Diva-

Welcome to sailnet. Be aware that you can't post links until you have ten posts. Also, the photo posting is basically broken, so if you want to post an image, you'll want to use a photo sharing website, like flickr.com, and link to the image using the

icon.

 

Douglas,

I'm at the south end of the lake. You're off to a good start with your site and I look forward to seeing it develop. It was interesting to read about the environmental / ecological issues that you post on the site.

BTW, the link to the CHS chart catalog didn't work for me. I tried to find a working link with google but had no luck, could be a temporary problem on their end.

 

broken thread?

Douglas,

I'm at the south end of the lake. You're off to a good start with your site and I look forward to seeing it develop. It was interesting to read about the environmental / ecological issues that you post on the site.

BTW, the link to the CHS chart catalog didn't work for me. I tried to find a working link with google but had no luck, could be a temporary problem on their end.

I just checked the link and it's working, so the system may well have been fritzed over at DFO.

Doug

 

Welcome aboard Diva.

Here's the link to the site he is talking about.

http://web.mac.com/dwh5/Sweetwater_Cruising/Welcome.html

I'm glad to see somebody taking interest on these waters, as they are a top cruising destination. Site looks good so far. I'd be more than happy to contribute stories from The North Channel if you need any.

Good luck.

 

I like the idea of the type of information you have on the site. I hope you can keep it current and new info coming. Should attract attention given 3- 4,000 boats in the Midland, Penetang, Victoria Harbour region alone.

 

Wow! These prices are more than I pay in Annapolis. When I started on my own boat in 1989, my annuals were $150.00 on Lake Ontario.
Good luck with your endeavour, I like it.

 

Nice site. I am especially interested in the water level issue. Would be nice if you were able to keep current info updated. Ads would be okay if they were from related enterprises.

 

Wow! These prices are more than I pay in Annapolis. When I started on my own boat in 1989, my annuals were $150.00 on Lake Ontario.

And those are CANADIAN dollars too so add an extra 8% to get the American dollar price

 

Those prices are quite isolated to that region of Georgian Bay. It's only a few hours north of Toronto and is considered the richmans paradise. The average price of a cottage is over million dollars as well and most of them have helicoper pads. As you get further north or west the prices become affordable...about one 1/4 of the price.

 

Georgian Bay website

My thanks to all for the posts on Sweetwater Cruising. I've been away for a few days, and have just done some updates. A couple comments.
1. Sorry about the url posting restriction till I've made ten posts. I'll probably be moving the hosting once I have things functional.
2. I'm experimenting with ads, but in my wildest dreams I might expect to recover hosting expenses. If they get annoying to people, I'll cull them.
3. My emphasis is going to be on environmental issues. I'm working on a big report on wind farm developments. A new chart is now up, but the written report is still coming together.
4. As requested, I'm trying to keep info current. There is an update to the water levels issue. IJC has pretty much rejected the Georgian Bay Association's contention that dredging in the St Clair River is to blame.
5. I would welcome input from others around the region, but I don't want this to be a burden to others or to have people feel I'm taking advantage of them. News tips with links that I can share with everyone are welcomed.
best to all
Doug

 

Did the Okechobee lodge get bought out? Last time I went by it was closed.

 

Yes, it's now a private resort.

 

Sailormann is right in that these prices represent the prime docking,

While I am usually pleased to have been right, it wasn't me who pointed out the locale of the marinas, or their costs, so I can't take the credit there. FWIW, they are more expensive than some places on the Bruce Peninsula that I inquired about recently, but not quite as pricey as some of the marinas here in the GTA.

We pay for our pleasures

 

where credit is due



Yes, proper credit due to Mr. seamonkey. But thanks for the input on the Bruce side of things. Rates in the Midland-Penetang area have been cranking up steadily. My suspicion is that a lot of powerboaters for starters are going to start looking at that annual bill of three grand plus just for the marina space, then add on their ballooning fuel budget, as well as the weekend commute from the GTA to their boat, and wonder what they're doing with their summers.
I actually still own a powerboat, a pilothouse Fairline 29 I cruised northern Geoergian Bay's shallower nooks and crannies for a couple years. (She's on the hard right now.) I moved her up to Wright's Marina in Britt, a lovely family run facility and operated out of there for several years. I think my dockage/storage bill was about $1500 then. I've probably broken some sailnet rule by typing the word "powerboat," but there you go. A guy I think from Toronto with a Niagara 35 had also relocated to Wright's, and we could see more of this as boaters decide to drive farther to their boats to be right where they want to be, cruising wise. North of Pointe au Baril, the bay's boat traffic really thins out.

