2 Jul 17

The target for today is Tobermory, 67 N-m distant, the wind is fair, though light, so we were up early and away from the dock by 06:45. Outside the harbor, we tried again to swing the compass (to get the apparent heading to line up with the COG), but without success, as it was a bit lumpy with a NW swell. So, after about 15 minutes, we gave up and settled on our course for Tobermory. We motored all day long, listening the while to the audio book of John Grisham’s “Camino Island”, and the trip was totally uneventful, until we were about 2 miles from Cape Hurd (about 5 miles from Tobermory). A thunderstorm we had been monitoring up ahead for the last 45 minutes suddenly blossomed dramatically and cut off our route around the headland, with obviously heavy rain and lots of lightning bolts striking the water 2 or 3 miles ahead. At first, we just slowed down to let it pass from west to east in front of us, then stopped, then, as the wall cloud spread rapidly to the south toward us, turned around and ran south at top speed. After about 25 minutes, the nasty looking wall cloud caught up with us anyway. I could see thinner clouds off to the west, so we ran that way for a couple of miles. We got a bit of very heavy rain and a few wind gusts to 25 kn, but eventually passed behind the storm center and resumed our course to Tobermory. Our little detour cost us about 1.5 hours, but was the correct decision, given that we would have arrived at an area of challenging navigation just as the storm hit us. We finally pulled into Tobermory just after 18:00. Just as we finished tying up, “Encore” hailed us on the VHF and invited us over for Happy Hour with “Soul Mate”, who was tied up near to us; a happy reunion. Later, we all went to dinner at the Crow’s Nest Pub. A good end to the day.  

45-15.329’N, 081-39.770’W; Log = 80.0, Sum (2017) = 1026.4 N-m

3 Jul 17

We slept in late, after yesterday’s exertions, and spent the rest of the day doing laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning the boat. Then it was time for happy hour and dinner aboard. Our buddies on “Soul Mate” and “Encore” left in the morning to head for Club Island, on their way to Killarney and the North Channel. Hopefully, we will run into them again along the way.