Bear Droppings and a Letter in the Bible

 Bear Drop and Thessalonia  

On Tuesday August 16th the group of four boats headed off to our last anchorage in Georgian Bay. It was a scenic 23 mile cruise. We picked a protected spot in the cove and rafted up for the night. A fleet of four dinghy’s launched into the islands for an afternoon of exploring, swimming and rock climbing. One of our crew, Dan made it clear that he was quite anxious about running into the infamous local rattle snakes.

We of course took full advantage of that and had some fun. Along the way I tinkered with our dinghy engine as it was not running smoothly. After an afternoon of adjusting and readjusting I finally got the carburetor dialed in and purring like a kitten. Unfortunately we didn’t see any bears and not so much as any bear droppings. I guess the anchorage did not live up to it’s name sake. 

The evening was fairly tame as some of the crew had extra innings the night before so Razor’s Edge hosted a movie and popcorn night. 

The next morning we headed of on a 46 mile cruise down a fairly barren stretch of the North Channel. We could see the topography changing from rocky granite shore line to more of a flat conifer shoreline.

About 15 miles from our destination we heard a beep. We were not sure wether it came from the chart plotter or the gauge set. So I quickly reviewed the gauges to confirm all values were in normal ranges. As we have a lower helm station I went below and did the same thing only this time I found the fuel gauges were pegged on empty! “What” I thought. I quickly got my log out and began to do the manual calculations of fuel added and hours ran.

This is something that many do as a backup to the gauges. We were running light on fuel as were were close to the US where fuel was over $2 a gallon cheaper. When you are boarding 500+ gallons a $2 per gallon is a savings. My numbers showed we should have at least 75 gallons on board. So we held our breath and made it to Thessalon, not Thessalonica as in the letter from Paul.

On the way in we called the marina to inquire about the availability of Diesel. No benuo. From Thessalon it was 24 miles to the nearest marina that was both in the states and had fuel. So we pushed on to Thessalon. Once there I jumped on the bike and bought a gas can and headed off to the gas station. Our boat burns about 4 gallons an hour so we only needed 12 gallons to make it to the US. Have you ever tried to carry a 5 gallon can of fuel 2 miles on a bike? Well its next to impossible. Some kind Canadian soul pulled over and asked if I needed help. He kindly offered to drop the fuel at the marina for me. 5 gallons in 10 gallons to go. The kids running the marina were so young that none of them had cars so I was out of luck there. I the spotted an old guy sitting in hi car looking out at the water. So I went up and started a conversation. I told him about my dilemma and he offered to help. Turns out Frank lives one house down from where he was born in Thessalon. He is now 84 and loves to tinker with cars to keep himself busy. In no time flat I had 15 gallons on board and we were good to go. After a little more investigation on the gauges I discovered a loose ground and then saw we had 1/4 tank of fuel, which was what my manual calculations told me we had. We then walked over to the Royal Canadian Legion and met the local bar tender, Al. Off on the side we saw one of those vintage shuffle board tables. Well I couldn’t resist. Ther was 8 of us so we set up a mini tournament. What a hoot! We laughed until we cried. Andy and Miguella invited us back to their boat to share a wonderful dockside dinner. The rest of the crew had pizza in town. All in all it was another fantastic day with a little stress sprinkled on top for good measure.