End of the Journey

DAY Whatever...Sunday  August 3..

Made Batchewana Bay by late afternoon.  We anchored at the north end of the Bay near the rver entrance and the gas station on the highway. Rick went ashore to check out the fuel and amenities. Todd went into the water... it’s a great long sand beach that runs along the Trans- Canada highway. He had a good afternoon .The water was not warm but there were a lot of swimmers there.

Just as we were getting ready to go back to the boat, a squall came through! Of course we were all wet from swimming but the boat had not been closed up properly so the chart book was wet, the hatches were open! Luckily it was short squall and we managed to get there before much damage occurred!

Lesson...DON”T leave the boat open!

We have had no wind since we got north of the Soo.  I visualized when we crossed into Superior it would be like Dorothy landed in Oz...bigger, brighter colours, larger than life shorelines...and it was! I didn’t count on there being a Wicked Witch of the West...no Wind! It’s very tedious listening to this motor run for hours at a time.

DAY  NOT SURE..Monday August 4 ...oh yeah, a holiday.

We went for breakfast at the Voyageur Cookhouse. We’ve been there before with Chuck and Marilyn but ths was Todd’s first time and it’s his new favourite restaurant. They cooked him a ham and cheese omelette bigger than he was and he couldn’t eat it all!  He had the bottom half packed up and promptly forgot it in the rush to get to the gift shop, which was closed!  Rick got more diesel an i checked out the groceries...hikers fare ut adequate.

We left Batchewana at 9:30 and headed up to Sinclair Cove...no wind...naturally! It was another tedious motor day and we arrived in Sinclair Cove at 7:30 pm. Wow, we are into Superior...you can see your breath while motoring. Socks and long pants !

DAY Tuesday august 5

Todd wanted to stay here for a day. We took the dinghy and went out around the cove to the Agawa pictographs. Rick and Todd got out to walk along the ledge. I opted to “mind” the dinghy and take pictures.  The entrance to Sinclair has a huge rock formation that looks like a dragon’s head resting on the water (or Skeksie...if you’ve seen The Dark Crystal)

We went along the outer islands and went ashore on the big rocks, Todd found tadpoles and frogs in various stages...he was happy and we got a science lesson about how they grow.  He has so much information crammed in that brain...he just can’t organize it to get it out!

We have had no luck fishing at all.  We decided that since there was nothing else to do we would head up to Gargantua Harbour. 

We left Sinclair Cove at noon and motored to Gargauntua. We were there y 3:30.  The Harbour is deep with a narrow neck  at the north end. We anchored in about 25 feet. We are now out of Whitefish Bay and into Superior proper. The water temperature is between 10-14 degrees. We cannot convince Todd to stay dry. He gets wet at every opportunity. The beach at our end is fine brown sand. There were a few campsites along it and some people watched us pull up and anchor. I got the feeling they weren’t impressed but when we went ashore they all came over to talk. It seems that these two families met here years ago and keep meeting up every year. One is from Michigan , the other from Burlington. The Burlington family has a daughter and son in Owen Sound: he teaches at St. May’s, she teaches at Notre Dame!(Mr & Mrs. Hogan?)

Three more sailboats came in this afternoon. One looked like our old Contessa, but it wasn’t. Rick and Todd went over to talk to them. He found out that Buck’s at Wawa has no fuel anymore. TSSA shut him down last year. Great!But we can get a ride to town to fuel the jerry cans, which will get us up to Marathon.

WEDNESDAY August 6

Todd wanted to stay here another day, so we did. In the morning we walked the trail (2 miles) along the beach. It changes from fine sand to cobbles.  Todd walked in the water!

He took the dinghy by himself and paddled me into shore while Rick did some work. He rowed me back when he was done. We did some math and some reading. School work is not easy to accomplish when the motor is so loud. Later he took the dinghy and rowed himself to the shore where he tried fishing... no luck. He is certainly adept at baiting his own hooks. We bought some worms at Batchewana. It’s getting tough for him with no other kids to play with. He’s too shy to talk when he does see other kids around.

There are lots of people in the park this summer. The trial had old and young people walking it. Some hikers, some just beach visitors, with babies and toddlers too.

THURSDAY  August 7

We saddled up around 7:45 and headed out for Michipicoten Harbour. We need fuel, so Wawa it is.

One mile out, something happened to the motor. It sounds like we’ve lost a piston. We headed  back into Gargantua and anchored again. (9:00 am). We looked through “Caulder”  and  Rick tried to adjust the fuell. One of the valves wasn’t working so we stripped it out and cleaned it up. Todd opened and cleaned the water pump and put it back together.  We went to change the oil filter but Rick didn’t bring any extra oil so we had to put the old oil back. We strained it as best we could.

The only solution is to head back to the Sault where we might be able to get help.  It’s  2 days back to the Sault or 5-6 days to Thunder Bay. The best decision is to go south.

We left Gargauntua around 4 pm and got into Sinclair at 8:00 pm. The engine is loud and there is definitely a knock. It starts with a puff of black smoke and ends with blue/white .  All indications point to a faulty valve or a piston problem.  Of course any help we might have gotten from the fishermen is not here now!

FRIDAY August 8, 2014

We left Sinclair at 8:30. It is a 10-hour day to Batchewana.  It would be good to have some wind! This noise is maddening. The forecast is for light winds from the southwest...great ...another day of no help from Mother Nature. Is the universe trying to tell us something?! It’s very hard but necessary to be cheerful for Todd’s sake. He is disappointed that we had to turn around but he’s anxious to see his dad again.