Aug 20 The Benjamins to Meldrum Bay Marina

Aug 20

Forecast for winds to die down overnight held true and we got a good night’s sleep.   Woke up to no wind at all and just a light breeze expected to pick up later in the day. So we dawdled around making a batch of pancakes laden with our freshly picked blueberries.  Very yummy especially with the addition of real Canadian pure maple syrup.  

While we would have liked to spend more time exploring areas of the North Channel, we need to press on so made a longish 45 mile run to Meldrum Bay bypassing many additional fine anchorages.  

Great day on the water

  They have a town dock/RV park/boat ramp, a General Store/LCBO, and the Meldrum Bay Inn.  It’s also got a Canadian customs  videophone for all the Michiganders entering the North Channel area . The town docks are just 4 long floating piers.  When you approach they tell you what color picnic table to look for at the end of  the dock and advise if you will be port or starboard tying.  We are at port tied on the yellow picnic table dock. 

Colored picnic tables on docks

One of the things we've seen throughout our time in Canada is stacked rocks.  We saw them at about every island anchorage.  Some quite sizeable.  Best ones look like  people with hands outstretched.  Most just an odd  pile of stones.   We left a few behind ourselves - just our way of saying "We were here".     Found out there is actually a name for them - cairn - "a pile of stacked stones".  Things must get slow in Meldurn Bay as someone took time to build small cairns  on every large bolder they could find.

Oddly,  The Meldrum Bay Inn is a  finer dining restaurant that does a good business with loopers.    It specializes in North Channel/Georgian Bay fresh fish dishes but is also known for their outstanding steak dinner.  It’s the last stop for most of us before  returning to the US and a great place to celebrate finishing the summer season in Canada. 

We can understand why many loopers go around twice.  I could see rushing through other portions just to spend extra time  anchoring all around this pristine area.  Who wouldn't want to see scenes like these all summer?

Journey for Aug 20