 

I guess much depends on how far you want to drive. The drive from Midland to Byng Inlet (where Wright's Marine is) is about 1.5 hours, I believe. So would rather pay it in mooring or in gas and time....also the closer you are the quicker you can have a cold one in your cockpit

 

going north



We would hit the road from the house near Midland and be in Parry Sound in about an hour. Pull in, grab some groceries for the boat, then get back on the road and be in Britt in about 45 minutes. That compares with a sensible passage of about two days by water to get to the Byng Inlet area. It was then a very short run out of Byng Inlet to two excellent anchorage choices. We'd either go south into Norgate Inlet, where friends have cottages and local knowledge is a necessity for finding the best anchorages (or even getting in), or we would go north and duck into Black Bay and hang out there. Either way, it was an easy run at 7-8 knots that we could do in an hour or so. Problem with Norgate is that the run is very exposed and if the weather turns on you once you're in there, you can literally be stuck for a couple days.
For more extended runs, we'd go into Henvey Inlet (once had a bear try to board the boat from a rock wall) or up into the French River's eastern outlet area or over to the Bad. Sometimes stopped in the Bustards, but they can be awfully crowded. Northeastern Georgian Bay is just full of terrific hideyholes.

 

I know what you mean about the washing machine. The bid stinkboaters that cruise along at half-plane ( nose way in the air stance) throw up a huge wake. Quite often they'll break plane to half-plane as they pass close by, figuring they're doing you a favour. The Miss Midland and the Georgian Queen are not so bad with their wake, but I've had to do some quick manouvering to stay out of their way in that narrow area.

We considered Collingwood and Meaford as they are closer to home but we've been in the Honey Harbour area for years and know the region well and wanted to be nearer the islands than spending all day crossing Georgian Bay.

I'll keep the Northeast area for future cruisng. Kilbear Park and the North Channel have been "dream" destinations for years. We did Kilbear this year and have to do Kilarney next year. After that we'll probably explore the in-between areas.

 

Have fun with it. The bay has no shortage of hidey-holes.
It's true that the Miss Midland has a less traumatizing wake, having a longer wavelength than those short steep monsters the megacruisers in a half-a%%ed hurry throw your way. But that wake sure can propagate for the longest time and distance. More than once we've been wallowed by a swell on Severn Sound while just daysailing and have looked around and can't see ANYTHING. We know it's leftover slop from the Miss Midland, booming her way up to the Cognashene.
We're supposed to get snow squalls today. I hate winter already.

 

It seems to me that the area north of Parry Sound & south of Killarney is the least travelled. Folks coming from south Georgian Bay for a week turn around at Parry Sound. Cruisers coming from Tobermory head to Killarney or the North Channel. I know, speaking from experience!

 

No question. A lot of people coming out of Killarney pick the Bustards as a stopover and then move on to Britt/Byng Inlet or go straight to Parry Hoot. (and I can recall the crew at the CG rescue station at Byng Inlet firing across the bay in the IRB to get fish and chips in Killarney). A whole lot of the northeast is underexplored as a result. (And some of us kind of like it that way...)

 

any articles about sailing north from Florida to Canada in April?

 

None by me. But you'd better define "Canada" and "April" pretty firmly. Others can answer better (and you should probably create a new thread), but you have to decide whether that means Atlantic Canada or up the ICW and HUdson and Erie Canal, and actually expect functioning services and navaids free of ice. On Georgian Bay, the goal with navaids is to have them fully inspected and serviced by the May 24th weekend. And we often have ice right into late april, although Lake Ontario and Erie free up sooner.

 

50th anniversary of cruise guide

I was inspired today to write one of the most tardy book reviews in publishing history. It will be 50 years next June since Cruising the Georgian Bay was published by Kenneth McNeill Wells. It's one of the greatest cruising "guides" ever written, long out of print, but available for not too much from antiquarian sellers. Wells had a global following for his Owl Pen books on bucolic rural life, but he wrote several books about cruising various waters, and the one on Georgian Bay, published in 1958, was a witty gem. If you cruise Georgian Bay, you'll really appreciate this frozen-in-time look at the bay before the small craft route and all the cottages showed up. You can read my piece by visiting www.sweetwatercruising.com and following the link in "features."

 

trees of Georgian Bay, Well Favored Passage

Just another quick notice of some new things I threw on the website today.
The classic guide to the North Channel, by the late Marjorie Cahn Brazer, Well Favored Passage, has just been updated. Info on the publisher (I'm not getting a nickel) is on the main page under Signals. Also there is a beautiful new poster featuring the trees of Georgian Bay, just issued by the Georgian Bay Land Trust, as a fundraiser. The GBLT just entered into an agreement to buy most of Sandy Island and has to come up with the cash to complete the deal. Without trusts like this, the bay can't be preserved from runaway development. Best bet if you want one is to use the email link to the GBLT or the phone number. Again, no nickels for me, just something cruisers might want to help out with.
www.sweetwatercruising.com

 

Diva-

What's with all the colors??? Your site is worse than a bad Hawaiian shirt. Also, it looks like you've got ransom note syndrome going on.... just cause you can use a dozen colors and fonts...doesn't mean you should. Also, a little space before each new paragraph would make the text a lot more readable.

