Spanish

Spanish is a small community on the Whalesback Channel that was a logging town but is now mainly catering to boaters. The Municipal Marina has a stone break wall and a good low dock for transient boaters to tie up to during the day to reprovision. There is a walkway of steps where you can climb up to a windmill and see a panoramic view of Whalesback Channel. They have a nature trail and a really nice club house. The club house has a gym, a sitting lounge, a good laundry facility, a conference type room and lots of clean showers and washrooms.  The complex is air conditioned.  A memorable day it was for the crew of the North Star because we had our first hot shower since June 23!!!
The Town has one grocery store that was well stocked and the beer and liquor store combination was easily accessible. There is even a Rona hardware store. It is a 20 minute walk from the dock but we have our bikes so we made three trips to get everything we needed. The terrain is fairly flat so no big deal, it was good exercise.
We left at 6:00 to go anchor at Green Island for the night (N46 09.677' and W082 23.071'). The water in the Whalesback is brownish, not clear water we have been spoiled with. The temperature is still in the mid to high 70 degrees.
 The North Channel is more rugged and less populated than Georgian Bay so we can usually walk on shore and explore. The mosquitoes are thick at dusk but otherwise we are fine during the day.  It appears that when the anchorage is on a larger body of water as opposed to a cove, we get these small fast moving biting flies and deer flies. The water is quite deep so you are usually anchored in 20 feet of water so this requires a fair amount of rode. The bottom is often a layer of clay over rocks and provides good solid holding.
Today we are off to John's Harbour west of John Island to anchor for the night.

Spanish Marina walkway

North Star at Spanish Marina

Spanish Municipal Marina

Panoramic view of the Whaesback Channel