes that we marked on our charts for future exploration. Only bad thing about them was they owned a Ocean. (LOL)
With the filter changed and fresh oil topped off the genset ran like a new one and we headed for our true destination. It was a glorious day on Monday and the 60 mile trip Mills Lake was a delight. We made for Killarney's Red Rock Light then vered to the east and followed the small craft route to the western entrance of Collins Inlet. The beauty of this narrow passage always amazes me. Mills Lake lies about 7 miles from the entrance and is a body of water that lies in a northeast to southwest direction thru which Collins Inlet continues east until it dumps into Beaverstone Bay. There are many anchorages in the lake and we set up in a great place on the lee side of Green Island. Our intent was to stay here a few nights then head to Campbell Bay then to Rogers City and then home. However, due some incoming high winds we decided to just stay put. That we did until Saturday morning. During this time we used the dingy to explore, fish, picnic and booze cruise. Each night a few sail boats would come into our cove, but by mid morning they were gone. For the most part, with the exception of a few cottagers, the lake was ours.
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Approaching the western entrance to Collins Inlet
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I particularly like this photo for the parallel lines formed by the wake
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Typical scenery during the passage
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The ole gal at anchor at the south tip of Green Island in Mills Lake
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Collins Inlet in the early morning.
On Saturday we left around 7 AM and proceeded to Tobermorey to top off for the 12 hour trip home. Three hours later we arrive at Little Tub Harbor, call into the fuel dock and are given the come ahead by the harbormaster. For the most part my autopilot and its powersteering capabilities provide better steerage than my wheel, but I always turn it off or to standby when approaching harbors and dockage. After doing so, to my surpise we had no steerage, none, nada. The wheel just turned merrily but the boat did not respond. Well, we were moving at idle speed anyway so I just brought her into the fuel dock with the clutches as normal. After being refueled I crawled down into the bilge and found my Hynautic reservoir low on fluid and the pressure had dropped to 12 psi. I could find no leak in the bilge, so I unfastened the helm station and noticed a pool of fluid within the compartment. I followed the leak to a seal on the wheel pump. It is minor and must have been leaking for sometime. I felt as though it would be no more problem on this trip if I could fill the reservoir. As luck would have it, I had no fluid on board and the fuel dock had none as well. A marine store about 4 kilometers away had some, so I biked up, paid an exorbitant amout of money for a litre, rode back, filled the reservoir, pressurized the system with the onboard compressor and all was right with the world again. Just another system glitch we all experience with these old war horses and another item on the damage list. This exercise, and I mean exercise cause the marine store was all up hill - both ways it seemed, costs us two plus hours and our departure from Tobermorey was around 12:15.
As we headed out of Cape Hurd Channel, Donna made some lunch and brought it up to the fly bridge where we ate and took in the last glace of land we would see for some time. Once out of the channel and our tummies full we came up to speed and set course for the Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron. This distance is approximately 160 miles right down the throat of Lake Huron, and at 20 mph the GPS said it would take us 8 hours 20 minutes. I know, go figure, but the thing is smarter than me. Anyway, the Lake is flat calm and the trip is uneventful. I finished a book I was reading and Donna knitted, napped and read. At 8:30 we passed under the bridge and decided to pull into Pt. Huron for the evening. This is a nice municipal marina with good dockage. If it were not so late we would have walked the short distance down the wharf to the many restaurants, but instead we had popcorn and hot dogs, some gin and tonics then to bed.
Sunday, arrive home without incident around 1 PM, the trip finished and the many memories fresh in our minds. In summary, we ran approximately 40 hours with most of it having the GenSet on. We burned 1,250 gallons of fuel for an average of say 32 gallons per hour. BTW, fuel in Canada was $1.15 per litre X 3.785 ltr/gallon is $4.35 per gallon. We had budgeted $5k for the trip and having bought fuel in the US for the trip out, we came in just under budget.
Now it is back to work, got to earn some fuel money. Hope you enjoyed the summary and the photos.