August 7-13

Sunday was a quiet day at Queen’s cove.  We went into town to do laundry and then I relaxed for the remainder of the day.  Andy needed to do some repairs to one of the railings.  Wayne from Docked Wages, who was across from us, took Andy to Midland to get some materials, as the local hardware didn’t have what he needed.  By nightfall he had the rail back together and the crack filled in with wood filler.

On Monday, we decided to stay another day at Queen’s Cove, as Jamie, an engineer that Andy had worked with in Hamilton in 2012, was going to stop by.  I spent the day cleaning the outside of the boat, and killing spiders.  Andy called around to  marinas in Georgian Bay and along the TSW looking for winter storage prices.  The best price he obtained was in Buckhorn and since we had good service from them when we stopped for the prop repairs, we agreed to keep the boat there.  Do you know what this means?  Well for one  we’ll be going in reverse and back about 120 mile along the  TSW which means more locks – 13 to be exact   this will bring our lock count up to 201 for the trip.  Yippee- thought I was done with locks for a while!!  But it also means we’ll be going back to Kawartha Ice Cream country and that will make it worth it!!  Well almost! I think this is likely why the Captain agreed to this storage location.

Jamie arrived at about 7 and we had dinner and a great visit.We cracked open the 2^nd bottle of champagne  and celebrated some moreAndy had last seen Jamie when she stopped by Queen’s Cove just before he had set off on the loop.  Jamie stayed the night, and left just after 6 am Tuesday, as she had to go back to the job site in Parry Sound.

Once the gas docks opened we moved the boat and filled up and pumped out.  We then set off north and west across Hogs Bay and Severn Sound to the main channel.  We went by Picnic Islandand Honey harbor and north of Beausolei Island.  We then got into the Muskoka landing channel and followed it into Big David Bay and then into the O’Donnell channel.  At O’Donnel, there are 3 Parks Canada islands where we saw lots of people sunbathing and swimming amongst  the rocks.We continued on towards  San Souci and frying pan  islands,.  The plan was to meet Stillwaters II and another looper boat  at Henry’s for supper and  stay the night this was about a 40 mile trip.    Henry’s is  accessible by boat or plane,  dockage and power are provided to boaters for a fee.

 

There were at least 5 planes that landed on the bay and brought people in for supper.  We  went for an early supper at 4:30   and almost all of us ordered pickerel, choices were pan fried or deep-fried, and came with coleslaw,  beans, fries or rice and rolls.  Following supper we moved to a picnic table for some beer tasting—Jamie had left a selection of her favourite craft beers and we shared samples with our looper friends.After the beers, we returned to the dining room for dessert, which was either pie, chocolate brownie cake or butter tarts. So now I can say I’ve been to  the famous Henry’s, this was Andy’s 3^rd visit.   Another great evening with new friends.

We left shortly after 9 on Wednesday and followed Leary Lynn from  the dock,we didn’t have a definite plan for the day so decided to join them at an anchorage near Windsor Island .  To get there we went through the Waubuno channel which runs south of Parry sound and  went past Snug Harbourand then through the canoe channel which is a short narrow channel not recommended for boats over 40 feet.  Neither of us had a problem and didn’t see less than 9 feet of water.  Once out we went around Franklin Island  and followed a channel into Windsor.  There was 2 sailboats and a Carver Santego anchored there, we each found a spot and dropped anchor.  Later in the afternoon we went for a swim, and found that some of the rocks on shore had very steep drops, whereas there were other places where there seemed to be a ribbon of rocks very close to the surface.Extreme precision was needed when dropping the anchor in these waters.   We dinghied over to Leary Lynn’s boat for a visit. Andy tried some casting, but the fish were not biting.  On  Thursday we left Windsor about 9 and weren’t sure what our destination would be, we had considered going to Byng Inlet, but decided maybe we would only go as far as Point au Baril.  On our way through the Shawanaga inlet we  encountered Stillwaters II and followed them through the Point au Baril channel. They had plans to anchor out at mile 44.  Once we passed Point au Baril light , Andy used his prior knowledge from 2015 and took us through the Hangdogs Reef.  That was an experience, a narrow channel with several sets of markers and  a number of  180 degree turns required to avoid the rocks protruding through the water.

Once through we ended up in Alexander passage, there were some older cottages in this areaand modern ones too.We were  close to where  Stillwater II was anchoring and it was only 12:30 so we decided to go on to Britt.  Wright’s Marina, was where we had kept our boat the winter of 2014, and Andy wanted to talk to the owner.  We passed through the Norgate rocks, which weren’t as bad as the hangdogs, and went up Byng Inlet to Britt arriving at about 2:15,We  left at 2:30 heading back to the anchorage off Alexander passage.  We arrived around 4:45, and passed these kayakers.Following supper, Andy did some fishing and caught 2 Bass.  We dingyed over to Stillwaters II for our final visit with the Texans. We exchanged pictures that we had taken of each other’s boats in the past couple of days.

On Friday we left the anchorage  at 7:15,it was overcast and  they were predicting rain and wind- we wanted to put in as many miles as we could prior to any rains. Our first task was to once again go through the Hangdog reef.  Not as easy with the wind blowing and waves, but the Captain managed to get us through although it was pretty tense at times.

After passing Port au Baril, we met up with Leary Lynn and Perfect Day, loopers who were headed to Britt.  Andy warned them about the hangdogs and the wind.  They were planning on going farther out into Georgian Bay to avoid them.    We passed through the Canoe channel  going the other way  and took a new route  into  the  Parry Sound.  There was a flotilla of 14 boats leaving Killbear marina headed east.  We arrived in Parry Sound and passed by the coast guard station and the town marina.We had to wait for the 1:00 opening of the swing bridgeand then took the south channel back to Georgian Bay,   this part was new for me and there were lots of narrow channels, as well as lots of cottages and small  runabouts going to them.   We saw and island for sale and met a tour boat- Chippewa.We continued on and the wind and waves picked up from the bay when we weren’t protected by islands.  Saw another island for sale.we ended up taking the Monument channel and anchoring in a Bay for the night.  We had traveled about 68 miles.Although they had predicted rain all day , by 8:30 pm, we still hadn’t experienced any, but it had been overcast for most of the day.

When we  got up the captain found that his pickerel rig which he had set seemed to be under the boat.  However he couldn’t pull it up, so the captain had to dive under the boat to retrieve the fish and the line around the strut.  He’ll do anything for fish!!   It was another Bass.It did  rain through the night, it seemed to stop  somewhat so we weighed anchorage at 9:30 Saturday morning.    After  the Monument channel we followed the Muskoka and main channels.  We  checked out Frying pan bay on Beausoleil islandjust when the rain was starting again, but there was no space available at the docks,so we continued on.    We went by Picnic island and turned into Beausoleil Bay and went to the dock at Cedar Spring.     As we tried to dock the wind picked up, so luckily there were several people that helped us tie up.  We checked in and after the rain stopped, we went for a  short walk.   People came out from other boats to swim, but there were some ominous clouds across the bay, and tornado warnings in parts of Ontario.

Andy visited with Ken and Bob on the next boat.  We saw a water snake swim by.Our neighbours had seen a black bear on the hiking trail here yesterday, sorry Dave Fuller- you missed it.  Hope you see one before you leave Canada.

Tomorrow we plan to cross Severn Sound and go through the lock at Port Severn  and then tie up at the bottom of the big chute railway.