Soon after we got the boat stern tied to shore at the anchorage in Tenedos Bay, we grabbed our bathing suits and towels and hopped into the dinghy for a short ride over to Unwin Lake for a refreshing swim in the 75˚ water. There are no real beaches up at Unwin Lake, it’s all natural with lots of logs and rocks. We found an outcropping of boulders that provided us with a bit of privacy and a shallow pool of water on a rock ledge before it dropped off for swimming.

We lingered eating apples and enjoying the mountain view on the shore of Unwin Lake.

Refreshed from our hour swim and with clean bodies we made our way back down to the bay following a rushing stream of water.

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Lots of Room in Marianne Cove Tonight!

On our way up Baie Fine, we saw this marker on shore (above). It’s a marking for the red buoy – the channel through this area is so narrow they had to mark it on the rock instead of a red buoy.

On this day we chose to try a new anchorage (new to us) at Marianne Cove. We’ve anchored at the Pool (located at the furthest end of Baie Fine) before and enjoyed that area, but we’ve heard so much about how well-protected and beautiful Marianne Cove is, we decided to stop short of the Pool and try something new. It’s a favorite of cruisers in the North Channel.

Jim is preparing the long line he’ll soon tie to a tree on the shore behind our boat. Stern tying takes some time, but well worth the effort in the end. By the time Jim is done on shore, he will have taken the rope, that is looped around that tree, to the dinghy and back to the boat. It will be tied securely to a cleat. To untie we just have to untie the rope on the cleat and pull the line into the boat. That’s the easy part.

Just after we got our anchor set and line tied to shore, we met Emily (above). She’d stopped by to say her grandparents were also anchored in the cove on the sailing vessel, Ritual. We know Lisa & Fred because we are both members of the Grand Traverse Yacht Club (GTYC) in Traverse City. It’s always nice when we bump into boaters we know while on our cruising explorations.

We dinghied around the cove one evening to meet some of the other boaters. We met the couple on this sailboat and had a nice chat. How could you not be all smiles and serenely happy spending the night on the hook in a quiet Canadian cove?

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Torch Lake has lots of fond memories for Lisa and me. We each boated here before we were married and began our boating adventures together on this lake. We used to trailer our 21-foot Four Winns Sundowner to Torch Lake to spend long weekends on the hook, but since our mode of boating has changed over the last fifteen years it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to bring one of our boats to any inland lake. We kind of like the flexibility we are now enjoying with our Ranger Tug, Kismet.

Torch Lake is named, not for its shape, but for the practice of local native Americas, from the Ojibwa Tribe, who used torches at night to attract fish

Torch Lake, Michigan – A Boating Paradise

After we squeaked under the Torch River Bridge and entered the lake we did a slow cruise around the lower perimeter of the lake passing by our friend Gene’s house on the east side of the lake not far from Clam River. We called ahead of time to see if he was home and since he doesn’t have a dock, we said we’d just buzz by so that he could have a glimpse of the new Kismet.

After seeing Gene we headed back across the lake to the west shoreline where we used to anchor many years ago. There used to be a little point adjacent to a large farm and we remembered how it stretched out along the water and made the perfect secluded place for us to anchor. It was just as we remembered, but now has more cottages lining the shoreline. We threw the hook out and settled in for a peaceful night on perfectly still water.

We’ve boated in a lot of water, all over the United States, Canada, and even the Bahamas, but the crystal clear water in Torch Lake continues to amaze us to this day. There aren’t many anchorages where you can actually see your anchor stuck into the lakebed under your boat.

The next morning we were like little kids on Christmas morning getting up early to have coffee on the back deck to enjoy our million-dollar view. Our friends, Jim and Cindy were out for a boat ride and knowing we were anchored out here this weekend found us and stopped to say hi and to also extend an invitation for dinner at their cottage that night.

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