Barra Straight Bridge to the Washabuck River and on to Beddeck

That's the view on Saturday night from the anchorage at Campbell's Cove on the Washabuck River. The downside was that I couldn't linger outside to admire it because of the blasted mosquitoes!

In the daytime they are replaced by biting flies - a bit like horse flies but I've not seen any horses around here, just trees, trees and more trees! There is, thank goodness, a couple of hours in the early evening when the flies bugger off and before the mozzies arive

On Saturday I had a great sail from the bridge to the Washabuck, which required beating up St Patricks' Channel to the mouth of the river...

The red arroy is Bonny today (Monday) on her way to Beddeck in a flat calm.

The anchor went down in Campbell's Cove at around 7 pm.

On Sunday morning I rowed the dinghy up the 1.5 miles to the Washabuck Bridge and then a short hike up to the waterfall that feeds the river. Unfortunately all my photos of the area bar 1, are out of focus. I must have had the wrong setting by mistake...

Anti bug gear deployed.

I then explored a trail that followed the stream but it petered out in dense woodland and without much to see but more trees I decided it wasn't worth the discomfort of fighting through the undergrowth and returned the way I had come. Then it was back to the dinghy at the bridge and then back to Bonny.

After lunch I decided to move Bonny down to the mouth of the river. It was certainly sheltered where I was, but rather claustrophobic with no view and I hoped to evade the flies by being further out.

So I got the anchor up around 3pm and headed down the river - sometimes sailing with the genoa in a light wind sometimes motoring.

The anchor symbol in the above screen shot shows where I spent the night, the hazard symbol is where, with yet another lapse in concentration, I managed to run Bonny hard aground. And the tide had just started to fall! Potentially, I was stuck for 12 hours or possibly days depending on whether the tides were rising or falling!

Hard astern had no effect so I laid out the heavy Bruce anchor, which is stowed in the forward anchor locker, astern, hoping to haul us off, but all I managed to achieve was the mother of all riding turns on the winch as the knot joining two lines together went over it.

Then I tried to lean the boat over by hoisting the sails. She lent over ok, but not enough. Eventually my continued winching-in of the stern anchor, brought the rope to chain join within reach of the dinghy and I was able to attach another line to it, take that to another winch and take the strain on it which enabled me to release the massive riding turn on the winch.

Then I got the anchor up, relayed it and desperately went through the same routine again. This time the anchor held and I avoided getting a riding turn, but the boat remained firmly stuck to the bottom.

By now I was resigned to spending the next 12 hours aground and thought I'd better set an anchor of the bow to prevent the longed for incoming tide from pushing the bow into even shallower water. It would be impossible to manhandle the main anchor and it's chain out into the dinghy and so I set about removing the boat's third anchor from its home in the cockpit locker. This required removing 70% of the contents of the locker and so pretty soon the cockpit was awash with ropes, gas cannisters, buckets and all sorts of other stuff. Eventually I got the anchor out and various lengths of line to attach to it.

Then, the backed genoa caught a significant gust of wind and the bows started to turn towards deeper water. Seconds later the boat was afloat once more. I buoyed the stern anchor with a fender and motored out into deeper water.

Relief!!

Two hours later everthing was back in its proper place. Retrieving the Bruce anchor from the dinghy was the biggest challenge. It was well and truly burried in thick mud, but eventually I got it up. Mind you my back was pretty dam sore this morning (Monday).

I then continued on to my chosen anchor spot and broke open the gin! Fortunately, in anticipation of a warm day I'd made some ice in the portable freezer. 3 g+ts later I needed a snooze!

Then dinner (leftovers) and bed.

This morning I woke to thick fog which is unusual on the lakes but by 1000 it had largely cleared and we then motored the few miles to Beddeck where I picked up a mooring next to Zen Again.

After lunch, I met up with Mike and Nicci for a drink, did a bit of shopping, had a shower and then we all went out for a meal.

I'll probably stay here tomorrow and then if the weather looks suitable, head up the Great Bras D'Or channel, with the intention of leaving the lake on Wednesday for Newfoundland, either direct or via another port on the North East Coast of Cape Breton.