Our plan for the day was relatively simple. We were going to leave the beautiful Baie Fine at about 0700 to cruise the 23 miles to Little Current. There we would get fuel and a couple of minor supplies. Then we would make our way another 17 miles or so to Croker Island. Croker is right next to the Benjamin Islands, a popular stop that was said to be beautiful. Our veteran cruisers in Midland recommended Croker because it was just as beautiful with less traffic. Sold.

When we got up there was an ominous cloud rolling over the southern ridge and rain in the distance. Eventually the rain got to us, so we decided to wait a bit more. We had time to wait it out. At about 0830 it looked like it was done raining. We pulled up the dinghy after chatting with the seagull that decided to visit and make Dot his home. We fired up the engines and it started pouring with some light peals of thunder. We turned it off again to wait some more. At 0908 it looked like we were clear. We fired up, pulled the hook, and made our way back to the entrance of Baie Fine. We really enjoyed the anchorage and its spectacular beauty.

The rest of the way to Little Current was uneventful. We cruised slowly to time getting to the Little Current Swing Bridge at noon. The bridge opens at the beginning of each hour. We didn’t want to burn the fuel to make the 1100 opening, so paced ourselves to make the noon opening. We had a couple of showers along the way, but otherwise it was a nice cruise.

We ended up getting to the bridge a little early and had to wait about 20 minutes with some other boats. The bridge opened on time and we went through. Right as we could see the Town Docks where we planned to get fuel, it started to POUR rain. We radioed the dock and they said to go to Wally’s for diesel. I looked for Wally’s and hailed them on the radio to no avail. We gave up and went to Spider Bay Marina for fuel. By the time we got there the rain had stopped and the two wonderfully friendly dock hands helped us fuel and pump out. Unfortunately, they did not have much of a store so we had to go without the supplies we had intended to purchase.

Setting out from Little Current, we went north through the Waubuno Channel and then west into the channel to Croker.

At this point the wind really started to pick up. The forecast had been for 10-15 kt winds, but it was getting feisty. By the time we got to Croker we were ready to get settled. We moved into the small bay on the east side of Croker for the best protection from the westerly winds. There were two sailboats in the anchorage, but plenty of room for us between them. We dropped the hook three times and just could not get it to grab hold. The bottom was too weedy.

We decided to abort and move to a backup anchorage. We chose the small bay on the west side of South Benjamin because it offered good protection from west winds and was reported to often be less crowded than the main bay on the east side of the islands. As we neared South Benjamin the waves really started to pick up. It was… unpleasant. Later we say that the wind had kicked up to 20+ kts and the waves were well over 3 feet with a very short interval. Yup. Can confirm.

Rounding into our anchorage there were two sailboats in there (different sailboats than before) but enough room for us. We found a spot and the hook grabbed tight. After sitting to see where we swung, we were not very happy with how close we got to the east side of the bay, so we pulled it up and reset further to the west. It grabbed tight again. Whew.

The anchorage was not perfect. The west winds pushed us to swing with our port side facing the mouth of the bay. This meant that the swells hit us on our beam most of the time and made for a rolling time. Still, we were safe and had no motivation to go back out into the nastiness.

We settled down for the evening. It was 1615. While the wind kept us rocking and rolling, we had dinner and let the adrenaline of the day seep out a bit.

After dinner, I put Dot down and rowed her to shore. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of putting the motor on with everything moving so much, but I wanted to explore a bit. Wendy decided to stay put. I spent a couple of hours scrambling around South Benjamin. I climbed to the top and was able to look down on the main anchorage on the east side. The terrain is comprised of gigantic boulders and sheer cliffs of pink granite interspersed with explosions of trees, moss, ferns, blueberry bushes, and other intrepid vegetation trying to squeeze the life out of summer before the snows fall again.

After watching the sunset from the rocks as Our Dash sat in the bay below, I scrambled back down to the shore and rowed back to the boat. It ended up being a stressful day of cruising, but the rewards of being able to enjoy God’s creation make it so worth it.