Sharing a Cove in the Georgian Bay Wilderness

At Phillip Edward Island on Mill Lake, we're sharing a cove with a pair of loons and their late summer chick. Like our grandkids, the chick milks his parents for all they're worth.

Why dive for fish when mommy and daddy will get one for you? Why swim when you can ride on an adult's back? Fun to watch, the family occasionally add even further drama with haunting cries.

We have seen a good many other loons the past few days. Yesterday (Friday), anchored at the Bustard Islands West, loons flew frequently back and forth past the boat crying what the Admiral said is their flying lament. To me, it looked like they were exercising to get ready for a trip south while complaining but urging their pals to do the same. There's a Tom Sawyer in all living things.

Speaking of birds, the portion of Georgian Bay we've traveled through recently has offered fewer than earlier parts of our trip. Having fledged their young, have many of them already started south? That said, in the last couple of days, in addition to the loons, we've seen a number of other avian members including:

• a mother merganser with a brood of 8 chicks,

• Canadian geese not only swimming but flying below eye level right past Katahdin at anchor,

• cormorants here, there, and everywhere including another largeish guano island,

• lots of mallards,

• gulls, and,

• terns.

I know our current lifestyle sounds idyllic to many of you. In fact, it's awesome and I'm starting to wonder how I'll survive as a landlubber come fall. But, it does pose moments that test your patience and sharpen your concentration. Thursday, we arrived at the Bustard Islands and proceeded to an anchorage the Admiral had selected with my agreement. With a southerly breeze projected to swing to the west in the early evening, we maneuvered among the two boats that preceded us and dropped the anchor. Whoops, not enough room to swing with the scope we had out when the expected wind shift arrived. We dropped the anchor a second time. It dragged when we gently tested it. Having pulled it up twice, we now had a boat infested with both yucky mud and weed and a decision to make. What to do? We proceeded around to the other side of the island, made our way in through a channel maze bounded by the ubiquitous rocks and

ledges, and dropped the anchor a third time. Third time's the charm and we were positioned for a great night with the aforementioned loons, geese, and mergansers. It also afforded us the opportunity to take a late afternoon dinghy ride to explore the Bustard archipelago.

We woke this morning to the wind shift and a forecast of 15+ knot winds with seas of 0.5 to 1 meter. As other mariners well know, in a snug anchorage, you can easily underestimate what lies outside. And today for the first time in a while, we had a real offshore run ahead of us. I started our SeaKeeper which hadn't run since May. Sure

enough, the more conservative models had the forecast correct. Winds 18-25 and short period seas of 3 and occasionally 4 feet. For most of our run, the seas met us squarely on the bow. Thankful it was freshwater, we took enormous quantities of spray and pounded more than a few waves. However, taking it on the bow definitely reduces the rockin' and rollin'. And, it's not truly a maelstrom unless a man has to sit down to pee. I'm happy to say the weather on this passage did not rise to that level! I worried about the penultimate leg going back inside though as I knew the waves would be smacking our beam for a couple of miles and was also concerned about the narrow inlet where I expected (hoped) that the upwind ledges would protect us enough from the waves to make the tricky passage doable.

As it turned out, SeaKeeper stabilized the boat during the beam on portion and the upwind ledges did indeed make the entry doable. Another whew!

Once safely inside, we cruised up the inlet and turned back west into what, for all intents and purposes, looked like a fijord--a narrow, steep sided natural rockbound channel that

took us to Mill Lake. When, we dropped the hook at Phillip Edward Island, it caught happily the first time. Unlike yesterday when we shared our cove at Bustard's with three other boats, today we have our cove at Phillip Edward Island to share only with the loons. As the only boat, we were free to put out a stern anchor to reduce our swinging. Having been here several hours, I'm happy to say we're pretty much staying put despite gusts of 20 knots arriving from at least 90 degrees apart.

Several final thoughts: First, it's smoky. Forest fire smoke has darkened the sky the last

few days and today is by far the worst. I suspect we'll run the generator and air conditioning tonight so that we can at least sleep with less of that entering our lungs. And finally, on a much happier note, I haven't mentioned that several days ago, an otter swam directly across our path in a somewhat narrow channel and crawled into a crack on a rock ledge on the channel's side. What a treat to watch it!