Clear? Thunderstorms? Clearing? Heavy winds?

A group of six "Loopers" joined up near Parry Sound and we traveled together to the Hopewell Bay area. I suppose we all felt a little safer to be in a group after the storm that had blown through the night before and the precarious weather for the day of travel. Every one of us opted to remain two full days at Parry Sound. Winds were constant at 40 knots easy. The day we all left, all reports were go. But what we found after leaving port was not at all what any of us were comfortable with. This front threatened us most of the day.

We're BAAAACKKKKK!

So, did 'ja miss us????? We reentered the U.S. yesterday at Drummond Island and spent the night at De Tour Marina, De Tour, Michigan. Tonight we are docked in Mackinac City Marina. We will take the ferry tomorrow morning to Mackinac Island. We hit some very bad weather in the North Channel and weather reporting was not exactly accurate. After much discussion, Ron and I decided to push on through and return to the United States. Two families dropped out of the loop based on the storms that came up out of nowhere and one of the ladies who had been sailing for 6 years, said she'd had enough. Their boat will be up for sale when they return. He hired a captain to complete the journey and bring their boat home again. This might give you some idea as to just how bad it was. We have pictures of some of the hail storms covering the deck which I will share with you shortly. This picture of Gilligan is at Mill Lake last Thursday.

Internet access woes!!!

Hi all!!

Just wanted to let you know that we have little or no access to the internet while we are in the remote (but beautiful) sections of Canada. We will be back on line and posting tons of pictures we are storing up from the beautiful sites we are seeing. We miss you all and look forward to talking to you all again soon!!

Love,
Ron and Jean and of course Giligan :-)

PS: This is Faith sending the message from beyond!! Hope you are all well. Love Faith :-)

Bear Traps

We were passing by a government building and noticed a sign that read Government Information Center. Those of you who know me, KNOW I'd be looking for bear and moose up here at the crack of dawn and at dusk. Well, this was a golden opportunity to get the real "scoop" on the bear population. The office rang up and sent down the lady who directs and actually does the trapping and relocating of problematic bear. These are the actual traps which are baited and once trapped, they relocate the bear to less populated areas. There is an overabundance of bear this year she said, due to a heavier than normal mosquito population this year, which are driving the bear down into more populated areas. Plus they love bird feeders and of course, people's garbage and once they find the treasured items, they tend to return until the area is void of those items and will continue to return for days in hopes of finding the food again. Bear also return to the areas they are transported from, especially the females. This young woman was probably about 28, 100 pounds soaking wet, and picturing her out there with these huge angry animals was hard to grasp. Humm, wonder why she wouldn't let me put Ron in the cage for a picture? Any guesses? When we went back there to see the traps, Gilligan went nuts. The smell of bear was so powerful and not just the excrement (which actually was still in the last cage used). I tried to convince her to let me go with her to check on some of the traps, but most of us know when the word "government" is involved, rarely are exceptions made and I am certainly NOT authorized personnel! Well, even if we don't SEE bear in Canada while we're here, we certainly SMELT bear in Canada. Now, how many people can say that!!

7/ll Tonight we are at Parry Sound, Ontario

We had planned on docking last night, catching up on laundry and do some provisioning. However, this morning we had heavy winds with small craft warnings. We decided to remain here another day. Winds currently are blowing at 35 knots. Just watching people walk on the dock is amusing -- and we're about to become one of those walkers, who will be grabbing their hats and pulling the coats around them, as we go for a walk with Gilligan. Ron has the weather channel on as I type and they tell us the waves on Lake Huron are 1-3 meters. Yes, I'd rather be right where we are! This is a sunset from two nights ago. It was so pretty I thought you'd like to share it with us.

Looks like he's having fun, ha?

In fact, this was more maintanence work. We picked up some horrible blown sticky matter that clung to the white waterline and nothing we did at the dock removed it. This is a two person job and while Ron scrubbed, I repositioned him all along the rail. I can't begin to tell you why he's smiling here?????

Gilligan over a barrel

This was part of the historical tour at Discovery Park. Pet's welcome! Isn't that nice. We all laughed when they took us to the cemetery of a young soldier and his brother who both died in route to this base. Gilligan is a Cairn Terrier. Cairn's tend to dig a lot! Intently I'm listening to the story of these two brothers and the tour guide begins to laugh. There's Gilligan digging away on the path worn down by tourists being brought through there. I picked him up, apologized to the group, and said: "Gilligan, never never dig in a cemetery!" We all had a good laugh and in gratitude that he did NOT come back with a bone -- we moved on!