Dead End Bay (Anchor Island)

August 9-10, 2008

After a bumpy night at South Benjamin, we were looking for a well-protected harbor as some stronger winds were forecast for the area. Everything we read about Dead End Bay at Anchor Island seemed to meet our needs. As with many of the anchorages up here, the entrance is a little tricky. There are some twists and turns that you have to navigate. But as with most of the other anchorages in the North Channel, we've found that the entrances are seldom as difficult as they first appear to be when studying the charts.

Dead End Bay is just off McBean Harbor and lies in the shadow of Mt. McBean. It is a very picturesque anchorage. We had a nice stay there even though the weather didn't always cooperate. It was cloudy and rained often for the two days we were there. But in between rain storms, we did get a few dinghy and rock climbing excursions in.

We had the anchorage entirely to ourselves. One of the local fisherman would go by every so often and wave. He did stop to chat with us once. But other than that it was just us and the rain. We probably needed a weather day though. . . since we'd been pretty busy with hikes and kayaking, we ended up napping most of the days. We worked "Weather Days" into our cruising schedule. But we left out "Sleep Days".

Phil stumbled upon a radio station - 97.5FM that we could get while in Dead End Bay. This station was unusual in that the DJ actually TALKED between songs. Long dissertations about songs about cities (the theme of the show that evening). He really was just like Chris the DJ on Northern Exposure. He talked about how his father used to play Midnight Train to Georgia. He started singing a Chicago (the group) song, with piano accompaniment. But that got him on the subject of Chicago so he played Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died", a very historically and geographically inaccurate song. And then that song got stuck in Phil's and Bernie's heads. You all know the song ( "Daddy was a cop/on the east side of Chicago/Back in the USA/Back in the Bad Old Days/In the heat of a summer night/in the land of the dollar bill/When the town of Chicago died/and they talk about it still/When a man named Al Capone, tried to make that town his own ... NaNaNa NaNaNa") and now it is stuck in YOUR heads too. You're welcome. Just another service of greatlakescruising.blogspot.com - getting those annoying songs stuck in your head. ;)

After two restful days, and with our heads finally clear of that terribly annoying sony, we weighed anchor on the morning of August 11 and headed over into Oak Bay to revisit the Hotham Island anchorage where we rode out the high winds several weeks before.