Day 118: Echo Bay to Pont au Baril, Ontario
Day 118: Thursday, August 11th: This morning Ruth went ashore to untie the stern mooring line and had to take this picture of the wild Cardinal flowers. They were all around and very pretty:
We left Frying Pan Bay and were soon back in the main channel. We passed this little "pocket cruise boat" from the 30,000 Islands Cruise Line (30,000 Islands is the name of the area we are cruising in). You can see how appropriate the name is by looking at our pictures:
Since we put the dinghy in the water yesterday, we decided to leave it down and just tow it along; it behaved just fine in the wake:
We soon came to a challenging narrow cut named "Canoe Cut". We figured it was named that because that's all that could go through here comfortably:
Here is a rare sight: there are huge "ranges" guiding the ships in Lake Huron into bays and ports. Ruth happened to snap a "range house" in perfect alignment. Note the green light at the top of the building and how the black/white stripe runs down the middle of the house. Directly behind the camera, about ¼ mile away, is the lower range mark. The ships align the marks and know they are in the channel:
We passed this rather new boathouse and were struck by the relative size of it versus the owner's cabin behind it. The boathouse was noticeably larger; this owner had his priorities straight!
Did you ever wonder who maintains all the zillions of channel markers we have been passing? Well, it is the Canadian Coast Guard. In the interior of Canada, the Coast Guard is part of the Transport Department - sort of like the U.S. Department of Transportation. On the coast, the Canadian Coast Guard is one of the armed forces. Anyway, we passed this buoy tender on the job:
OK, this is fun. There is a narrow passage in this area, called "Pont au Baril Channel". The story goes that a ship trying to pass through here in the early days hit the rocks and broke up. There was a barrel of rum from the cargo of the ship that floated ashore, and the remaining crew that had managed to get ashore had a great party. They then put the barrel on a tall pole to alert other ships of the danger. "Pont au Baril" means "point of the barrel" and the name stuck. At least that's an approximate telling of the tale -- and there is a barrel there yet today!
Soon after the barrel was mounted, a lighthouse was built. The lighthouse is now a residence and the owners offer tours daily. We wanted to tour it but there was no good place to stop and tie up:
We continued a short way into an uncharted bay and dropped two anchors - one ahead and one astern. We had been chatting on the radio with our friends, Polly and Larry from Pollyanna for the last hour. They showed up in their dinghy from their anchorage around the bend and we had a good time catching up with our respective adventures.
The winds are supposed to shift from northeast to south tonight and get strong. The bay is quite small with a rocky shore; we hope for the best!
Position tonight: N45 34.534 W080 30.276
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