This one, of course, lies at the southern end of the main strait connecting the main body of Lake Huron with Georgian Bay, at the northern tip of the Bruce Peninsula. As such, a lot of boats pass this way and most, like us, make a point of stopping.
After completing our inbound clearance to Canada at the fuel dock in Little Tub Harbour, we asked the harbourmaster one more time if any space had opened up. It had not, since it was a holiday weekend and the last at that before school starts again, but true to her reputation of being very friendly and helpful, she found us a spot on the extraneous part of one of the tour operator's section of the wall, right by the car ferry. She said that if they complain to us, to tell them she had told us to do it so she would get the heat. They didn't. There was probably enough space to fit two Begonias and they only kept the boat there at night anyway.
Tobermory is a lovely little town. It's very touristy, but even on this busy weekend it did not seem too crowded to enjoy. It's large enough for a good amble around, but small enough to feel familiar after the first couple of hours. Even with the lines, we never had to wait more than ten minutes for a table at a restaurant or for me to get my hands on some ice cream.
Most of the tourist trade seems to be boat tours out to Fathom Five National Marine Park. Many of the big tour companies in town even own their own hotels, right across the street from their boats. In addition to plenty of pretty islands, the area is home to several very well-preserved shipwrecks that are accessible at SCUBA depths. This makes Fathom Five the most popular freshwater diving region in the world. The Bruce Peninsula also has the largest swath of boreal forest in southeastern Ontario, particularly the southeastern part of northwestern southeast Ontario, minus the gas stations along Highway 6. At any rate, there are a lot of trees there, which is nice.
Begonia's spot on the wall at the entrance to Little Tub Harbor was both out of the way and also very public, giving us a nice mix of each. We were adjacent the waiting area for cars taking the Ferry to Manitoulin Island. Once the ferry left and at night, the area was quiet, as it was too far from the main boardwalk with all of its gooey enticements to get any foot traffic. After a few hours, drivers would arrive early for the next ferry, park their cars and then go walking around looking for something to kill the time. Invariably, this meant strolling over to us to see the strange-looking boat (catamarans are pretty rare up here) Some would strike up conversations with us and others would stand by, listening in. Most seemed to think we were on a short holiday, like they were in their RVs and campers. A few even asked where we rented the boat. Sometimes it took a while before we could get the reality of our mode of living to sink in.
My favorite instance of this was on our last morning there when I popped out quickly to dispose of the last of our garbage. An Indian couple were the only ones in the lot so far. I said hello as I passed and they started asking questions about the boat. We were having a nice chat and had moved on to other subjects when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence. The dots had connected and he realized we had just (sort of) sailed past India (sort of), their India, in the very boat we had been standing together talking about. We were at least not too far away not too long ago. They both beamed and when he asked to shake my hand, he took it in both of his and shook vigorously. Well, that was nice...
In order to put more mileage on our shoes than a lap around the harbour would provide, we headed to the Bruce Trail, which runs for over 800km along the Niagara Escarpment from just west of the big falls to here. Since we had already seen the falls, Maryanne suggested we do the 6k Burnt Point Loop at the end as a consolation prize instead. That was probably best as I hadn't brought tent pegs, nor any other camping gear for that matter. We were also able to visit the Park Visitor center and purchase our Parks Canada passes for the year.
Burnt Point Loop Trail is mostly through the forest, but with several shoreline viewpoints - we visited both days of our Tobermory stay
The loop is lush and shady and part of the trail is on soft moss that is noticeably springy. At intervals, the trail pops out of the forest along the shore of Dunks Bay. There, we could enjoy long views of the islands in the distance that started with rock formations at the lakebed seen through the crystal-clear water at our feet. We liked the trail so much, we returned the next day to do it in the other direction.
Since Begonia wasn't at a proper dock (not officially part of the marina at least), there was no laundry or boat cleaning to be done. That left provisioning as our only outstanding chore. This apparently used to be easy, when the big grocery store was right at the end of the harbor. When we got there, we were met with a "closed" sign and a notice directing shoppers to their new convenient location only five minutes away, where they have plenty of parking available. We assumed they didn't mean five minutes on foot. They never do.
It was more like twenty for us, which wasn't bad, or at least wouldn't have been had we not already walked ourselves to the point of soreness. At least it is downhill all of the way back to the harbor.
The provisioning wasn't too bad, and took us via a Mexican food truck (Tacomory) which made for an easy lunch
Normally, provisioning for six weeks is a fairly big job, but since we are trying to eat the rest of our onboard stores before winter, we only needed to fill a few holes in our fresh supplies, rather than purchase the whole menu. It was the first time in a long time that we have only used one cart – not each, but total!
Tobermory is a lovely small town, dominated with restaurants, and hiking & ice cream shops. Among other things we had dinner at a local brewery/pub and (naturally) partook at several of the ice cream stores. Kyle really is taken by the 'fancy' highway signs; in Canada all of the highways have the royal crown as the background of the highway number.
{Maryanne}Ever since we arrived in the great north, I've been checking the Aurora forecasts religiously, often getting up in the middle of the night to check and see if the 'possible' forecast would turn into an actual sighting. Normally a KP index of 5 will make for something of a glow that will be at least visible by camerea around here (KP is a measure of planetary geomagnetic activity). Add to that a Bz value of any negative amount (Bz is a measure of the angle of the solar winds with respect to the earth's geomagnetic field - and while often positive the more negative it is the more likely to give a colourful aurora display you can see dancing in the sky). One night however later on the night of the 4th of August, while we were at a dock and could so readily step ashore (photography of this kind is not so easy on an ever moving boat), the forecast was for a KP of 7 and a very negative Bz - that is GOLD for this area! I needed to wait for 11pm for the sun to be fully out of the picture, so I prepared my equipment and took a nap... But then I slept through it and didn't wake until after 1am by which time the moon was up and glaring, and the kp was back down - I went to my pre-selected vantage point and tried - but to no avail. I'm kicking myself - I can't believe I missed what may be our only/best chance this season to see the Northern Lights... Another boater in Tobermory that night wasn't daft enough to sleep through it - and managed to get some really nice pictures... Next time I will set an alarm (or two). I later found out that people managed to see the Aurora that night as far south as Arizona!
Two of the pictures taken by fellow boater Pat Gillies who happened to also be in Tobermorry AND didn't sleep through the show (Posted with his permission)
1 comment:
So our paths crossed again at Tobermory in Scotland!!! Great blog. Love keeping up with your adventure since ours is now over. Although we've not ruled out a stink boat somewhere in our future!!
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