Chicago Tug: Cruising Log WEEK5

Little Current…Little Current…Little Current. Nice place to visit but I think we would have preferred a shorter stay, though the folks here have been very hospitable. We are helping Roy with the Cruiser Net Call-in. As we mentioned before, on the VHF radio each morning Roy gives the cruising community the weather, news for the day and sports highlights and then all the boaters traveling in the North Channel call-in with their boat name and location. We are frantically writing all this down because Roy keeps a tally of all this detail. The number of boats has increased each day and on Saturday we reached 140 boat call-ins.

Our other entertainment has been wandering around Little Current. We have seen everything more than once: grocery, gift shops, restaurant, ice cream stall, hair-salon, barber and the hardware store. We have not been to the wine shop or the beer store; maybe we will save this for another time. The diesel mechanic was here on Wednesday and determined we had an injector issue. The parts are on order but are coming from Halifax so, we wait for him to return early this coming week to do the repair. That’s the plan.

Roy gave us a tour after the Cruiser Net call–in on Saturday that included a visit to his home where his wife Margaret maintains a very beautiful perennial garden. Their property overlooks the North Channel with beautiful views as the property slopes down to the water’s edge. Then Roy took us on a driving tour which included some history of the island and a discussion of the troubled past between the First Peoples and the European settlers.

The boat owners of Mystic lent us their car for the weekend so we could get off the island or just check out the goings on in the different towns. Off we went to visit a couple of 90-year-old hardware stores and see more of the island. We also drove across the one-way Little Current swing bridge, the only access by car to the island. It was originally built for the railroad and is still only has one lane. It swings opens every hour to let the boaters traveling between Little Current on the North Channel to the islands of Georgian Bay. Our tug friends (Dale and Kathy) from Albin & Co joined us today.

So ends week5. We hope to be able to leave early this coming week and maybe catch up with our friends before they enter Collins Inlet East of Killarney at the beginning of Georgian Bay.