The sun had finally burnt through and we were on our way under bright clear sky's by 1100hrs. We had no wind however the twisty St. Peters channel isn't sailable so it all worked out. WE had about 8 miles of twists and turns where you have to pay close attention to the channel buoys to stay afloat:) When in doubt slow down and check your chart. There is abit of boat traffic since this is one of the three main entrances into the lakes and the most commonly used of the three. This is a very picturesque trip with lots of neat light houses and bald eagles.
When we had finally got into the big lake and were now letting Bobby lee steer Joyce and I moved to the foredeck to relax and catch up on some reading and some rays. We noticed another Catalina heading our way in the opposite direction. We kept watching the boat as it got closer and realized we had better take some collision avoidance measures. We passed within a few 100' starboard to starboard. There was no one in the cockpit so I hailed the boat on the VHF and finally received a reply form a surprised skipper who had seen our wake after we passed ( he had been down below making breakfast????) Ya just never know....The rest of our trip was uneventful and we arrived in Baddeck at 1530hrs and were assigned to mooring #72 which was only available for one night. We were told that the mooring was located next to next to Remedious, a Hinckley 59. The crazy thing about this was the fact that 8 years ago when we were last in Baddeck we had met Franz & Mary the owners of Remedious and were invited over for drinks (wow its great to see them again as we were wandering if they made it through the financial crash in 2009), they were both with the world bank) awesome. After getting settled we took the water taxi in to do a bit of exploring. Baddeck is a great walking town with plenty to see and all the modern conveniences. We dropped by the Yacht club which was a behive of activity and were told that we had arrived at the start of Regatta week, nice. The commodore introduced himself and invited us to attend the sail past the next day and we were told that we had to come to the wine and cheese party that had live entertainment after the sail past, we always seem to luck into things like this maybe its Karma. After enjoying a few drinkls and laughs on the club deck we were off for a bite at the Mellow Cello cafe (one of our favs). With a good meal and a nice afternoon we were ready to head back to the boat. The water taxi pulled in with a full load of people including Franz and Mary, it was nice to see them and say hello again. Surprisingly they remembered us from eight years earlier, it must be my pretty wife:) A great ending to a great day and lots to do tomorrow.