Day 39 Wednesday, July 31

Day 39 Wednesday, July 31 “Wakeville”

Today we move on from Twelve Mile Bay to Beausoleil Island which will be a quick jump off spot to get to Midland which is our destination for August 1^st.  The last week basically has been a transit to get to Midland where we will leave the boat while the canvas is being made and fitted. 

Back to the day at hand though, we decide to stay on the small craft route which zig zags around rocks and shallows throughout the eastern coast of Georgian Bay.  Typically we would head out to the big water but the winds are not favourable and neither of us is interested in tacking our way to Beausoleil.  Plus we have been told it is a neat trip along the shores.

Sea doo and power boat traffic and buoy

We head out around 11:00 (having had tea and no coffee this morning) and quickly find the buoys and day markers.  There are 5 sea doos on our tail and another boat headed at us.  Some of the channel ways are pretty tight so it is interesting to move over a bit to give right of way, but not too much that you are outside the channel.

Camp Queen E

Both of us are quite amazed at the wealth.  There is just beautiful cottage after cottage after cottage.  The cottages are magazine style summer houses (not camps like northern Ontario’s standard), absolutely huge properties with lovely docks etc.  After about 3 hours we are at the north end of Beausoleil and Julie spots “good old Queen E”.  This is the childhood summer camp that Anne, Heather and Diana along with Julie went for a couple of summers back in the 70’s.  Wow, sure tugged at Julie’s memory banks.

We round a corner and there is Honey Harbour, boats everywhere, as well as boat wakes.  The channel is so narrow, that big boats call ahead to ensure there is no oncoming traffic.   We pass a grocers with dock space, but decide to keep going as we are not sure of the depth and we need slightly over 5 foot to avoid hitting bottom.  Another 15 buoys and we are now on the eastern shore of Beausoleil and ready to anchor.  Again there are lots of boats, but lots of space to anchor.

After the boat is secured we decide to launch the dinghy and head over to the grocers and get some coffee as this morning we did not have any which is a crisis by our standards.  It is only a couple of miles and the channels are well marked so we are off.  The store is a great general store with lots of selection on most things.  Not enough coffee selection but oh well, coffee none the less.

On the way back we beach at the office of the National Park to find out about fees etc.  We walk up a lovely interlock and brick walkway with fresh sod and planted trees.  Julie is disgusted as this goes against the whole National Park idea.  Where is au natural??  Is this how they spend our taxpayer dollars.  I think a woodchip path with wild grasses is a bit more suitable and more in line with managing the parks properly.  Anyways, no fees for us at anchor in the bay unless we want to use the facilities, which we do not.

The night turns out to be a long one, as the winds did not swing west until the wee hours and were more from the south vs. southwest.  Drats!

Cheers Julie and Dawson