Bob and Gail's Next Adventure: Days 127-129

Current Position: 44° 53' 52" N 79° 50' 50" W - Frying Pan Bay 7/18/17

We left Big Chute - all by ourselves for the first time in weeks. It feels strange to: a) travel alone, b) plan on anchoring tonight! We still have one lock to go through – the smallest of all the locks on the Trent Severn. First we stop at Port Severn and empty the holding tank and then head over to the lock. It is still hand operated like the locks at the beginning of the Trent Severn. About half of the locks are now hydraulic and open/close much faster. The opening is so narrow that I had trouble locating it! There was one boat tied to the blue wall (letting the lock master know they are waiting to go through). There was another boat waiting beyond the wall also waiting so we pulled in behind them. It was a long wait in the current driven water. Finally the lock opened and both the boats in front of us fit in the lock along with a bevy of jet skis! As we began to pull forward to tie to the blue line to wait our turn next time around, a go fast boat zipped in front of us and tied off! Not exactly boating courtesy! They were small enough that we knew we would both fit in so no harm and they even helped us tie up behind them so we didn’t say anything. Imagine our surprise when they informed us they were going to stop for lunch first and not go through right away! NOT ALLOWED!!! Normally this wouldn’t be an issue for us but as this was a narrow entrance with a strong current, we were concerned. Bob did inform the lock master and their only response was “they can’t do that!”. While we waited I, of course got some pictures:

The lock coming back up with more jet skis – very popular around here – they remind me of a bunch of bees buzzing around us.

When we get through the lock we have to contend with the “slalom” course below as our friends described it! On top of that, there are two boats tied up to the blue wall below that we will have to turn sharply to avoid!

When it was our turn to enter the lock-master tried to help us around the boat in front but the current was too strong and turned us sideways. Between the lock-master and our fenders we managed to stay off the wall and slowly got into the lock. I hope they gave the guys in front of us a lesson in lock courtesy when they got back from their lunch! Coming out of the lock went much better but it was a comedy with all the boat hooks out and ready to fend off our boat if needed (including our boat hook in my hands!) Thankfully they weren’t needed and Bob “threaded the needle” beautifully and we are on our way into Georgian Bay!

What an incredibly beautiful area. It’s part of the “Canadian Shield”. My nephew wrote this about the area:

Welcome to the Precambrian Shield aka the Canadian Shield a wide arch of surface to near surface igneous rocks. This area stretches from Newfoundland/Labrador through Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba Northern Saskatchewan and into Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. This is classic iconic Canadian landscape found up to the limits of tree growth on in the Arctic. Unlike sandstone, limestone found in other areas, granite, basalt and other igneous rocks have very few water soluble minerals and nutrients that leach into the water and shallow top soils. This area is very scenic and wild but has very low fertility and supports almost no agriculture.

The houses are all built on rocks as there is nowhere else to build!

They even carve their decks out of rock!

Even little rock islands have houses on them

Being a Sunday, the recreational boaters are out in force

This little guys in a “1^st Nations” (our native Americans) symbol is seen frequently and means “Welcome”

We ended up NOT anchoring, as Frying Pan Bay on Beausoleil (Bow-si-lay) Island where we stayed is in the national park and we had docks! It was a very popular bay with the locals and we ended up with no less than 6 boats tied up to a little T dock! Luckily half of them were small!

This was taken when there were only 4 of us!

It did make for an interesting departure for us in the morning as we had to duck around the beautiful wood boat tied perpendicularly in front of us. Luckily there was no current and two of the men helped shove us off the dock. After docking and meeting our neighbors we took a lovely hike on Fairy Lake trail to Honeymoon Bay.

The mosquitoes were not too bad and the view was beautiful.

The entire island is only accessible by boat so there are lots of boat campers, along with the day use boaters.

The park service provides bear proof cages to keep your food – shades of Yellowstone Park!

This couple came in on jet skis towing a canoe!

Since the hike is mostly over rock the trail can be hard to follow so they use two different kinds of markers to assist in the hikers.

The trails are well marked and we had no trouble finding our way back to our boat.

The park service even provides outhouses with a view suitably labeled “Captains Quarters”!

We were headed to Echo Bay Monday, but heard that our friends on Overtime (our buddy boat in New York) were headed to Ladas Bay so we altered course to join them. We spent the next two days with them exploring Ladas Bay and then Hopewell Bay.

Ladas Bay

Exquisite scenery

Fishermen of course

And my first Loon! They are quite common here and we love hearing their unique call.

We took a dinghy ride around Hopewell Bay

and stopped a few places to go exploring on land. Bob said our boys would have loved this area. It was as though we were the first people to ever walk here.