I have been champing at the bit to head north since June 1st so I guess this is it for this year. It's a long way north just for overnight, but at least it's a trip somewhere. So, we headed out of the harbour at 8:30am.
It was a very pleasant and uneventful trip north. We cruised up there at about 7 MPH and approached the harbour entrance about 3:30. pm
The new government dock at Gull Harbour is beautiful.
Once docked, Dan took Sea-Enna up to the end of the dock for a swim at the beach.
Then Dan and Peter climbed the Lighthouse to take some pictures while Angela and I sat and relaxed and discussed our journey thus far.
With that all done we were invited aboard Gifhorn III for Cocktails and Hors D' overs.
Then we adjourned to the old Gull Harbour Hotel, up at the end of the dock for a wonderful dinner of good food and good conversation. We had a great time.
And it was such a lovely moonlit evening we linger on the dock talking late into the evening.
I would love to be able to say that, that was a lovely ending to a lovely cruise, but that was not to be the case. We had started planning this trip a while back and things just kept cropping up that caused postponements.
Our start got delayed, by a friends untimely death and funeral, then our return date was also moved due to Boat Ceremony planned for the Lake on Saturday that none of us would in anyway want to miss. So, we were in a bit of a time crunch, but we decided "we wouldn't cancel, we would just make it an overnighter".
Much to our chagrin, as we were heading north on the lake we were all monitoring our radios and hearing the increasingly gloomy forecast for our Friday return trip. What started out as a forecast of strong south winds, was at the end of the day being forecast as "Wind Warnings for the South Basin on Friday", by the time we were docked.
So, Friday morning ,with none of us wanting to miss Art's Memorial Ceremony on the Lake, we decided to head back to Boundary Creek Marina. It did not seem too bad as we headed out of the harbour and into the channel that takes us back to the main part of the south basin. It was a little rolley, but nothing we couldn't handle. We were able to keep our speed up at the 7mph that had brought us up here yesterday, but that didn't last long. As we got further south and lost the slight wind protection of Black Island the wind got a lot worse and we had to slow down, but we were still able to maintain 5-6 mph. That is until we also lost the wind protection of the bottom of Hecla Island. Now we were right out there in the widest openest part of the south basin and those so called south winds, though mostly from the south seemed to be coming from every direction.
IT WAS HELL!
I really am no expert at estimating the size of waves, but the distance up and then back down that our bow pulpit travelled as it rose high in the air climbing one wave, to suddenly crash down on the next wave rising up to meet it, had to be over 8 feet. It was starting to do damage to our boat. (Smashed some fibre glass off of the bow) At that point we had to slow down and at some points were were down to about 2 1/2 to 3 mph. It was a real grind. We have a ceremonial ships bell in our galley and I have only heard it ring once when we were hit by a huge wave trying to round Grindstone point. That bell chiming out was enough to scare me and we decided to turn around that day. Well, that bell must have rang 50 times during this trip, I got to the point I didn't even pay any attention anymore. Needless to say we didn't have any time or any free hands to take any pictures of this disastrous trip.
Now when two boats decide to go on a cruise together, that does not necessarily mean that they must stay together. When rough water enters into the picture decisions have to be made. Each boat handles rough water differently and you have to know your own boat. Dan knows what is best for Thunderbird and will adjust his speed and angle of attack according to that. GifhornIII on the other hand rides better at a different speed and her Captain has to make that decision. Peter was able to slow GifhornIII down a little, to try to accommodate our slower pace, but could not maintain the slow speed that we needed. We maintained radio contact over those next long 5 hrs, checking on each others progress as we watched GifhornIII disappear over the horizon.
It took us about 9 hrs to get back to our home port. We knew our boat could handle it, but could we? It was hard work standing there fighting that wheel. Normally when we cruise we spare each other off ,Dan does an hour then I take over and do an hour and so on. But this time, I couldn't handle a whole hour and Dan of course was much better at reading the waves and anticipating which ones to slow down for. So, for about 5 solid hours he stood fighting that steering wheel across the worst of the open lake, with no land marks in sight, just the compass and GPS.
We were never so happy to see anything as we were when the Seagram's Distillery plant came into view. It is so much easier to navigate to a known landmark than it is to maintain a compass or GPS course when you are being bounced around by huge waves.
As we continued toward it wave by wave we were slowly making headway, picking up a little more shelter from those rogue waves with each mile we slogged through and they were becoming more and more consistently from one direction. They were still quite large, but now we could set a consistent course and speed. Within an hour or so of spotting our land mark, we were able to pick it up to 5 mph without having to slow for the odd bad wave. We were now also able to angle across them, which makes it a little more comfortable. By the time we got near to the distillery we were able to pick it up to 9 mph. It was rough, but what a relief. When we were just outside Gimli harbour we pulled up to a stop and took a break. We breathed a sigh of relief and poured ourselves a drink and relaxed before we started up again and rounded that last point towards home. We were quite surprised as we rounded Willow Island that the lake had calmed substantially in the last few hours. We were home free. In another 45 minutes we were heading into our home port.
HOME SWEET HOME PORT
