We had been holed up in Byng Inlet at Wrights Marina for three days waiting for a small craft advisory to lift. Wrights on the north shore of the Magnetawan River about 6 kilometres inland from Georgian Bay so well protected from the wind. Weather forecasts were showing a possible travel day on Sunday or Wednesday.
We heard the wind drop off around 11 on Saturday night so we were hopeful conditions would be okay on Sunday. The only issue was how long it would take for the waves to calm down after a 2-day blow.
No need to get up at the crack of dawn on Sunday as it can take 24 hours for the “bay” to calm down. At 8 a.m. it was sunny and dead calm at Wrights. The northern Georgian Bay weather buoy (45137) reported realtime conditions as waves less than a foot; wind at 3 knots. Good enough to head out to see what the conditions were like.
We had three routes planned: one directly across to Killarney (6 hrs), the second following the small craft channel in mostly protected waters (8 hrs), and, finally, turn around and head back to Wrights for another day or two. We popped out of Byng Inlet and were delighted to see quite acceptable conditions. A little choppy and disorganized but okay for a cross bay cruise.
Moon Dance was on a heading of 3140 or roughly NW for most of the day. Other than slightly higher waves when we crossed shallower water, the condition were as predicted. We were benefitting from calm conditions between several weather systems. There were two distinct cloud patterns.
Both cloud patterns are visible on the satellite image . Killarney is roughly below the S in Sudbury.
Very happy to be in Killarney.
Moon Dance IV 