Day 116: Penetanguishene to Frying Pan Bay, Ontario
Day 116: Tuesday, August 9th: We did some last minute chores and bid farewell to the Beacon Bay Marina staff. They had been very helpful and friendly. We headed north out of the harbor for a short day of cruising. We passed the impressive harbor marker and got a picture this time:
We went into open water to cross behind Beausoleil Island, the largest island in the Georgian Bay Islands National Park of Canada. For those who have not been following, we are now in the southern end of Georgian Bay, a huge bay off Lake Huron. We will be following the "Small Boat Channel" north into the North Channel, another large bay at the north end of Lake Huron. It will take about a week to get to the North Channel and about 4-5 days to cross. Then we will re-enter the U.S. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
As we got to the small boat channel we came across this marker. Note it is sitting on a rock. We almost went too close to the marker (complicated story involving merging channels, heavy traffic, etc.):
We spotted this cute little craft and had to have a picture of it. Note the landscape. This is in the middle of the Canada shield (granite). The evergreen trees and pink granite rocks are very typical of the area:
We decided this was some sort of tour boat, as opposed to a ferry. Her home was Miss Midland - not far from where we had come:
We arrived at our destination at Frying Pan Bay on Beausoleil Island (pronounced "Bow-so-lay"). Since this is a National Park, they had built two small docks that would accommodate about four boats each. We go lucky and took the last available spot.
Ruth decided to take a walk and ended up following a loop trail for about five miles. She circled Fairy Lake, a pristine interior lake on the island:
Later, about an hour before dark, a huge thunderstorm made up to the east of us. It was so big that it got dark and the suction winds built to about 30 knots. This is what it looked like in the little bay:
We never got a drop of rain.
Position tonight: N44 53.797 W079 50.741
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