9 August 2014

We got up and did an early breakfast at the dock in Blind River. We motored over to the fuel dock to get pumped out (10 days since our last one!) and did a double load of rinse to make sure we were set. We’ve seen pumpouts range from $11 to $30 each, so we’ve been trying to wait to get one. I know, TMI on the internal workings of the boat.

We waved goodbyes to the crews of Le Hooker, Sea Y’all and Anne Harper as we left the harbor. Another calm day, good for making a long run.

We had talked about anchoring out overnight at the Grant Islands. We were told that they are remote (Yay!) but there wasn’t much to see on each island. We did a swing through just to check it out.

East Grant Island has a horseshoe shape, with the opening to the west. So a Southwest wind would have been good, it would have blown our stern towards the shore (and hopefully kept the mosquitoes also on shore. We cruised in the harbor, it is very deep water. It was at 40′ when we were about 200 yards from shore, it would have made anchoring difficult. The rule of thumb is to leave out 6-7 times the depth of the water the anchor is in, the term is scope. With 200 feet of chain, that means we should look for water ~20-25 feet or less. 40 feet would be 260-280 feet of scope.

We headed out and over to West Grant island. We would anchor off West Grant, which would give us protection to the South and West. Again we found deep water, about 25 feet. We nosed towards shore and it was still deep about 300 feet off shore. There wasn’t anything that was saying “Stay here!” to us, so we decided to just head to Thessalon.

The town docks are very long, the would hold 60′ foot boats. We had to pull up close to shore since the power pedestals are on the bulkhead. On the dock we met the crew of the Kingfisher from Michigan. They have some time, so they are headed east into the North Channel. They hope to get as far as the Bad River before they need to come back.

After docking I rode one of the loaner bikes into town. I stopped at the Library to ask about a local museum. It is outside of town on Rt 17, the “Trans Canada Highway”. That means lots of trucks and cars, so I decided to pass. But they had used books for sale, I picked up 6 more to read.

I did visit the local department store and was surprised about the wide selection of items. Susan had been looking for a replacement set of tongs, they had 4 different styles to choose from!

Back at the boat I did some minor interweb stuff and got the last few days of postings written and published. Susan and I split a pre-dinner Spicy Caesar cocktail before heading to town.

First stop was the library. We gave the librarian our bag of new good books, she went through them and kept 5 that she didn’t have in circulation, she though she would be able to use them. The others we kept to trade in at the next used bookstore we find. We also gave her about a dozen older paperbacks they could add to their “for sale” books. A double win, stuff off of the boat AND a donation to the local library.

Next we went back to the department store. We got more birthday / thank you cards, etc. Susan also picked out the tongs she wanted, they have purple silicone tips.

Dinner was at the Pepper Mill. I had the braised beef shortrib (after missing out on the beef shank at Monique’s, I wasn’t going to miss out again). It was done like Susan’s in a tomatoes, celery, onions, and carrot stock. They then thickened the sauce as gravy for the mashed potatoes. It was very, very good. She had the half rack of BBQ ribs, she said they were good also.

After dinner we did a quick bike tour of town. Thessalon is on a point, and goes only about a dozen blocks to the highway. The town is split by the Thessalon river, there are just two bridges in town to let you cross. Sadly, it’s another of the towns that we’ve run across that is slowly shutting down. There are lots of shuttered buildings and lots of homes for sale.

On Sunday we will go back into town for the Sunday Brunch and then head West to St. Joseph Island. It will be our last small town in Canada. We are both a little sad, we can see the end of our stay in Canada.