I finally get to put up a new blog! Cellular service sure is sparse along the north shore. Out on the water we would occasionally pick up something that would let a few texts or emails sneak in but never enough to do any website work. Strangely too, we could send and receive texts to some people but not to others.

I am so pleased to say that since my last post, Starship got wet again and we got everything in place to toss the lines! The new VHF radio arrived and the survey went well. We later learned that our alternator issues were not resolved but we are figuring things out as we go. Here is a timeline of our travels since leaving Thunder Bay Marina. 

August 5 – Well after a month’s stay at Thunder Bay Marina, today we backed out of slip #45 for the final time. We finally kicked off The Big Trip by beginning our first leg crossing Lake Superior! The boat is absolutely loaded down. Starship is filled up with diesel, water, gasoline, propane, necessary supplies and food. After all our fresh food is gone, we have powdered milk, canned meat and all I need to make homemade bread, pasta, biscuits, tortillas and buns. Last night we pulled out the maps one final time up at the club with our friend Ron to get his recommendations as we began to chart our course for the coming weeks.

The day we left the marina was quite quiet so we were forced to say goodbye to some of our friends by leaving notes where we knew each one would find them. A dear cousin of ours back home, Tessa, hit the nail on the head by referring to people like Ron as ‘fast friends’. At Thunder Bay Marina we made so many fast friends – wonderful, caring, like-minded people. People who you easily fall into comfortable conversation with only moments after you’ve shared you initial introductions. The Big Trip is going to be full of fast friends. The sad part is that as quickly as they come into our life, we will be parting ways. Some we will travel with for awhile or, if we are luck enough, we will cross paths with again. Others we leave knowing we will never be face to face with them again but hope to stay int touch by text, cell, Facebook or email.

Finally getting underway was a surreal feeling for us! So much led up to that moment that it was hard to really absorb it all. Leaving early afternoon, we did a short trip over to Tee Harbour to get ourselves underway. Our friends Kyle and Lanna (with their kiddos Pia and Cohen) were there the night before. That’s too bad our timing didn’t work out better as they were fast friends we truly hoped to spend a bit more time with.

Getting into our destination, Jason and I did something with Starship we had never done before – we picked up a mooring ball! The task itself really isn’t too challenging (compared to anchoring).. With me at the helm and Jas at the bow with the boat hook, we picked it up easily on the first pass like rockstars! Tee Harbour sits in the shadow of The Sleeping Giant – a spectacular ridge with hiking trails leading up to phenomenal lookouts at dizzying heights. The day after arriving we did a 9km hike on the trails and did not regret it! It was uphill a lot of the way and quite challenging at times but we loved it. The timing of Dylan’s age on this trip has been perfect in so many ways and I was reminded of that again on the trails. Two years ago, at nine years old, we know that Dylan would not have enjoyed the hike. He would’ve been Captain Complain-o most of the way, whining as we went. Instead, he had the stamina needed and was old enough to truly appreciate the experience! He was the one wanting to go further as Jason and I looked at each other calculating the hours we’d need to backtrack to get back to the boat still in time for dinner. Dylan is super keen to search out more hikes and we love that! Many times along the hike we talked about our oldest son, Alex, and how nice it would’ve been to have him do the hike with us. We are happy though to know that Alex is enjoying a wonderful weekend with family Lac du Bonnet back in Manitoba!

August 7 – Right now we are motoring towards Otter Cove. True to Ron’s word, we find ourselves motoring a lot. We do have both sails up though so we are at the ready to cut the engine as soon as the winds come up, which they are predicted to do this later this afternoon.

Another fast friend from Thunder Bay, Renee, asked us to be sure to include the not so wonderful stuff in our blogs and I promised him we would. My goal through my blogs is to paint a very accurate picture of what this life is really like. The good, bad and the ugly…so here’s some ugly. The alternator issues that Jason thought he resolved are continuing to cause us problems. The alternator is not charging our batteries. Battery power is what we use to run the fridge, freezer, water pumps, hot water heater, all our lights, electrical outlets, chart plotter, engine starter, etc. Fortunately, we have solar panels that are keeping our batteries nice and charged but we should not be relying on solar power alone. Once in Sault Ste Marie we will be buying a new alternator. We may also need to add another battery bank to keep up with our power needs. This means losing some of our precious storage space. We will figure it out, we always do but it was an issue that kept us both up a bit last night. We could be in quite a pickle if clouds set in for too many days in a row between now and arriving in Sault Ste. Marie.

