It went pretty much as planned. The wind died to less than a knot as I was pulling up the anchor, so once I was done, we were just sitting there in the same spot, going nowhere under full sail. Actually, since there was not even a ripple on the water's surface to screw everything up, we were accelerating very, very slowly. This is one of the things I have always liked about Begonia. If you can feel any air moving at all and you put the sails up, with patience, she'll start moving.
Unfortunately, when she initially fell away from the wind, she ended up on the opposite tack from the one I had planned. We now had a little micro-drama. We were heading toward the end of the docks at the marina and only had about one-and-a-half times the room we needed to make the turn. Then the wind “gusted” all of the way up to 1.7 knots, which was great for our drive, but the temporary force on the mainsail caused a turning moment that overpowered that of our rudders, widening the turn.
With only seconds to spare (actually, about two thousand), I decided to tack and put the helm full to port. It took about five minutes to complete the turn, which gave me plenty of time to leave the helm and slowly walk the jib over to the other side. Now we had the same problem again with one of the anchored boats. There was a little bit more space, so I was sure we would clear them.
A couple aboard their boat didn't seem so sure. What they saw was a big catamaran about four boat lengths away, with sails up, pointing right at them. They stood in their cockpit, staring at us for several minutes, as I did my best to appear unconcerned, watching our electronic compass change by a degree every three seconds or so. Eventually, they were on our beam at a distance of one boat length and we were racing by at 0.4 knots. That's a Begonia length every 17 seconds. I bid them good morning, which broke their stares long enough for them to respond in kind, but they did not seem interested in fifteen more seconds of small talk, so we had a rather uncomfortable few minutes until we finally drifted out of earshot.
It took us almost two hours to make it to Janet Point Lighthouse (about a mile). There was no sense of motion, so mostly we kept track of our progress by studying the view and noting the subtle changes over time.
Then a little bit of wind did finally arrive, which was completely at the wrong speed and from the wrong direction. I'm beginning to think that the most important tool in the Great Lakes forecaster's kit is a pair of foreceps.
We had a bit of a race with a thirty-six-foot monohull that was also trying to get somewhere by sailing. We traded tacks a few times until the wind finally started to stabilize, then they headed north while we went west.
We made it well in time for sunset
Eventually, we had a reef in both the main and jib as we came booming around Cape Robert for the upwind leg into Cole Bay, where we dropped anchor as the only boat. Cole Bay is obviously on the charts, but none of our other sources of cruising info mentions anything in the immediate area. We were here partly because it offered good protection from the wind over the next two days, but mostly because Maryanne saw a note on the Manitoulin Island map from the tourist office that said it had a selection of "World's Largest" road side attractions, which I believe made it the most Australian place on the island.
The land around Cole Bay is owned by the Zhiibaahaasing First Nation. Zhiibaahaasing is pronounced something like She-Bash-ing. This small first nation community of seventy-five also has a penchant for big things. In their case, they have the world's largest dream catcher, the formerly world's largest peace pipe and a really big pow wow drum. Their traditional land is the even more isolated Cockburn Island, but this land on Manitoulin has been allocated to them so they can access reasonable schooling, medical and other services.
We were aboard puzzling over what the procedure might be for going ashore and enter the community when we were messaged by Kevin. He saw us anchored in the bay from his weekend getaway, did a little sleuthing, and eventually found reference to us on Little Current's U-Face page. Kevin is Deputy Chief of the Zhiibaahaasing (his mother is Chief. She was out of town). He generiously invited us ashore and offered to pick us up at the boat landing and show us around.
Zhiibaahaasing has a big peace pipe, dream catcher and pow wow drum; Kevin kindly gave us the grand tour!
Apart from the aforementioned big things, there isn't a whole lot to see in the that doesn't look like any other rural community. They work hard to maintain their cultural identity, and to finance a host of projects they have in the pipeline. Right now they are ramping preparations for their annual August pow wow. Kevin was so welcoming, and shared their history a bit, took us to the neighbouring community of Sheshegwaning for ice creams and then dropped us off at our request at the big drum so that we could meander home from there. We had a quick stroll along a pond-side path, where we met a lot of the local biting flies. From there, we re-joined the road. All the people we came across were really nice. The dogs were about fifty-fifty.
Even after strolling the shore for a bit before getting in the dinghy, we were still home four hours after setting off. That made for a nice low-key day. Thanks to Kevin for welcoming us and showing us around.
{Maryanne:For permission to visit Zhiibaahaasing there is a phone number you can call: (705) 283-3963. We attempted to call, but missed out as they only answer during working hours and only for a half day on Fridays. Thankfully Kevin reached out to us anyway so we were able to step ashore. Be aware though that some of the local dogs are very protective so it IS best to have a local with you as you walk around}
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