Aug 11 Parry Sound to Hopewell Bay Anchorage

Aug 11

 Weather - more specifically wind – had us holed up at Big Sound Marina in Parry Sound for 4 nights.  We had planned on a two night stay with one weather day for rain on Thurs.   That was a good decision.  Then we had a front come through bringing strong winds   which created a problem for going across the open Parry Sound.   We watched whitecaps and 2-3 foot seas   roll in Friday and Saturday with 20+ knot winds.    Beautiful days – clear skies and sunny, low 70’s but the wind just kept blowing.  It would lay day in the middle of the night but by 8 am was blowing steady again.  Parry Sound (the town) is one of the largest towns on the Georgian Bay but it’s still a small town surviving mostly on tourism during the season.  We treated ourselves to the highest rated restaurants in town - Bella  Cuisina  on Thursday for Italian  which was the best we had since leaving NY and Wellingtons Pub  for their Saturday night Prime Rib special. 

  Took a hike up to an old forest fire tower which is now an observation tower with a view of the town and the sound.  

The observation tower on the hill

Town of Parry Sound to right of trestle bridge

 The old Nissan 3.5HP motor that came with our dingy caught a rock during one of our excursions and  was letting water into the  lower unit and  milky grease  out.   At home, I’ld probably tear it apart and rebuild it but that’s not practical on the boat.  So, time for a motor. A local shop had a new  2.3HP Honda 4 stroke “on sale” and could even deliver!!  It’s a bit noisy but at least it doesn’t smoke like the old 2 stroke. 

The old outboard resting by the dumpster

An hour later it was rescued - nothing but an oil spot remains!!

After 4 nights at the same marina we were itching to get moving again!  We’ve heard stories of boaters who get impatient waiting for good weather and wind up making bad decisions to go anyway.  I can now see how that happens.  

We decided an early start Sun. would be best, so shoved off the dock at 8AM right after watching a decent sized cruise ship,  the Mystic Pearl,  that runs around the great lakes pull into town. 

Mystic Pearl

The winds which were forecast to be under 10 knots   were already running 15 by the time we hit the middle of the sound so we had some wave action but nothing too bad and  then we were back into mostly protected waters with islands separating us from the open waters  of the big bay. 

Some people had a little rougher crossing than others

  This area is pretty rustic looking with worn down granite islands topped with trees leaning at angles from the constant winds.   There are still cottages but fewer of them.    After 2 hours we passed an anchorage called Snug Harbor which was a potential site for the night but since it was still early, we pushed on to our next possibility called Hopewell Bay.   On the way we started seeing some of the areas famous pink granite islands.

Lighthouse on pink granite

There are a series of potential anchoring sites here so rather than everyone piled up in one cove, they each have 4-6 boats. We’re in a cove with “Subject to Change” and “Cat n Dogs”.   Next one over has looper boats “Seabatical”, “Forever Friday” and “Golden Daze”.   It’s a nice location with good wind protection and sets us up for our long run tomorrow to The Bustards which will take us across 20 miles of open bay.  The forecast is calling for winds to continue to diminish – let’s hope so.

Journey for Aug 11