Trying to find the Border

Photo credit: Maggie Tate, Currently

We were up early and pulled away from the dock in Gore Bay just after 6 AM. Our friends on Currently were leaving as well and took this photo of us as the sun was coming up. It was a beautifully calm day and the sun rose with a warm glow on the horizon. That morning, six weeks into our adventure, we really felt like we were "starting" our Great Loop. Heather had butterflies in her tummy. That's because we were finally leaving our familiar cruising grounds and heading for unknown

Currently leaving Gore Bay beside us

territory. It wasn't just unknown territory, it was actually a new country!

For the first time ever, Sea Clef was going to cross the border into the United States! It seemed so strange to cross into the USA without a lineup at the border crossing. In fact, the only line was on our charts and we were debating about when we actually crossed the invisible border. How did we go through Customs? We used the CBP Roam app on Cam's cell phone. Eventually, we had a video interview with a Customs Officer and then we were cleared. I had to bring up the part about bringing live animals into the country, since Frodo was with us. They asked a couple of questions and that was it. Easy peasy!

After arriving in Drummond, our friends from Currently invited us to go out for dinner, which was perfect since we had no food on board. We rented a beater courtesy car from themarina for $20; a 1970's GMC pickup truck. We felt like we had borrowed our Dad's old car! Maggie and Bruce were in the back and they said that one of the seatbelts wasn't working. This would end up being the only courtesy

car we had to "rent" and it was the oldest beater too. However, we had a nice dinner out and on our way back we saw a deer and a maple sugar bush. The sugar bush was a first for Currently so we got to share all of our Canadian Sugar Bush knowledge with them.

The weather was not great the next day but we were able to get our groceries (Yay! We had food!) and we had a nice ride through town. It's not a big island and we drove from one end to the other. This time we saw a Fawn and two Sandhill Cranes.

Some of our boat neighbours left, so we decided to switch slips, fuel up and get a pump out. Unfortunately, we had a miscommunication with each other on the

way out of our slip, along with a lot of wind, and we bumped the dinghy hard into the dock, adding a little twist to our dingy davit system! Bummer! A young man, named Alex, from a neighbouring sailboat came over to help Cam assess the damage. The manufacturer told us that it would be okay to use and it seemed to be working. With this much travelling, these things should be expected once in a while. We took the moment as a learning experience and discussed how we communicated on our headsets so we could avoid a repeat performance.

The next day we left, heading toward the Les Cheneaux Islands, also called "The Snows" by locals. We ended up going all the way to Hessel as we changed our plans due to expected high winds. After we were securely tied up in Hessel, we went for a huge dinghy explore of Les Cheneaux Islands. There were a lot of beautiful cottages and the scenery and towns were lovely. Our intended anchorage was

beautiful and we reconnected there with Alex who had helped Cam with the dinghy the previoius day, along with his wife Jenn. We would keep in touch with them over the next several months. The highlight of going to Hessel was the Les Cheneaux Culinary School Restaurant. The students go to school from September to May. They get a week off and then they start a three month internship from June through August serving and cooking at the restaurant. It was a very tasty night!