Gemini Loop: Little Current

It was a fairly short trip from Heywood Island to Little Current. The weather was beautiful and apparently some very small white midges thought so too. They didn't bite, but they were everywhere and didn't seem to mind the Deep Woods Off at all.

Little Current is the largest town on Manitoulin Island. There is a swing bridge to pass through that opens on the hour for 15 minutes. We only had to wait for 20 minutes - not too bad. A group of us passed through, veering off at various marinas. We docked at Spider Bay on the far side of town. The wifi works (yay!) and I spent a day sorting through all my photos and updating the blog.

Anchor Inn is the home of Roy Eaton's radio broadcast. He graciously welcomes any boaters who are in port to join him during the broadcast. We got there early so we could have breakfast first, and then went up to the conference room to listen. A few of the boaters were standing by with pads and pencils to record boat names and locations as they called in. Roy is amazing - he can understand all but the most garbled of transmissions. About 140 boaters called in Sunday morning. After the broadcast, he looked at charts with us and showed us some places to visit once we leave Little Current.

We bicycled to the local grocery store to provision for the next few days. After lunch we made another trip into town for sight-seeing. The local department store, Turner's, has been there for five generations and is still owned by the Turner family. Upstairs they have a small museum with articles and artifacts about the local area. They also have locally made items like quill-decorated boxes, hand knit sweaters and moccasins, as well as paintings, photographs and jewelry. On the way back, we rode down the boardwalk along the harbor and went to 3 Cows and a Cone. They serve Farquhar's ice cream, made here on Manitoulin Island. It was pretty good, I have to say.

There was another gorgeous sunset - not as spectacular as the one at Heywood Island, but pretty impressive. This morning (Monday) we will move on to visit new places. We will anchor out for the next two nights, so no wifi until Wednesday at least. I will keep track and keep taking pictures to update when I get a chance. I can't take photos of it, but Roy mentioned that the meteor shower is best just before dawn. Guess I will have to get up early tomorrow morning.

Nearing Manitoulin Island (in the background)

The swing bridge to Little Current

We wait with other boats, including some loopers we know

Boats heading to various marinas

The downtown marina

Spider Bay Marina

Lots of these infernal midges!

And more! Some lucky spider has food for the summer!

A beautiful sunrise - yes, I saw another one!

Sailboats tend to leave early

These are hawthorne berries. They grow all over the island and have sustained the islanders in years past when winters were hard and food was giving out. Because of that, the folks from Manitoulin Island are call Haweaters.