[Kyle]At Goderich, the wind veered to the south again. We pulled up anchor just as the sun rose, raised the spinnaker, and made a very slow getaway.
As the day wore on, the wind slowly picked up until we were romping along nicely. When Maryanne woke me for my afternoon watch, we were going six knots in an eight-knot tailwind under bright blue skies. That lasted for about fifteen minutes. Then clouds appeared over the western horizon. A squall line was approaching.
None of the rain or lightning came near us. The cells to the north and south, however, completely screwed up the wind. It died almost completely, swirling around the compass at no more than two knots. As soon as it did, even though we were twenty miles from shore, black flies arrived in a steady stream until they were everywhere. They were merely annoying until they started biting me. Once the word got out that I was edible, they all tried to have a go.
I waited as patiently as I could, but after a couple of hours, I realized the wind would not be returning for a while, so I gave up and started an engine, hoping we could outrun at least a few of the flies. That sort of worked. Now only the stronger, faster ones remained.
When Maryanne came on watch, I had bundled up to protect my skin from the little monsters. Now I was sweltering and still getting occasionally bitten through my clothes. To make matters worse, it looked like a second line of convective cells was about to arrive that we would not escape. We were about to get drenched.
Maryanne could sense my guilt at leaving her to deal with it, but she told me to go to bed and try not to think about it. She would be fine. The next thing I remember, it was midnight and it was my turn again.
She was surprised to hear that I hadn’t heard the rain, the thunder, or her stomping around on deck dealing with the sails. Nope, I slept through the whole thing. Now we were going six knots again in an eight-knot breeze again with the spinnaker up again. I really like it when she does that trick on her watch.
The wind soon pulled too far forward for me to use the spinnaker, so I did some of my own stomping around to get it stowed and get the other sails up. The strength stayed consistent, so if anything, we sped up a little. When daylight broke, I saw that our clear skies had been replaced by thick smoke from the forest fires to our southeast. I hadn’t smelled a thing, but the visibility was down to just over a mile.
By afternoon, the first islands of the Georgian Bay area materialized as grey silhouettes in the smoke. We wove our way to the entrance to Baie Fine, reputed to be the world’s largest freshwater fjord. There, the hills completely blocked the wind, so we started an engine for the ten-mile trip to the end, known locally as "The Pool". We anchored amongst six other widely-spaced boats.
It was a relief to be finished with an eventful thirty-eight-hour sail. I let out an especially long sigh because we were finally here.
The sailing season is short at forty-six degrees north and I wanted to get here as early as possible to make the most of it. I knew even a few weeks delay could potentially erode our season down to nothing. That is why, every time Maryanne suggested we spend an extra week or two somewhere during the last eleven months and eighteen thousand sailing miles since leaving the Kimberley, in Australia, I have had to put down my foot and say that we couldn’t, because we needed to keep moving.
My intent, and thus my implied promise, was that we would be able to slow down and relax once we finally got here. Internally, I was worried about two things: The first was that one thing or another would interfere with the plan, which would get us here with a lot to see and no time to see it, making it more of the same type of exhausting push I told Maryanne we wouldn’t have to do once we had sailed more than halfway around the world to get here. My other worry was that we might succeed in covering the distance, but that it wouldn’t end up being that nice once we finally got here. Thinking of the look Maryanne would shoot me if this part of Lake Huron ended up looking like the part of Lake Erie between Toledo and Detroit made me wince.
Looking out at The Pool now, I was pleased to see that it is much prettier than I had even expected. This is a place worth going through all the trouble to see. Best of all, even though we are a few weeks later than I would have liked, we still have plenty of time left in the summer to slow down and enjoy ourselves. Wheeeeeewwww!
Mixed sailing, but WOW, so worth it as we made our way along the world's largest fresh water 'fjord' of Baie Fine with its quartzite hills, and splendid coves. It was great to finally be at anchor after the long haul to get here
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