 

Thanks for the frank feedback. I'm fighting with font display, ripped out a pile of ads that just plain annoyed me with their presence. Yes, as I have built up the features area it's been getting Hawaiian shirt syndrome. The linked pages are much more austere. I'm getting there...but not actually getting any real work done.
doug

 

Wish you were here

In my neverending quest to fritter away valuable professional time dickering with html code, I added some live webcam feeds (not many turned on this time of year) as well as some data feed from weather buoys. Here's what came in from 45003 on southern Lake Huron, as snow squalls screeched through. A perfect day to go test a new triradial chute.

Station 45003
November 29, 2007 3:50 pm EST
Location: 45.35N 82.84W or 0 nautical miles N of search location of 45.35N 82.84W.
Wind Direction: WSW (250°)
Wind Speed: 27 knots
Wind Gust: 35 knots
Significant Wave Height: 10 ft
Dominant Wave Period: 8 sec
Atmospheric Pressure: 29.95 in (1014.3 mb)
Pressure Tendency: +0.10 in (+3.3 mb)
Air Temperature: 26°F (-3.4°C)
Water Temperature: 45°F (7.0°C)

 

Running out of water

The latest issue of Level News from Environment Canada is just out (Dec. 6) and already the forecast for next summer is looking very grim indeed. It's predicting that levels on Michigan and Huron will hit the record lows of the mid 1960s and possibly keep right on going. Drawing more than 4 feet is going to be pretty exciting in a lot of places.
As always, it's up on my website, but the direct link is:
http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/water/level-news/ln200712_e.html

Read it and weep. Or book your keelboat in now for that winged keel retrofit you've always dreamed about. My club was planning to dredge the whole basin next fall, but it now looks like we'll have to do it in the spring, if we actually want the boats to float when we relaunch.

 

Diva-

Just took a quick look at the site... looking much better.. However, you might want to make the page a bit wider. Most people aren't running sVGA resolution anymore. Most computers are running at least XGA.

You should also have the header image have alt tags and make it a hyperlink to the sweetwatercruising.com homepage.

The list of site features below the header image really should be links to the sections named.

The three links at the top, in the colored bar, should probably have the text clickable as a hyperlink.

In the articles section at the top...you should also make the text, the headlines at least, hyperlinks to the article as well as the photos. On your article pages, you should probably keep the header that you've got on the main page, since it would make the site more "visually uniform" and allow you to navigate out of the articles a bit more easily.

Might also want to increase the "leading" on the text in the right-hand column, as it would make the text a bit more readable.

 

AS always, the feedback is appreciated. Ironically, I had DECREASED the page width after another site operator complained to me that he couldn't fit the site on his laptop screen...You just never know how old-school you should make something.
One of the problems with hyperlinked text (at least with iWeb) is that the colour it wants to assign the text makes it hard to read, which I've tried to get around by creating clickable buttons. There must be a way around this. This plainly requires more fiddling.
I might eventually have to migrate out of iWeb, but so far it's been at least functional, and I've figured out how to work within it with respect to Google's demands with respect to thinks like sitemap and verification. I also gave up worrying about meta tags in the header because it turns out Google much prefers to do deep-crawl of the page content.
I chip away at this thing when I can. It might be another week until I deal with the next round. But the main thing is that it's evolving and I'm gettting information up and circulated.

 

Diva-

You could always make the site a variable width site with fixed width outer columns, but I don't think iWeb can handle that yet.

BTW, you should be able to fix the color of the text in the css files. If you need advice or help, drop me a PM or an email.

 

Hey, I fixed the link text colours in the blink of an eye. I thought there was only one colour setting for a page, but it turns out you can customize it for each link.
I'm dragging this thread off topic, but much thanks for all the advice. I'll go with private messages going forward.
best
Doug

 

Cruising the Georgian bay

Just aquired a copy of said book by Ken Wells, 1958 Kingswood House, and am part way through. Having sailed the Bay in the lates 70's I really enjoy his wit and the descriptions of what went before. The pictures of harbours of the time are equally interesting.

Anyway Doug I have applied to MBSC for a berth although I understand the dredging is not going to plan so I am hopefull a shallow draft Iroquois cat (same as Cheers) may find space and I get to meet you.

Regards,

John

PS: have perused your website, well done.