TERI ANN: Little Current

8/1-3/14

We had a great night at anchor, but wanted to get an early start for our next location. It seems like the mornings are always calm, and then the wind blows hard every afternoon. We like traveling when it's calm so it makes sense to leave early. When we started to pull up the anchor it was covered by a large mass of weeds & thick mud. It took Al 20 minutes to cut off the weeds & wash all the mud off. What a mess! His hands were covered in mud & he didn't look too pleased.

We went to Little Current & stayed at the town dock. We took on another 400 liters of fuel at Wally's Service Dock. That should be plenty to get us back to the USA. Little Current is located on Manitoulin Island in a narrow channel between Manitoulin and Goat Island, where the waters of the North Channel are funneled through a 100-yard passage into Georgian Bay. The current can run as high as 4 knots. We saw first hand the effect of the strong current. We were docked close to the fuel dock, and saw several boats loose control because of the swift current. In fact, when a sailboat left the fuel dock, he was caught in the current and was swept our way. We had just taken a ride in the dinghy, so it was in the water behind the boat. The current took the sailboat & he sideswiped the dinghy. Al checked it out, and there doesn't appear to be any damage.

We decided to stay the whole weekend in Little Current, because it was the Haweater Festival, and is the biggest event of the year for this town. "Haweater" is a nickname for locals, after the island's trademark hawthorn berry. They had a parade, car show, fireworks, craft shows & horse pulls. They also had a variety of food stands, but none of them had good food. Because of the festival there was a big presence by the police, coast guard & customs agents. We were checked out by 2 Canadian Customs Agents. They were very pleasant. They asked a couple of questions, filled out some paperwork & were done. They were much more pleasant than the US Customs Agents that we've experienced. We were surprised when we looked out Sunday morning & saw a cruise ship anchored out in the channel. We didn't expect to see a ship so big in here. We found out it was a cruise from Chicago to Toronto that makes stops at all the small ports.

Early morning in the anchorage