Well, that was a rocky, uncomfortable night of rocking side to side and up and down. It really made me wonder if baby cradles are torture devices, because that kind of motion is NOT PLEASANT!

The forecast for the morning called for a slight lessening of the winds for a brief time before strengthening to a wave-inducing 20 knots. Our choices were:

1. Stay put. We would rock for another 24 hours, but we were confident our anchor would hold.
2. Take advantage of the brief break to scoot around the island to an anchorage that might be more protected. The downside here is that we didn’t know if the other anchorage had room for us or had as good holding as the current spot.
3. Make a run for it to a safer spot altogether.

We chose option 3. Actually, Owen chose option 3 because none of them was appealing to me and I was willing to stick with the devil we knew. We could see the waves out in the bay. While they were not as bad as they were yesterday, they did not look conducive to “pleasure boating.”

Owen was confident in his choice, and we decided to go the 14 miles to Gore Bay on the south side of the North Channel. We battened down the hatches by making sure all the cabinet doors were closed tightly, laying down anything that could tip over (looking at you, TV), and making sure everything on the deck was secured tightly. Yesterday, we nearly lost our toilet plunger.

I think our anchorage neighbors thought we were nuts as we started our engines and pulled up our anchor, and they may have been right. But it was just 14 miles–90 minutes of whatever it was going to be.

It was going to be awful. That’s what it was going to be. The waves were 2-3 feet with a few 4s thrown in for good measure. That’s not terrible out on the ocean when waves are spread apart. The rule of thumb is it’s most comfortable when the interval of the waves (the time, in seconds, between them) is twice the height. So two foot waves with a two-second interval can be less comfortable than 4 foot waves with an eight second interval. These waves had a very short interval, and it was not pleasant. This was like boating in a bathtub with a pair of rambunctious toddlers.

Owen employed some strategies to minimize the discomfort: when you hit waves head-on, the boat lifts up at top of the wave, then points down at the trough of the wave. If the wave is high enough, we learned today, the splash can reach the cockpit and douse the occupants. Also, waves hitting from the side, or the beam, produce the torturous cradle effect, which is kind of scary when the waves are high enough. So we prefer to hit the waves on the side of the bow or straight up the aft. Owen was able to maneuver the boat sometimes to make the ride more comfortable, but that also takes more time because it means tacking one way, then the opposite way in a zigzag pattern to avoid taking the waves head on. But at some point, you just want to get there and be done. So eventually, Owen just got up on plane and yeeted us into Gore Bay. He is my hero!

Owen called the marina to reserve a spot, and for the first time in the history of our boating life, the person on the phone said just to pick any spot on one of two docks. We picked a wide spot next to a large yacht and pulled right in.

Gore Bay is such a nice place! The marina has nice wide slips and docks. We went into the office to pay up, then next door to the store to pick up some oil. The lady at the counter said she heard the Americans were coming, and people were getting excited. She said she had worked there for two years and no Americans came (thanks, Covid), so she was eager to see what the fuss was all about. We are still sort of at the head of the Looper pack.

We took a walk to the nearby lighthouse, then went in the other direction to a lookout over the Bay. We had a fantastic comparison between the calm of Gore Bay and the raging big water. We could see the whitecaps out on the big water and were glad Gore Bay was tucked into a protected area. After our walk, we went to the grocery store and picked up some necessities. The store allows shoppers to take their carts to the marina. We brought our wagon, but using their carts would have been easier.

We went to the restaurant on site, Purvis Fish & Chips and enjoyed some, you guessed it, fish and chips. Owen had whitefish and I had pickerel. The fries were the best we’ve had in Canada.

I happily admit: OWEN WAS RIGHT.