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| NOAA Chart 14880 |
We arrived at the Detour Village boat ramp in the early evening and managed to pull away from the ramp at around 5:30 pm, with a beautiful partly cloudy sky and 5-10 kt winds from the WSW. Our destination for the evening would be Harbor Island, a popular yachting destination shaped like a donut with a small entrance into the inner harbor. We flew along at about 4-5 kt, passing numerous islands near and far. Mark was right - this would be a great Sorcerer cruising area.
As we pulled into Harbor Island, we couldn't help but feel smug at the sight of the large motor and sailing yachts pulled up to the deeper, outer harbor. The wind was entering the interior harbor, and those boats would not be able to get far enough into the interior harbor to find shelter behind the harbor inlet. We sailed wing and wing past the larger boats and into the harbor, where there were just a couple of fishing boats skirting the edge. We doused the sails and coasted in on bare pole to a good anchorage. There, we made ourselves at home and cooked a dinner of garden vegetables before calling it a night.
In the morning, we awoke to the sound of the call sandhill cranes echoing around the circular, tree-rimmed harbor. This Jurassic sound continued off and on throughout our breakfast. It was cloudy, and rain was in the forecast, so our plan was to wait it out, reading and resting in the beautiful harbor. However, winds seemed favorable for a circumnavigation around Drummond Island, so somehow we convinced ourselves it would be a fun idea to circumnavigate the island (around a 40 nm trip, we figured). With winds forecast to be from the WNW at 5-15 and gusts to 20 kt, we thought it made for a perfect outing.
We were feeling surprisingly content, despite the rain blowing in our faces. Winds seemed promising, and we were having fun. As we rounded the northwest corner of Drummond Island, the rains let up, and the sun began poking through the clouds, along with the wind. Gusts to 20 kt from the NW. Our forecasters were right. Seeing the yachties motoring back in the building whitecaps, we took our cue to try to find some shelter for a while in a small inlet in Chippewa Point on Drummond Island. We navigated through the rocks into the shallow inlet, pulled up to shore, and went for a short walk to wait for the wind to subside.
It was a beautiful place, and we decided that we would shelter there for the evening to wait out the blow. And blow, it did. A squall and rain blew in, so we ran back to Sorcerer and paddled her off the rocks to the only shelter from the NW wind that we could find: behind the small, rocky island shown in the above picture. With the wind blowing the rain in our faces, we tied her off to a boulder and put up the boom tent.
By the time we finished with the tent, the rain had stopped and the wind had subsided, so I went to the bow deck to take stock of our mooring. The wind had shifted to the South, and I asked Mark, "could that rope come off that rock with this wind shift?" "Yes." As we fiddled around with throwing out the anchor for directional stability, the wind picked up again, this time stronger. Mark tied all our longest extra lines together and walked to the small island, where he tied up to the largest of the trees. This poor little tree had never had such an important job! We settled back into the tent and listened to the weather radio as the tent flapped around us and the boat tugged on that poor little tree. The weather observations included gusts to 35 kts, and the forecast was for winds to begin subsiding by 8:00 pm. We had a while to wait before we would know whether our mooring was sufficient. Looking out beyond the inlet, we saw churning white caps tumbling over each other, and we felt relieved that we had at least made one good decision that day - finding what little shelter we could before the real blow hit. We had some time to debrief over the days events, and we agreed that we should have just stuck to our original plan of hunkering down in the rain in the Harbor Island harbor.
Thankfully, the winds did begin to subside as the sun set. We minimized any clanging halyard noises and crawled into the cabin for a good sleep. In the morning, we awoke to a beautiful day with manageable westerly winds. After breakfast, we packed up and navigated back out of the shoals, thanking our sturdy little tree on the island as we paddled by.
For a fleeting moment, we considered continuing the circumnavigation. It appears that we have a hard time avoiding adventure. The thought didn't last long, though, and we enjoyed a leisurely sail back into the protected waters of Potagannissing Bay. We decorated Sorcerer with all the appropriate flags for cruising: burgee, ensign, and Canadian courtesy flag, upping our "fun factor" and helping us to fit in with the cruisers back at Harbor Island. Thanks, Mom Fry, for the courtesy flag!
After cruising among the islands in Potagannissing Bay, we headed back to Harbor Island for the evening. This island is so beautiful, it was worth a second night! This time, several sailing yachts were anchored near the entrance inside the interior harbor. We sailed downwind on jib through the anchored yachts and tucked ourselves into the far, shallower, end of the harbor.
