Amedroz to Eagle Bay

Monday, July 27 

It’s just your average Monday morning on the North Channel - an absolutely beautiful day with sparkling sapphire blue water, pale blue skies, deep green pine-covered islands widely spaced so the sailboats have room to move. We had an excellent lunch of ripe tomatoes and avocados, and in a few minutes we plan to drop the anchor in Eagle Bay. We’ll dangle our feet in the icy water and bop around a bit in our dinghy.

We’re out for about eight days. The challenge this time is to eat the vegetables and fruit in ripening order. Usually we plan our meals around the meat, but now we have to plan them around the vegetables. We have to eat everything before crossing the border because the U.S. doesn’t allow them to enter. Tonight we’ll have the corn on the cob.

We had two social activities this weekend - twelve boaters had dinner at the Anchor Inn in Little Current on Saturday and fourteen boaters gathered on a large trawler in Amedroz Bay Sunday evening. The first was a spontaneous dinner, because we all kept inviting others until it became a party. We put the six men at one end of the table and the six women at the other. It was a great opportunity to get to talk with the other women. 

At Amedroz, there were seven trawlers anchored in the bay (plus two sailboats). It was a day to celebrate for Richard, the captain of Adria. A year ago he had had a heart attack on board, but he survived and yesterday he celebrated his Alive Day. They invited all of us onto their boat for refreshments, and it gave us another opportunity to meet more boaters on the North Channel. They are not all doing the Great Loop. Some spend the summer up here on their boats, moving each week to new anchorages. Some live nearby in Michigan or Canada and are only traveling short distances, and some are nearing the end of their Loop. 

Monday afternoon: Now we are anchored in a beautiful spot - Eagle Bay. There’s tall grass in the bay, at least 20 feet long and it almost reaches the surface. You have to be careful that your anchor is actually sunk into the bottom, not just around the grass, or else it won’t hold. As isolated as it is, perhaps the bears and moose will come to the edge of the land so we can see them, and perhaps the Northern Lights will put on a show. Chances for seeing these things are diminishing, but we are still hopeful.