Georgian Bay - Part 1

The southeastern end of Georgian Bay is only a couple of hours from Toronto by car and easily accessible from the TSW by boat, so is the most populated part of this incredible cruising ground. Beausoleil Island is the largest island in this section of the Bay and is a Canadian National Park, so that's where we headed for our first anchorage. We were a little surprised to find at least 70 boats anchored in the protected anchorage, but it was a Saturday and by Sunday night all but eight of them had left. We spent the next day hiking on the island and swimming in the clear water.

Georgian Bay is the land of 30,000 islands, not an exaggeration by any measure. The anchorages are plentiful and all the scenery is "drop dead gorgeous". We came through a narrow passage to enter this very pristine and isolated anchorage at Echo Bay. A cloudy day, but still beautiful.

There is a "small craft channel" that runs through the islands with an occasional short outside run. It is very well marked, but the captain must keep constant attention on the markers and the charts with all the twists and turns. Sometimes the channel is quite narrow, this is called Canoe Channel.

Our next anchorage was at Regatta Bay, where we stopped to visit Looper friends, Peter and DiDi We had met them on their boat, Moon Beam, way back at Hoppie's last fall and they invited us to their cottage right across the channel. We dinghy'd over and they gave us the royal treatment, feeding us a delicious dinner and letting us use their car the next day to go for groceries. It was great to see them and share Looper Tales. Here we all are on the deck of their beautiful cottage ...

... and here are the boats at Regatta Bay.

At our next anchorage, Bayfield Inlet, we stayed put for three nights waiting for the winds and waves to settle down enough for us to make an eight mile "outside" run. We had the anchorage to ourselves and did some dinghy exploring in the maze of channels. Most of the cottages are on islands, often only one cottage per island. The cottagers have to come by boat, so there are lots of little boat marinas where they keep the boats and their cars. Today dawned bright and sunny and the winds had settled, so off we went. The scenery remains spectacular. Here are several pictures of the shoreline we went by today.

After our marathon of nine days anchored out, we are in St. Amant's Marina in Britt, Ontario tonight, enjoying the WiFi. I've done two blog entries today, so if you missed the exciting conclusion of the TSW leg, be sure to scroll back. We're about 2/3 of the way up Georgian Bay and will blog again next chance we get.