Tuesday, July 4, 2023 Deadbolt Island - Happy July 4th!

One of life's great pleasures is randomly swinging around a bug zapper when sleeping at night and making contact (Crack!) with the mosquito that has been terrorizing you. I had that experience last night. So satisfying. 

Our sting of good weather is continuing. It's been great ever since we left Port Huron last week. It's forecast to continue until at least Thursday. I received a lovely July 4th electronic thank you card from Jane who was pleased to see the condition of her cottage and grounds in the pictures I sent. 

I followed Peter out of Tobermory promptly at 8:00 AM. We passed the Chi-Cheemaun loading its first trip of the day. We motored slowly past Flowerpot Island. It’s been a long time since we have seen the flowerpots. Kerry said she always wanted to plant perennial flowers on top the pots! A gardeners dream, I guess.

It was a great passage to Deadbolt Island. I took the opportunity to warm up Annie’s engine to 190 degrees by running it faster. I hit 15.1 knots at our rated rpm max of 2600. Since I do not have an electronic engine I need to do this occasionally. We got a following sea halfway there and it increased our speed a couple of tenths. Eventually the seas built to 1-2’ and Annie started to wander a little so I increased the autohelm response and rudder gain which helps. Overall we went 48.1 miles today. We arrived at 2:00, so the trip was six hours at an average speed of 8 knots. We've traveled 338 nautical miles to date. 

Marianna told me Peter was busy topsides while we motored along. Apparently while organizing his dock locker he accidentally inflated one of their life jackets doing something.  While it’s good to know it works (or worked) now it’s time for a new cartridge or a new lifejacket. I sat in the outside for most of the trip and read, always with my “Crew Watcher” fob on me. I made some ice to use up the remaining water in the machine and just because I have wanted to make ice as we traveled.

On the way, we passed James Bay. We stayed there once with Brillig. There was not a GLCC Harbor Report so I wrote one and submitted it. Now it bears my name. It’s GB-56. When we passed Odjig Island I noticed a rock named Alec Clark Rock. Sure makes you wonder what Alec did to get a rock named after him. Peter went under Odjig Island and I went over it. At one point we were about 4 miles apart. Yet when we came together in the small craft channel we were within 2 boat lengths of each other. Pretty amazing.

As we were coming down the small craft channel we saw Heart Tug. We spent 4 nights in Cleary Cove with them last year. Heart Tug is a very nice 34' American Tug. They were traveling with someone in a big, new looking American Tug. Hopefully we will bump into them on this cruise.

There were 3 boats here when we arrived. They were in the "preferred area" but the entire anchorage is good. We opted to anchor in the middle of the west end to stay in shallower water, less than 10 feet. The Orros did their first anchor on Voyager a little ways behind us. It appeared they had no problems. (We learned later they did have a few conversations! Lots of new procedures to work out.)  We had a little trouble getting our new anchor snubber on the chain. As I was going to go get the old one Kerry figured out that a little twist was needed to get it on, so we did go with the new much beefier snubber.

I use a golf rangefinder to measure the distance from shores like this. Always want to be sure the distance stays the same!

The Orros came to Annie for our traditional 4th of July cookout - hamburgers and baked beans. And since we are in Canada we had smoked trout as an appetizer. Cocktails were on Annie's upper deck in a nice breeze while dinner was in the salon. Last night the conversation was about Starlink. Tonight it was about anchor snubbers. Our mates have come a long way. During dinner we listened to Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' and Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA' thanks to Amazon Music. Pretty amazing to be able to do that while anchored in a remote Canadian harbor. 

Peter and I have been challenged to provide a fish dinner for tomorrow night. I had no idea the pressure would be on us so soon. We're going to meet at 8;00 for coffee and cappuccinos and to plot our fish catching strategy. It's 9:30 now and still light out. The breeze has diminished, the waters are calm and it appears it will be a perfect night for sleeping.