Strawberry Island July 7, 2016

No bugs! Did the lights out work or were there no new hatches? Who knows? Not even any mosquitoes swarming around last night. Peter had a solar light over his dingy and he had no bugs. Hmmm?

Jim Karpinski was giving us a VYC remodeling update when Peter and Marianna dingy-ed over to learn our plans. We were leaving and they were staying. They accepted our offer to come aboard and we shared a pot of tea and cookies. Peter also enjoyed a sugar cube or two, which ended when Marianna moved them out of reach. He does have a real sweet tooth!

Brillig is the boat on the right nestled in at Heywood. Annie was anchored right in front of Brillig.

It was a beautiful morning in the anchorage. I arose at 5:20 and took a couple of pictures before going back to bed.

We motored over to Strawberry Island. The trip was further than I thought it would be, in part because we explored a couple different anchorages. We finally settled on a place just west of Snake Island. Peter had advised us not to anchor off of Strawberry Channel because of boat wakes. This was good advice. Because we went further today we only have 3 miles to go to Little Current tomorrow. The trip today was 9.4 NM, 1 hour and 15 minutes at 6.8 knots. We agreed we would meet at the Little Current swing bridge at 9:00 AM. The bridge only opens on the hour, but I finally realized that Annie can scoot under its 17' clearance.

When we pulled anchor this morning, we had an "UH OH" moment. The windlass stopped and would not pull the anchor up. I am always afraid it will get stuck some time, so I had a moment of worry. Motoring ahead slowly with Annie broke it free, however. I think it was just really buried in mud, and not stuck on an obstacle.

Kerry made a nice lunch when we arrived. I sat out and read Bill O'Reilly's book, Killing Patton, and smoked my first cigar of the trip. We are in a big anchorage, but it is totally deserted, save for Annie. It is very pretty here and we are glad we came.

Our kitchen faucet feels a little jerky sometimes so I am concerned it might fail. I can't find parts for the one we have on line, so I think I will have Amazon send a replacement to Anne's home. Kerry can bring it back as a backup when she returns from the shower.

Blogger Don at work!

We enjoyed cocktails on Annie's upper deck, and finished up the smoked fish we bought in Bayfield. We called Doug Gormley and the Simpsons from VYC, and also Kerry's sister to catch up on home news. Dinner was leftovers from the Chinese dinner we enjoyed earlier this week.  

Here is where we are in the North Channel.

Here is where we are on Strawberry Island. Little Current is where the camera is located on the top left of this chart. We are heading there tomorrow.