We were feeling surprisingly content, despite the rain blowing in our faces. Winds seemed promising, and we were having fun. As we rounded the northwest corner of Drummond Island, the rains let up, and the sun began poking through the clouds, along with the wind. Gusts to 20 kt from the NW. Our forecasters were right. Seeing the yachties motoring back in the building whitecaps, we took our cue to try to find some shelter for a while in a small inlet in Chippewa Point on Drummond Island. We navigated through the rocks into the shallow inlet, pulled up to shore, and went for a short walk to wait for the wind to subside.
It was a beautiful place, and we decided that we would shelter there for the evening to wait out the blow. And blow, it did. A squall and rain blew in, so we ran back to Sorcerer and paddled her off the rocks to the only shelter from the NW wind that we could find: behind the small, rocky island shown in the above picture. With the wind blowing the rain in our faces, we tied her off to a boulder and put up the boom tent.
By the time we finished with the tent, the rain had stopped and the wind had subsided, so I went to the bow deck to take stock of our mooring. The wind had shifted to the South, and I asked Mark, "could that rope come off that rock with this wind shift?" "Yes." As we fiddled around with throwing out the anchor for directional stability, the wind picked up again, this time stronger. Mark tied all our longest extra lines together and walked to the small island, where he tied up to the largest of the trees. This poor little tree had never had such an important job! We settled back into the tent and listened to the weather radio as the tent flapped around us and the boat tugged on that poor little tree. The weather observations included gusts to 35 kts, and the forecast was for winds to begin subsiding by 8:00 pm. We had a while to wait before we would know whether our mooring was sufficient. Looking out beyond the inlet, we saw churning white caps tumbling over each other, and we felt relieved that we had at least made one good decision that day - finding what little shelter we could before the real blow hit. We had some time to debrief over the days events, and we agreed that we should have just stuck to our original plan of hunkering down in the rain in the Harbor Island harbor.
Thankfully, the winds did begin to subside as the sun set. We minimized any clanging halyard noises and crawled into the cabin for a good sleep. In the morning, we awoke to a beautiful day with manageable westerly winds. After breakfast, we packed up and navigated back out of the shoals, thanking our sturdy little tree on the island as we paddled by.
For a fleeting moment, we considered continuing the circumnavigation. It appears that we have a hard time avoiding adventure. The thought didn't last long, though, and we enjoyed a leisurely sail back into the protected waters of Potagannissing Bay. We decorated Sorcerer with all the appropriate flags for cruising: burgee, ensign, and Canadian courtesy flag, upping our "fun factor" and helping us to fit in with the cruisers back at Harbor Island. Thanks, Mom Fry, for the courtesy flag!
As the sun was setting, one of the yachties lowered his dinghy into the water and rowed around the harbor to check us out. He had a beautiful double-masted wooden boat and an equally beautiful rowing dinghy. We later learned that he was a member of the Ford family.
We cooked our spaghetti with the last of the garden tomatoes, and listened to the VHF radio for some evening entertainment. The yachties were chatting on channel 72. A woman on one of our neighboring anchored boats was chatting with a woman who must have been on shore. They were exclaiming, in British accents how "simply horrid" the weather had been the previous night. As one of them told the story, she "was out on the patio sipping a cocktail, and the wind blew the table over! It was horrid!" Then the one on the shore said she needed to head inside to put her 16 cats to bed. The radio show was over, so we crawled into bed.
In the morning, we again heard the calling of the sandhill cranes echoing around the harbor. We contemplated the day's plan and decided to sail around Potagannissing Bay some more, and then head into Detour Village to anchor there for the evening. We sailed west, up the St. Mary's River, and enjoyed another morning of relaxing sailing. Eventually, we turned back toward Detour, and had some fun watching freighters passing by in the river channel (and one coming at us from the shore!).
At the boat launch, we evaluated the anchoring potential, and decided we would rather spend the night tied up at the State Harbor. Although we don't particularly love sleeping at docks, and it seems a bit silly to pay to sleep when we could anchor for free, we do sometimes enjoy staying at marinas, where we can rub elbows with the yachties. We were by far the youngest yachties with the smallest boat around. Several folks stopped by to check us out and chat with us. One was an avid Small Craft Advisor reader, and we had fun hearing about fun times he used to have with his Sea Pearl. We enjoyed being the center of attention for one night. Mark took some time to make a quick repair of our companionway mosquito netting. I suppose the others in the harbor had bigger mosquito nets to repair...
In the morning, we went for a quick sail to dry out our mainsail, and then loaded up the boat on the trailer. To finish with a bang, a thunderstorm and heavy rain hit just as we tied down the last of the halyards and got in the car. Potagannissing Bay, you were good to us. You gave us sun and wind, and you gave us shelter. I think we'll be back some day...
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