We departed the Benjamins on Monday the 21st making the short 15 nm jump to Gore Bay. Gore Bay is a small community on Manitoulin Island, with a short main street and downtown. It’s a laid back small town feel, the marina facilities are well kept with relatively new floating docks, new bathroom facilities and things in town close enough to walk. There’s a medium-sized grocery store with an adjoining hardware store, and some interesting shops downtown.
We took advantage of the proximity of the grocery to do some provisioning, when there’s a grocery store within just a few blocks of the marina, it’s a given we’ll be stopping in for things we need, and some we probably don’t. Weather started turning cloudy and winds piped up to 26G 35, so we signed up for a 2nd night’s stay. The 2nd day gave us the opportunity to visit the local museum and art gallery. The museum was very interesting, it’s housed in what was originally the jail house for the region. The jail cells are intact with some of the original cell doors. An interesting item was a prisoner’s table, presumably a mess table, but the compelling feature was the grafitti carved in the table’s surface by prisoners, some depicting self portrait with term of stay. The selfie of the turn of the century! Other displays in the museum depicted some interesting glimpses in to the local history.
Of interest in the marina was the Purvis, a typical Great Lakes fish tug. We had seen similar vessels in use in the Maritimes, with a similar closed in deck with large areas. Used primarily in gill net fishing, the fish tugs have been made nearly obsolete with restrictions on gill netting, and are now primarily an historical oddity. The 2nd day about exhausted our Gore Bay experience, so we departed Wednesday morning, the 23rd with overcast skies, temps in the mid-60’s and winds still in the 20 kt. neighborhood. Folks on the dock seemed doubtful that we would not turn back, but the ride, albeit a bit bumpy, was not bad enough that we were uncomfortable. So we made way toward Covered Portage on the other side of Little Current.
The departure from Gore Bay marks the western most extent of our visit to the North Channel, and the turn-around point in our Georgian Bay cruise as we begin our back track to the Chesapeake, and warmer weather!
