North Channel

colbysmith

colbysmith

Active member
Dale, I decided to open a new thread on the North Channel. You asked where I ran into the "big water". A number of years ago, (July 2015), with my then CD-22, Midnight Flyer, my wife and I decided to cruise the North Channel after hearing how scenic it was. We launched at Spanish, Ontario. We went past the Benjamin Islands and on to Baie Fine and into The Pool, which was really nice. Hiked up to Topaz lake. After a day or two at The Pool, we headed back out Baie Fine, past Little Current on Manitoulin Island, and over to Covered Portage Cove in Killarney Bay. Both this cove, and The Pool are probably two of the nicest and best protected anchorages and scenery on the North Channel. Anyway, after a day or two at Covered Portage Cove, we turned back to go spend some time in the Benjamins. It was soon after leaving Portage Cove, as we were going across I think Frazer Bay when the winds kicked up and before we knew it we were in seas of at least 6-7 feet. (Doing 3-4 kts, we'd crest one wave and pick up green water with our bow in the trough. Could not see past the wave when in the trough.) It was interesting watching a small frieghter off in the distance off our starboard bow as we slowly made way. Only catching glimpses of him when we were on the crest of the wave. Needless to say, the boat handled it all fine. My wife and I on the other hand were not too happy. Or comfortable! Never so happy to finally see the channel to Little Current. Next issue was finding a slip at any of the already full marinas. I still remember putting a call out to one of the marinas. This is Midnight Flyer, a 22 ft C-Dory, looking for a slip. The marina started to respond, sorry we have no room, then mid sentence said, what size are you? I think he was a little surprised to hear from a 22 footer coming in from the Bay. He did have room for us, putting us between two fairly large sailboats. (I looked up to see their bow pulpets. lol) Anyway, we never intended to be in water like that, and hope to never again. It more than likely took from the rest of our trip, as we decided to pass on the Benjamins, pulled out early, and spent a few days at Mackinaw City on the way home. (Mackinac Island ended up full of sailboats from the Chicago race.)

Some day I may get back to the North Channel, but hopefully with less wind!
 
Hey Colby, Thanks for starting this thread. I didn’t want to be presumptuous as a new kid on the block.

I certainly would not want to go through what Y’all did although we all are caught out at some point and the consensus is that these boats can take more than we care to.

Frazer Bay is at the Eastern end of the channel, sort of exposed to Georgian Bay which is a Huge body. I think the Highsmith were talking about going there this summer in Cat O’ Mine. It’s beautiful but I’ve read that paper charts are recommended as being more detailed than the electronic ones for that area. Last fall we went out with a fisherman from Gore Bay and the Navionics for there are incredible… watching on my phone the skipper said he had never been able to check out things he had been curious about so close to shore (he was steeped in local knowledge from years of chartering but didn’t use Navionics). I would never attempt it without the Garmin plotter plus iPad and phone for backup as my level of local knowledge is zero.

We’ll see what August brings as we await the “Cone of Uncertainty” in God’s bowling game (we are the pins!). For sure I would Love to at least join the Tennessee river run in the fall.

Meanwhile, it’s miserable here… I work on boat projects in the wee hours when it’s cool enough to go outside for measurements and fittings. I’ll add some pics of projects under separate threads as they apply.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

Best

Dale
 
We’ll I finally got the bow roller mods done for the Anchor Upgrade (pics under separate topic) and have a few projects to complete before heading North.

Yesterday I heard back from the guy in De Tour Village to confirm truck & trailer storage at Passage Boatworks starting the first week in August. Same folks I spoke with last year. They are holding the annual Salmon Derby August 1st -3rd so after that settles.

The plan is to concentrate on the Eastern section islands and bays.
This is Bucket List material.The area is incomparable. Would love to link up with any Brats exploring the area.

Best
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Dale:

Betty and I, with Moki dog and Luna cat, are on our Great Loop. We’re currently in the Thousand Islands, then headed to the Trent Severn coming out in Georgian Bay then the North Channel. You might be a little early for us to meet up but you can find us on Nebo or follow along at https://findpenguins.com/mollybrown/tri ... rican-loop

Colby:

We are following your River meet up and will go out of the way if the timing is right. No way to know where we’ll be during that timeframe. Fate may allow us to get together.

James
 
We are following your River meet up and will go out of the way if the timing is right. No way to know where we’ll be during that timeframe. Fate may allow us to get together.
Click to expand...

Sounds good. Right now still looking at parking and launching at Harrison State Park near Chattanooga, on October 2nd, departing down river heading towards Guntersville the next morning, October 3rd. Turn back around at Guntersville and head up stream to the headwaters just past Knoxville, and again turning around to head back to Harrison SP. On the river I'll be on Nebo, and of course have my AIS transmitting. Also, Bill has his Inreach. Hope it does work out to meet you guys somewhere along the river, but we will be quite a ways upstream of the Tombigbee River.
 
Molly Brown, thanks for the link to your loop trip. I will be following along at least for your Canada portion as I am familiar with some of the areas you are passing through. We plan on being in Barrie(Lake Simcoe) on Aug. 3 and somewhere between Orillia and Port Severn on the 4rth. If fate finds us in the same place I will try to say hello. In the meantime - welcome to Canada.

Rob
 
Hi James... Hi Colby... nice to hear from y'all. (I don't do any social media and try not to sit in front of a computer as years of endless production work ruined my neck for that position).

I finally completed the anchor upgrade and posted pics here last night:

http://www.c-brats.com/modules.php?... holding pattern. Best to everybody Dale
 
Thanks Bob for the kind thoughts and for making a shareable link
When the anchor arrived, I thought I had made a mistake… it was unwieldy. The guys at Mantus couldn’t have been nicer. They offered to send a 17 lb M2 or M1 - 25 and return anything I couldn’t use including their stop (which was too big for the space. I did keep their snubber pendant.

Can’t take the total credit for the solution… I studied their stuff and figured how to accomplish the same objectives within my wherewithal and skill set.

The graphics are from my days of exhibit design storytelling… just a dormant habit with Photoshop layering.

Ironic that I am stumped by the photo album tricks on this site… Ha!

Still have a lot of canvas pics to organize… more to come

Best
Dale
 
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