TERI ANN: Parry Sound to Britt, Ontario

7/27/14

It was rainy & windy so we were very undecided about leaving today. The forecast was for the wind to be even worse tomorrow, so we knew that if we didn't leave today we would be here for at least 2 days. The wind was from the west, and all the guidebooks say not to travel on Georgian Bay in a west wind. We spoke with fellow loopers, Sara & Jack, on m/v Ithaka , who we always seem to end up in the same marinas with. We all decided to take a chance & head out today. It was 50 miles to the next marina that we wanted to stay at. There was an inside route, and an outside route. The inside route is only recommended for boats under 40 feet because the channels are so rocky & narrow. They were going to head out into the deep waters of Georgian bay, and we decided to stay on the inside as much as possible and run through all the narrow rocky channels. There was one 10 mile stretch where we were in the open waters of Georgian Bay.

We went through the resort area of Pointe au Baril, wich means "Point at the Barrel". The name comes from the days when fishermen placed a barrel on shore with a lantern on top to guide them into the harbor. We went through Hangdog Channel, which is considered to be one of the most difficult passages. We went through and I really didn't see why everyone thinks it's so terrible.

We went into Byng Inlet and into the town of Britt, Ontario. We stayed at Wright's Marina. Ithaka is here, as well as several other looper boats. It took the same amount of time to travel the inside route as the outside route, but we had a much smoother ride, although we had do do a lot of navigating.

We'll stay here an extra day to wait out the wind. Al has another boat project in mind. He plans to reroute the discharge hose for the washing machine.

It was stormy leaving Parry Sound