It’s been a fantastic August long weekend – the best one ever for us!

We arrived in Otter Bay around 5:30 last evening and found ourselves tucked into a very protected and pretty anchorage. We were quickly followed in by fast friends, Paul and Julie (on Oasis 3) from Thunder Bay Marina and they introduced us to Steve and Camilla on their centre cockpit Columbia sailboat (unfortunately we cannot recall the name of their boat). Paul and Dylan quickly became fishing buddies and we think that Dylan really enjoyed heading off to spend time with someone other than his mom and dad for awhile – together they caught a salmon and a pike!

August 8 – The seven of us met up to dingy to the waterfalls. We then continued the hike into the backcountry following the stream to a very large lake. Julie in the past has swum far out into the lake to discover really nice sandy secret beach! We hiked further to round the corner that we guess many have not discovered and we named that beach Julie Beach! It was a lovely spot to stop at for a picnic and a swim. The water was so delightfully warm. Dylan collected fresh water clams that we cooked up with olive oil, white wine and fresh garlic later that evening. Thanks again for the fresh garlic Camilla!

August 9 – Dylan did lots of fishing today.  First, he set off with Paul while Jas finished up installing two more solar panels. Once that was done, Jason and Dylan headed off to fish. That evening we hosted our first cocktail night on Starship since starting The Big Trip! Julie and Paul came over and we had a really nice evening chatting over guacamole, chips, Boursin cheese, olives, salsa, hummus, trail mix, etc. We had so many delicious nibblies that our dinner plans were no longer needed and the meat I thawed was put back into the fridge to use the next day. Dylan and Paul couldn’t resist trying their luck at fishing once again and off they went returning quite late in the evening – Dylan loved it! I braved the mosquitos as I read and sipped tea in the cockpit waiting for them to return.

August 10 – Setting off just after nine in the morning, we headed into a big wind sail over to Woodbine Harbour. The winds were predicted to be 8 – 15 knots but about two hours out of Woodbine we found ourselves in 26 knots of wind! With both the main and jib reefed we stayed at a comfortable heel but we don’t often want to see ourselves in winds over that. Fortunately, we had a favourable NNW wind direction. As Bonnie Dahl’s book called Superior Way (many refert to as the Bible!) describes, Woodbine is a tricky spot to find the opening to but once you do, things nicely line up to an all weather protected anchorage. Thank you to cousin Matt for passing the Superior Way book along to us! Once settled, I started making dinner as the guys set off in the dingy to explore. After supper we enjoyed a nice bonfire on one of the clearings up on a hill, we roasted marshmallows and Dylan made himself a smore. The day of sailing took a lot out of us so we all delightfully tucked into bed with our books around 9:30.

August 11 – We woke up to a rare, cloud covered rainy day. It’s almost four o’clock and so far we have not ventured outside of the boat but it’s been nice. The sound of the rain has been pattering down on the deck above our heads all day. With our current power limitations, we cannot run our hot water heater to use the head to shower but we have a work around when swimming with soap isn’t really a desirable option. We heat up big pots of water on our propane stove and take turns doing a sponge bath using the head sink. It’s a slow process but we have the time and the end result is pretty much the same as a regular shower. Jason is right now installing a propane gas detector. How can what looks like such a small item require the boat being completely taken apart to install? Dylan is watching a movie and I spent some time writing out the things we need to take care of once we get to Sault Ste. Marie so that I can clear my head. Aside from buying a new alternator (or it could be just the regulator; Jas is still troubleshooting), once we get stable internet, we need to pay our Thunder Bay Marina berthing bill, pay our surveyor and get all the necessary information to our boat insurer. Other tasks on the list are to contact the marina in Chicago to start lining up our arrival plans and what’s needed to ship our mast to Alabama. I also want to look into downloading Encyclopedia Brittanica as a school resource (I meant to do that before leaving Winnipeg) and we need to follow up with Precision Sails as they are helping us with some issues we are having with our mainsail. Lots to do once we get there including stocking up on fresh food and whatever fuels need topping up by then.

