After another all day rain yesterday, we awakened to beautiful sunshine and a crystal clear morning. Yesterday was a laundry day and time for us to plan out our next few stops. Dock mates in Gore Bay suggested we go to Crocker Island, about 15 miles to the northeast of Gore Bay in the southern Benjamin Islands. They pointed out an excellent place to drop anchor and is well protected from winds. Sounded like fun and a nice change of pace. After fueling up and pumping out we eased our way out of the bay into the open waters of the North Channel and soon were on the approach to Crocker. I slowed to idle speed and zigzagged our way around and through rock islands, some visible, some hidden beneath the water. We rounded the turn for our glimpse into the small anchorage only to see a sailboat at anchor. Bummer. Not knowing the interior circumference of the anchorage we decided it wiser to move on but not before we checked out the larger anchorage. The larger of the two is more open to today’s prevailing wind and given the deep water and steeped shoreline we decided to pass of that idea, too. Our first bailout plan was to move eastward to Little Current; second plan was to go back to Gore Bay. I retraced our path back out of the anchorage opening and into the Channel and headed toward Little Current. Navigating these waters are known to be challenging and close attention to charts and visual observations are critical. I’ve tried to capture this in a photograph of rocks just at the water surface. Hopefully you will be able to see it. The geological surroundings here are granite and very unforgiving to a boat’s running gear.

Another 15 miles to the south and east and we’re in the “gateway” town of Little Current. I say gateway because this is the “pinch point” from west to east for water travel and the only way in which you can drive to the island (over a swing bridge). We understand there is a ferry from Tobermory to the Manitoulins. We’re docked at the municipal dock wall in lovely downtown LC, right in front of the Canada Post Office. We walked town after getting things hooked up, went looking for a manicurist for the Admiral (no luck yet but the path is getting warmer), found the LCBO, and met our dock mates who are from Chicago, IL and traveling to Nantucket before going to Key West.

Another all day rain is supposed to come tomorrow so we’ll be here for at least two days before we go Killarney or we may go just a bit north and go to Baie Fine (pronounced Bay Finn) a fjord off the north shore of the North Channel. Water temp today while cruising was 49’; air temp 61’.