Drummond Island - Yacht Haven

[Kyle]Since our check-in to the U.S. while underway had allowed us to skip stopping at the Drummond Island Yacht Haven (DIYH), I had intended to bypass any marina stay altogether. Then I started thinking about our windlass. It has been misbehaving the last few times. Specifically, the wires have been getting hot enough to smoke a little sometimes when it's straining to retrieve a well-buried anchor. The windlass is relatively new, and we had the connection trimmed and remade just a year ago. Now the problem has returned, we think the but the whole wire between the boat and the windlass is old, and needs fully replacing - they are older and may be getting brittle. That would leave fewer good strands to carry the current, which would heat them up more. That's one of the reasons I haven't minded cranking the anchor up manually so much while departing under sail. The windlass wires are necessarily heavy-gauge, making them one of the few things aboard for which we do not carry spares, since the crimping tool for making connections is the size and weight of bolt cutters. We already have one of those for the rigging. We don't have space for two.

DIYH has real electricians on staff. They have the big wire, connectors and tools, along with a big truck in which to carry them all. I decided that perhaps a day there wasn't such a bad idea after all.

To save the unnecessary dock fees, we anchored out and I rowed in to make inquiries. I located DIYH's marine electrician, who said he would be able to see us tomorrow. On the way back, I stopped at the marina office, who said they would be happy to find space for us. Great, now we have a plan.

It worked out pretty much the same as it always does. Once I got Begonia disassembled to where all the guy had to do was sit on our deck with his feet in the anchor locker and splice in the new wire, I went to go retrieve him. He was busy at the moment, but promised to come by as soon as he was finished with his current job.

Meanwhile, Maryanne was getting kind of antsy to see the local museum and walk some of the local trails. Both of those sounded a lot more fun to me than waiting for some guy to show up, but what could I do? Maryanne helpfully offered to go to the laundromat with a load to help pass the time while I waited.

Then lunch happened. It was starting to seem like our whole stay would be eaten up waiting for our guy. It wasn't. He showed up right after lunch and finished the job within a few minutes. Oh, if we had only had that tool...

We made it to the museum with more than enough time to study its contents carefully. Afterwards, Maryanne even treated me to dinner at a much-recommended local Mexican restaurant, Esther's. The food there was very good, much better than I would have expected in such a remote place, and the décor was wonderfully fanciful and humorous. We were even entertained by our server, who was getting to the age where memory might start being a problem. She initially brought us other people's dinners before we had even ordered. When we did finally get our own food, Maryanne's was ridiculously spicy, while mine was just medium. Each of our dinners included a knife, but no fork. When she asked us if we wanted dessert, we knew there was probably not enough daylight left to make that come to fruition and demurred. Besides, there was an ice cream place just down the street...

Kyle managed the treat of both Mexican for lunch AND an ice cream (no suprise there!), and I squeezed in a visit to the local museum and pushed Kyle to visit some trails

I realize I was being unfair with my patience. Had our server been an earnest seventeen-year-old, learning to wait tables for the first time, I would have thought she was not cut out for it and should find another vocation. I've been there myself, after all. Each of Granny's mistakes, on the other hand, just made me want to jump up and help her out. The poor thing had so much to keep track of.

The next morning, rather than leave right away, we decided to take a walk to, and then through, a local nature reserve. Maryanne left first, while I was still finishing my first cup of coffee. She was keen. I met her as she was coming back. She immediately agreed to join me for another lap.

The area around DIYH is also really nice, the family that owns them has a whole complex on this area of the island that, in addition to the marina, also includes holiday rental cabins and an RV campground. We met several people who have been coming for decades for their tranquil two weeks in the woods. It really is very rejuvenating. I can certainly see the appeal of sitting on the cabin porch by the fire, waiting for the sunset to turn everything orange.

As we were doing all of this walking around, we noticed that every single driver gives a full-hand wave as they pass. We also saw that several people not only leave their doors unlocked, but leave their windows wide open when they leave their cars or houses unattended. The woman who works at the museum, even though she was going the other way, recognized us and turned around to give us a ride back to the boat, even though it was miles out of her way. Drummond Island certainly seems like a special little bubble, where the harsher outside world seems far, far away.

Around the Marina

{Maryanne:On the island there is a large area of the rare alvar biome, a dry grassland over especially thin soil atop limestone 'pavement', and host to some amazing plants, etc. I was really hoping to rent a car and get to to see them, but cars were unavailable and the full day was lost waiting for our turn with the electrician, and we made do with more local sites. There is a chance we may get to see smaller Alvar patches back on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, and we'll see if we can make that work. We are too late in the season to see the grass like 'prairie smoke' so I wasn't too crushed, but ... you know ... birds!!!}