And on to Thunder Bay

Once again, we have been several days without wifi or phone coverage. It has been spotty. By the time you get into the nice and comfortable anchorage, the high  rock walls prevent service. The view however is outstanding.

It is hard to conceive of all of these miles and miles of untouched and pristine wilderness. You can try to  appreciate what the early explorers had to endure to  open up and work within our country. ROCKS, HILLS, and TREES, everywhere. Oh and did I mention the bugs; deer flies, horse flies,  and mosquitoes abound. They love us. We are fresh food. We learned the hard way early in the trip to shut your doors early in the evening, and/or get the Off Mosquito equipment running early in the evening and place at the doorways. (I made new screens for the doors and still have to get the new domes attached)

We are still looking for that elusive moose, deer, caribou, beaver, otter, etc that the guide book is telling us we will see. I am afraid that if we have not seen it along the eastern shore or north shore by now we may not see them at all. This part of the trip is the less often taken route apparently. It is the more remote area. I don't think we have seen 5 boats travelling in this area. I definitely would not travel Lake Superior without a buddy boat.

The guide books had cautioned that access to diesel fuel was limited on this route. Diesel fuel was even more limited as some government department went around and closed down a number of diesel locations in the north and eastern shore areas.  We keep close records on our fuel consumption and have a good idea when we require more. By Rossport our tank was reading 3/4's, and due to the shape of the tank, it means we have about 1/2 a tank remaining. The Rossport marina staff arranged for a diesel fuel truck to come down to the dock and fill both boats.

Rossport Marina is a very small marina. The dock accommodated our two boats but there was not much left for other boats on the face dock. The marina is run by the community by volunteers. They could not have been more helpful. They met our every need and were asking if there was anything else they could do for us. ( Dinner at the Serendipity Gardens Restaurant, fresh trout.)Now Red Rock Marina was another story.

Peter replacing dinghy tow line. We had cut the dinghy free  at Red Rock.

We had been looking forward to Red Rock from everything we had been reading in the guide books. 10 transient slips. Linda called and was told that they could not take us. We were "leap Frogging" Allen's vehicle from Rossport to Red Rock. Imagine our surprise to see a marina that was almost empty. Three finger docks extending out into the marina pool. Two of the fingers had short docks that were too small for our boats, the third finger with larger docks was over half full. The T-head of the one dock that would have accommodated us was for "transient emergency boaters", the fuel dock would have taken both boats, and a floating dock ahead of the fuel dock would have taken at least one boat and the second boat could have rafted. We were still told that they could not accommodate us.

The entire Red Rock facility is beautiful, the marina is well done, a new multi million dollar building with interpretive centre, restaurant, washrooms, and showers. And in true government style they have spent a huge amount of money to build a wonderful facility and then in the end it eluded them to properly staff the  location. Here we arrive, and are turned away. The reality is the staff is not properly trained. We had to talk to them by phone, not the VHF radio, as the staff had not taken the radio course. Unbelievable!

Red Rock ...... shame on you; Rossport......... kudos to you, excellent service. (And with volunteer staff)

After spending two days of travelling in dense fog it was nice to to get some travelling in sunshine. The weather has been disappointing. The night temperatures are dipping to single digits or very low double digits, sometimes you don't want to get out of your nice warm bed. Even the daytime temperatures are the low to mid 20C. And then any wind coming across the cold Lake Superior waters makes for uncomfortable travelling. We are so glad to have the flybridge enclosure to zip up. Often we have worn jackets in the flybridge. I would not have been a very good explorer, we would still be living somewhere on the east coast if it had been left up to me.

Jim, Linda and Melanie enroute to falls.

We have had two beautiful travel days. We left Rossport and travelled towards Red Rock and anchored in a secluded bay just beyond Red Rock. From Red Rock we made our way towards Thunder Bay and anchored in a delightful bay ...... Otter Cove (not to be confused with the previous Otter Head area) In the late afternoon the two dinghies went on an adventure fishing and searching for the waterfall. Two loon came to visit our bay and serenaded us.

The following morning Peter took me to see the waterfalls. He enticed me with "they are worth the trip" And the falls lived up to their description. There have been quite a few waterfalls to see along the way.

The falls.

The view forward.

We were fortunate to have a great travel day with lots of sunshine and low winds and low waves as we made our final leg of the trip to Thunder Bay. This leg has a lot of open water and it would have been nasty in high winds and wave activity as we rounded the Black Bay peninsula and the Sibley Peninsula.

The Sleeping Giant, Thunder Bay headland.

The Sleeping Giant headland as you approach Thunder Bay can be seen from miles away. Thunder Bay has a huge marina complex to welcome the weary boater. First they have a huge breakaway with 4 different entrances. The second entrance in the breakaway leads us to the transient dock portion of the marina. And they had room for us. Just enough room for two boats our size. They had measured off 100' of dock, no problem. Jim got in first and got tied up and was ready to help us. Left about 60' of space for us, right? While our boat is only 43', ....... by the time you add a 3' bow pulpit and another 2' for swim platform it needs more like 48'. And the same holds true for Jim's boat. It was tight quarters for sure, and Peter did a great job of getting our boat in, and Jim and Allen did a great job of catching our lines, guiding us and getting us secured. Good thing the wind was not too strong, and what we had was  coming from behind us.

Heather Trottier told us not to miss this restaurant.

Once settled, we were off in search of a renowned local Finnish restaurant "Hoito". We learned that in 2 years, the restaurant will have been open for 100 years. We had the best dinner ....... Perogy  soup, and liver and onions. Out of the 9 of us, 4 chose the Liver and Onions. Apparently they also have some very good pancakes ...... we will need to return for breakfast someday.

Jim and Linda have made reservations here for 5 days, and we have reserved for 2 weeks. We will rent a car on Saturday to return home for our oldest son, Michael's, wedding on July 25th. We will return to the boat and continue our circumnavigation of Lake Superior.

Peter, enroute to the falls. 

The Thunder Bay Waterfront is truly wonderful and well planned. There is a skateboarding park, a large bandstand. We were fortunate that they had an outdoor concert. There are at least 3 separate docking areas for recreational boaters, and then what looks like 2 dock areas for commercial ships.

Today, we woke to a dark sky and light rain. Perhaps a good day to read.........

Selfie, returning from the falls. OK, it's early morning, it had been windy. Bad hair day! Ok, Ok.

We just heard a rumble in the harbour, and hence why this is called Thunder Bay. What a phenomena.

P.S. Finally able to download my photos from the camera.