We are looking forward to having our first guests stay with us on Starship! As I mentioned before, Matt and Candace are meeting up with us at Gore Harbour on Manitoulin Island on August 28^th to sail for us for a week down to Traverse Bay. Between now and the end of February, plans are coming together to have guests on board five times! We are proud of our cozy, floating home and look forward to sharing our adventures with friends and family along the way.

We need to find a way to say a big thank you to Matt and Candace’s friend Heather. She lives in Owen Sound and has now received a number of online deliveries on our behalf. Our original sailing plan had us sailing into Owen Sound to collect the items but now we are not venturing that far east before setting course to head south on Lake Michigan. Candace and Matt are going to see her to visit before meeting up with us and will pick up the packages. They are picking up two essential items and one not so essential. The first two deliveries are the mounting bracket for our emergency life raft and the pulleys for the dingy davits. The other one, well, is just something fun for me! I am going to try my luck with a little herb garden that will hang off the arch. I bought the supplies to get started and I am going begin with basil and cilantro but could not find cilantro seeds in Thunder Bay. Good ol’Amazon had them and I can just imagine Heather receiving this tiny, weightless package and wondering what the heck it is!

Wrapping our heads around our life shift is not an easy task. Jas and I so far both feel that it’s like we are just on a summer sailing holiday. We do happily feel life slowing down for us though. We do not need to be at Manitoulin Island until the 28^th to connect with Matt and Candace. That is 17 days from now to go approximately 300 nautical miles. Roughly speaking that give us about nine lay days which should be plenty to let us continue on slowly and enjoy each spot as we go. This is quite the switch from the life we were living leading up to this trip. With us both working full time while getting all our trip preparations done was incredibly overwhelming. We have had numerous detailed to-do lists up on our bedroom walls and each one was quickly replaced with a new to-do list as each one was completed. It was a race against time for so long as we got our house ready to sell, the boat ready to go, bank meetings, medical appointments, lining up to leave our jobs, Dylan’s school plans together and all the pieces of our land life closed out as we emotionally said our goodbyes. That is a big change to how we lead our days now. We’ve gone from not having enough hours in the day to now often not even knowing what time it is. It’s truly wonderful.

We pulled the map and guide books out and we are thinking of staying here tomorrow and heading to the Slate Islands on Sunday. Likely we will stay Monday and from there we are looking at possibly doing a very long sail day down to Otter Cove on the east shore (it’s is a bit strange that there are two places called Otter Cove in relatively close proximity on the lake). In favourable winds that may be the plan for us but we are also investigating drop off anchorages along the shore should we decided to shorten our day and not decide to go all the way to Otter Cove in one day.

August 13 – After the winds kept us off the lake for two days, today we left Woodbine enroute to The Slate Islands. After exploring some very cool caves along the shorline we saw another boat make it’s way into the anchorage. We met Claudia and Fritz on their very impressives sailboat SY Magellan. We enjoyed chatting with them and hearing a bit about their extensive travels over the years starting from Austria. They have even sailed up into Greenland on their boat and had we had more time to connect with them, we are sure that they’d have some very interesting tales to tell! Before we headed back to Starship, Claudia disappeared below deck briefly and reappeared with a Caramilk chocolate bar for Dylan. Very sweet of her – litterally!

The winds were so lovely this morning but quickly dropped off to nothing so we are motorboat now. After so long of not having decent cell service, today our phones came fully alive and I am now able to tether to the laptop! Yay! I can finally get this blog posted before it gets any longer. Today we also finally got to text and email with some family and friends. With our noses buried in our phones, Dylan says he can’t wait until we drop out of service again! LOL! He kept giving me crap for answering text messages between hands during our crib game earlier! The phones will be put away shortly but we are making good use of them including taking a strong look at the high winds predicted for later this week. We do have other ways to get weater predictions but having cell service allows us to compare reports. We will have to plan our travel days and protected anchorages carefully. Our aim is to get into Sault Ste. Marie by Sunday but we will have to see about that. Fortunately we are maintaining an open sail plan with lots of time to get to where we need to be to meet up with Matt and Candace in Gore Bay.

It is amazing to see this crazy dream of ours take shape and start to wrap itself around us.