Hi All,

One of the things I discovered in Bad River is that we should carry a nail set and a hammer in the dinghy on excursions. After motoring up the Devil's Door Rapids into one of the many outlets of the French River, we managed to find a rock in the middle of a tea coloured bay and shear the pin on the outboard. I was able to do all the disassembly necessary with my Swiss Army Knife, except for driving the remains of the pin out of the shaft. We could have paddled back, but the skipper and kids from Laguna gave us a tow back to the boat, insisting there was still plenty of time to get some pickerel for breakfast. I don't know if they got any, because they left about 6 AM. We slept in until 7:30, when the old guy from Champagne hailed us in what sounded like an urgent voice. Turned out he just wanted us to haul in some anchor rode so he could come up to his anchor without getting anywhere near us -- not a great way to start the day. We had all completed multiple circles at anchor over the two nights we stayed in the Bad River. The GPS track was entertaining. Up here people seem to have a need for more personal space at anchor. The standards of the crowded Thousand Islands don't seem to apply, nor does the quality of anchoring performance, display of anchor lights, or keeping an anchor watch. Oh Well....  While we were in there a bunch of people came by and asked how we weathered the storm. They seemed surprised when I said we had no problems and just sat in the cockpit under the dodger watching the excitement.

We left about 9 this morning and motored back out the channel. I am getting used to trusting my navigation with rocks awash nearby on both sides, but I do feel more confident on the way out than on the way in.
We started out on a close reach in about 10 knots, clicking right along. When it got lighter, Louise agreed she would rather try the DRS than turn on the engine, so we pulled it out and tried the sock for the first time. The sock worked like a charm! It made it absolutely a piece of cake for me to launch and recover the DRS (cruising spinnaker) on a beam reach all on my own (once Louise helped me recover the sock halyard, which I hadn't thought to secure). If anybody sees JC, tell hime that the sock works great and that the number three works great in a blow, just sheeted to the rail.

The wind didn't last and we doused the DRS and motored for a while in about 2 knots, then it came in from the SW rather than NE and we fetched Killarney with only a couple of miles hitch thrown in to clear the rocks -- we would have made it on a single tack if we could have just sailed right through them. It looked navigable, but tacking offshore was much simpler navigation.

We are on the dock at the Sportsman's Inn, which has a hot tub, cable TV and wireless internet at the dock. Unfortunately, the town of Killarney does not appear to have adequate Telus cell phone coverage, so if you hear from us it will be via pay phone. I may have more later, but I think we are going to go looking for a fish and chips dinner soon.

Still having lots of fun,

Rick



PS I have combined these trip reports into a web version,
for those who are really keen to read the installments again, or for
those I forgot to add to the list until more recently. The
address is:

http://me.queensu.ca/people/sellens/personal/dragonGB/

It may not be completely up to date.