7, 8 August 2014

We left Beardrop Harbor and headed back to the eastern end of John Island to the YMCA camp. My propeller was repaired and rather than the prop place calling me, they just shipped it back to Harbor Vue Marina. Harbor Vue was pretty clever, they had done a boat repair and were returning the boat to the YMCA camp, so my propeller went along for the ride.

After picking the bright and shiny propeller up from the YMCA Camp (thanks Scott!) We headed towards Blind River. It was a nice ride, the islands are more sparse as you get closer to Blind River. We had picked another good day, it was very calm out.

We got docked at the Marina, we were next to Omanchie, we had met the crew at Killarney. It was nice to catch up on their travels.

Also at the marina was a Bayliner 4788 (the newer and slightly longer version of the Quo Vadimus). Perr-fection crew has a Main Coon Cat aboard. This breed have a long, really long, full tail. They are super smart cats. I talked to the crew about their boat, they love theirs as much as we love ours.

We went to dinner at Monique’s, about a 25 minute bike ride. (The bikes are really working out for us). I had a nice discussion with the waiter about all the different beers that I’ve been able to have in Canada. Susan went for the garden salad, beef shanks, and mashed potatoes. I went for the curry vegetable soup, chicken strips stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon with a Chipotle BBQ sauce, and native Canadian savory pastries that were filled with minced beef. Both Susan and I agreed that the shanks were almost as good as hers.

We took a different way back to the marina and got to the town park to catch the last 4 songs of a woman singer. She was doing 60′s songs and she was very good. It’s been neat to be able to catch some of these summer concerts.

In the morning we said good bye to the crew of Omanchie. I was told that it’s a Norse god, but the letters in the name come from the names of all the grand-kids. Pretty clever.

We’ve not had a decent wi-fi connection since Parry Sound, so Susan wanted to get as many videos as possible uploaded, she had 15+ to do.

So while she loaded, I headed via bike to do some shopping and see what was in the town. I still don’t have the hang of the kilo-pounds conversion but managed to muddle through OK. Plus shopping on my own gave me the ability to restock my candy supply without a ton of eyerolls.

By the time I got back to the dock Susan was on a roll getting files uploaded. The wind was picking up, so we decided to stay the extra night in Blind River.

And it turned out to be a good idea. The crews of See Y’all, Le Hooker, and Anne Harper came sailing in. Yay Loopers!

We had met See Y’all and Le Hooker at Bad River a few weeks ago. (Seems more like a year). We saw See Y’all at Killarney after the island issue. Al had created a GoPro mount for a boat hook. We had taken a video of the underside of the boat and we didn’t see any real damage. That had been a great relief to me.

Le Hooker is in a 35 foot boat that is powered by 2 300 HP outboards (we only have 250 HP engines). It’s not your classic trawler, but it’s working out very well for them. They putter along at 8 knots like the rest of us to save on fuel, but have the ability to fly along at 25+ miles to make the boring sections fly by.

Anne Harper is a really nice trawler that’s being single handed around the loop. This is his second year (he’s doing the loop in 3 stages). Very cool guy, impressed that he’s solo. I would have never considered doing the loop alone. There are no thrusters on the Harper but the Captain has decades of experience.

For dinner we went with the crew of Le Hooker to downtown Little Current and ate at the Mustang Grill. They had the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and cheese raviolis with a three cheese sauce. Susan went for the fried haddock dinner and had them change the fries to poutine. To be honest, once we got west of Orillia the poutine hasn’t been as good. Our first brushes used cheese curd, now it’s just shredded Jack. I had the pierogies and sausages. They came with bacon, fried onions and sour cream. I really liked the filling, they were a potato and cheese mixture.

After dinner we went back to the dock and hung out with the other boaters. We were joined by the crew of a local boat,Chloe’s Cruiser and their grand kids. They were able to give us some of the local history of the town. In the early 60′s the worlds largest white pine lumber mill was there, supporting hundreds of workers. Tragically it burned down and only a small portion of the plant was rebuilt.

We all had a great time chatting and swapping stories. And we learned a new catch all phrase that Le Hooker and we will use “Dammit Sheri”. It’s a popular phrase on the Sea Y’all and it’s kind of catchy. Once again it was nice to have that 9PM sunset to add a orange glow to the evening. But at Loopers midnight (about 10PM) we all gave up and headed off to bed.

Tomorrow will be Thessalon!