Weather Day in Little Current

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 115 - July 24, 2017

This was our weather day in Little Current. SailFlow told us that according to the North Channel buoy, the winds would be too high for comfortable cruising until mid or afternoon today. A lot of boats left Little Current betting that the winds would abate in the afternoon. We had extended for an extra day yesterday, since we were not anxious to go out into rough waters in the North Channel! As far as we could tell sitting at Slip B-13 at the Town Docks, the winds did not abate one little bit. SailFlow likewise tells us that tomorrow the winds will be very light pretty much all day. So we are planning to head out early tomorrow morning!

Since we are still trying to figure out the best way for us to get from Little Current down to Mackinac Island, I went over to John and Mary Morgan's Mainship 350 Passport with my iPad in hand. I had waypoints set for the places that seemed to Patty and me like the most logical stopping points for each day, seeking their input as experienced North Channel cruisers. Our objective was not to see every single wonderful anchorage in the North Channel, and there are literally thousands, but to get to Mackinac Island by Sunday, July 30, some time after the 1:00 p.m. check-in time! Like many places you could easily spend a month cruising the North Channel. Their input was helpful, and Patty and I finally settled on at least a tentative plan. I'm sure it will change once we get cruising!

Patty came over to Passport to tell me that the Firestones had called to invite us over to their fifth wheel above Spider Bay Marina, since when we saw them yesterday, they were not aware that we would be staying one more day. We walked over to the parking lot above Spider Bay Marina where their fifth wheel was parked and had another great visit in their Hitch-Hiker fifth wheel, and said our goodbyes all over again! 

When I got back to Daydream, I saw two C-Dorys cruising by, and tried to hail them on the VHF radio, but was not able to make contact. I did see that they had pulled into the fuel dock. Later I walked over to the East docks (we are in the West docks, the Little Current Town Docks have two sets of three floating docks, East and West, separated by a sea wall where the fuel dock is and really large yachts typically tie up). I found Bill and Becky from Florida on a CD25 Cruiser named Blue Days and Dale and Carol from Alabama on a CD22 Cruiser named Wee Bit. They invited us back for drinks at 6:00 p.m., and we of course accepted the invitation!

Becky and Carol had some pretty good appetizers, including hummus, cheese, salami, crackers and watermelon slices! We spent about three and a half hours just talking and getting to know each other, but the time passed really quickly! Bill was a quality control guy for the Jacksonville industrial brewery with the initials "A-B" (Annheuser-Busch, AKA Budweiser).  I told Bill I had founded a microbrewery, and we compared a few notes on their approach to quality control on an industrial scale and ours on a micro scale! Bill also explained the origin of the boat name Blue Days. As he got more senior at A-B, he got increasingly more and more vacation time, until he was up to twelve weeks a year, but it had to be scheduled a year in advance. Bill and Becky typically took Bill's vacation in two week blocks, which they would mark on the calendar with a blue highlighter - those came to be known as the "blue days." Not "blue" as in sad days, but colored blue for the happy days! Becky was a mom and homemaker. Dale was a hydrogeologist, and Carol a real estate appraiser. I mentioned that in my career as Snoqualmie City attorney, I had a lot of contact with both real estate appraisers and hydrogeologists!  When Patty said she had been a teacher and a substitute teacher, they thanked her for her service twice!

We of course talked about C-Dorys and the C-Dory family, including our mutual friends Bob and Marie Austin from Pensacola, whom they know from the Hontoon Island CBGT (C-Brat Get-Together). Like all C-Dory owners, they also knew of Bill and El Fiero and Halcyon and Bill's great website Halcyon Days - Cruising America. All in all, a very pleasant evening that went by too quickly! We implored a nearby boater on sea wall to take this photo!

Back row: Carol, Bill, Dale and Pat
Front row: Becky and Patty