On to the Georgian Bay

We’ve been looking forward to The Georgian Bay since we started to plan the trip.  There are literally thousands of islands. In fact, one section is called Thirty Thousand Islands just to put the Thousand Islands in their place. Lots of islands have cottages, but most of them are uninhabited. Evergreens and maples line the granite shores.  The boating can be a bit treacherous as there are probably forty thousand rocks waiting just beneath the surface for the unsuspecting mariner.  Fortunately, there’s an inside passage that’s very well marked and is pretty well guaranteed to have depths of at least five feet. 

There’s a sense of freedom after being on the Trent Severn waterway.  There’s only one way to go on the Trent; on the Georgian Bay, there is one general direction but thousands of options. Some boaters are traveling from marina to marina.  We like to anchor out in some remote, quiet coves for a few nights and then have a night in a marina.  Our style poses a few problems.  First, we need to get off of the small boat channel so we need to be careful. Second, we can’t just pick any anchorage; it needs to have access to the shore for Millie. (Millie update to follow). If you’re still with me and didn’t jump right to the update, lots of the coves have cottages, and there isn’t a way to get Millie to shore.  So, we hunt out Parks Canada and Provincial islands that look fun and not too far off the path because they provide a dinghy dock for us to make landfall for Millie. 

 

Our first two nights were at Beausoleil Island, a Parks Canada Island.  While the island was not exactly quiet, it did have wonderful hiking and biking trails.  Staying two nights gave us an opportunity to get the bikes out and have a nice ride around the island.  We met a fellow Back Cove owner who lives in the area and gave us lots of good advice on anchorages. Thank you, Glenn and Kim!

 

Millie Update:

Millie is doing great!! She does prefer being on anchor as she doesn’t get disturbed by people, other canines on docks or lock walls, or just friendly folks coming to say hi.  We picked up some Composure pills that are basically a natural sedative so she would be a little calmer in the locks.  With her first dosage, we messed up the timing- we gave it too early.  She basically was knocked out for the passage to the lock and was in her full glory during the lock. She’s not a big swimmer so it’s hard to get her cooled down.  Yesterday was pretty hot and she did let Chrisy spray her with a little water and she seemed to enjoy the cooling mat. We have just purchased clippers to give her a trim...we will post the "before" and the "after" photos once she gets her first non-professional trim.

 

After Beausoleil, we got really adventurous and went to Port Rawson Bay.  We heard great things from our Canadian buddies so we decided to give it a shot. We certainly were not disappointed.

If you can see the yellow line - that's our path off of the main channel.

We were one of four boats in the Bay at Port Rawson.  It's a state park so there weren't any cottages on the shoreline, but there was a nice dock that we could bring Millie to.  Sadly, there were no trails so she didn't really get any exercise.  While that wasn't ok with Millie, it was perfectly fine with Chrisy who somehow found out that there might be rattlesnakes on the islands.  She basically stayed on the dock while Roger walked Millie in the small woods. 

We had a bit of a problem with the outboard at Port Rawson - it wouldn't start.  Tried lots of different techniques with the choke, pulled the kill switch in case it was flooded, and finally drained the carburetor in case there was some bad fuel. We don't think that was the issue, but it did start shortly after.  A bad dinghy motor would have a serious impact on our cruising style as we would have to be in marinas. 

Port Rawson Bay

After Port Rawson Bay we went around the corner to a really skinny anchorage (Shotgun Bay) where we were one of two boats.  Another state park, another nice dock, and another small rattlesnake-infested walking area so Chrisy stayed on the dock. Lots of paddle boarding for Chrisy at both anchorages and an introduction for Roger.

Shotgun Bay

Someone is very happy that the dinghy engine is working.

 

Roger dominating the paddle board