Today we left the dock at Blind River at 9:15 am, and we headed to an anchorage 37.7 miles east. We are taking a Northern Passage route of the Northern Channel and will be anchoring near Hotham Island. Well, I slept on it over night, and I still have not changed my opinion about Blind River. The marina was great, but I really still feel that the town (or what we saw of it) has few bright spots...
The scenery consisted of lots of beautiful views of rocky (photo at left) and sometimes treed islands. There is little or no soil on the islands. So the trees must first gain a foothold by growing in a crack in the rocks. The tree roots expand as they grow, and the expansion can exert enough pressure to break the rock. The freezing of water and resulting expansion when water goes from a liquid to a solid (about 10%) can also exert enough force to break the rocks. The rocks get broken into finer and finer particle and slowly a soil can form. Time is the key - it takes a long time.
Like I said above, the scenery
along our trip from Blind River was many little islands (photo at right). It was like they are all different, but they are all the same... We are going along the North or mainland side of the North channel between the mainland and Manitoulin Island. Manitoulin Island is the largest island in the world in an inland freshwater lake, and it provides protection for the North channel from storms out on Lake Huron.
Hotham Island is about 2.5 miles long, and we entered a channel between the west end of the island and the mainland and went almost all of the way to the east end of Hotham Island. The channel is barely visible between Hotham Island on the right and the mainland on the left. When we got closer, the channel is about 200 feet wide, but on line reviews that we had read warned to stay east (right in this view) of center. The channel was something of a wind tunnel, but fortunately the winds were only about 8 to 10 mph. We continue to take Lucky Us into some pretty tight places, but the scenery has been worth it
The picture on the right was taken looking back at the channel after we had entered the channel between Hotham Island and the mainland. We were in the process of turning to starboard to head east toward the anchorage about 2.5 miles away near the eastern end of Hotham Island. There was no way out the eastern end of the channel for us, and I do not know if even small power boats can exit there. I like this photo because you can get a good view of the narrow channel.
We arrived in the early afternoon, and we passed several boats that were headed out from the anchorage, which we hoped meant that others had left before we got there. This is a busy little area (photo at left), which is not surprising since it was not only very scenic but also very protected.
We slowly motored around looking at several small bays for a spot to anchor and
finally decided on just the right one.
There must be over two dozen boats in the area.
There are docktails at 5 at a private home around a small point
from us, but we ultimately decided not to go since it is about a mile one way.
We
have the kayaks so it was a possibility.
We will be using the kayaks to take Lucky ashore soon to do her business. As usual, the Admiral was
hoping we have a bear sighting but, she is always careful to qualify that by wanting the encounter to be not too close. I think that I may have to take her to a zoo to have her encounter with a bear. We went on a 7 day Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver, British Columbia last summer, and we then drove across the entire Rocky Mountains, then down through Montana, Wyoming, including Yellowstone Park and finally through Colorado. The grand total was zero bears after 5 weeks of almost continually being in Bear Country... Hope must spring eternal since the Admiral is still hoping to see a bear...
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