I made my annual trip up north in February, but something was very different this year. For the first time in living memory, the bay didn’t freeze. Sometimes winters have more ice than others, but this one didn’t have any on the bay. The smaller channels had somewhat frozen water, but it still wasn’t very safe to walk on. When we go up north in the winter, we typically walk out to the island and hike sometimes for miles just wandering around on the ice. That couldn’t happen this year though. We didn’t have our kayaks with us, so kayaking to the island wasn’t an option either. Though it was so frustrating to see Action Island in all its chilly glory and not be able to get to it, we still all had a fun time hanging out with our mainland neighbors in Parry Sound.
The shore at our friends’ place:
Somewhat frozen water in a channel:
More at the shore:
The closest we could get to the island was viewing it with the zoom on my camera from the shore:
As promised, here are some more pics from our day long boat ride.
First, we checked out the old Ojibway Hotel in Pointe Au Baril. It’s been restored and is now a local club.
After our picnic, it was off in the four foot waves to Red Rock to see the lighthouse. You’re officially out of Parry Sound and in the big water of Georgian Bay when you get to here. The lighthouse has eight foot thick cement walls to keep it safe during big storms.
Next stop – Snug Harbour
This neat old tugboat was there.
All in all in was a great boat trip. I’m already planning another day long boat adventure.
It’s the worst closing the cottage weather ever! There’s lots of rain and the water is at its highest point in years – well over a foot higher than two weeks ago when I was up. We are probably a little over a foot from being at the high water mark. The island dock is three inches underwater and to get to the mainland from the cottagers’ dock, you have to go in thigh / almost waist deep water. It isn’t pretty. The good side – the water is much warmer than the air. I’ve only been here 12 hours so far and I already feel like a dirty cottager. I think I’ll go bathe in the big waves in a bit.
After patching things up, Toadie and Frank decided to take the high road and go to the end of the island together. They even made a new friend when they got there. Toadie and Frank really seem to enjoy the end of the island. I think that they will be staying there for a while.
They have new names…..Toadie and Frank. Soon after getting their bearings and getting used to being on dry land again, Toadie and Frank argued about whether or not they should take the path less traveled or not. This led to them keeping their distance from each other for a while.
After a very rough trip out to the island from town, our friends made it to Action’s rocky shore. This really must be quite an adventure for them. I wonder if they have names. What should we name them? Any ideas?
A new adventure started today for our new found friends. Though we aren’t sure where our friends’ story began, we found our new pals at the town dump. At the dump, people leave things next to the dumpsters if they thought that the items were too nice to just throw out. Over the years, we have gotten some interesting items from the dump – everything from perfectly good frying pans to lawn furniture. When we were at the dump today, we found our two new friends and a really pretty framed drawing of lighthouse that someone made. I’ll have to take a pic of it once we hang it up here. Anyway, back to our friends…here they are starting their watery journey to Action Island. They look so excited about their upcoming boat trip, don’t they? I’ve always wanted a gnome to take pictures of in random places (like Matthew Good did in the ‘Antipop’ video). Who knew that instead of just having one gnome, I’d have two? More pictures of their island adventure to come…
I’m back. Sorry for not posting for the last week or so. Victoria managed to get a virus on my computer, so I had to take a bit of an unexpected hiatus. Now that the lappy is up and running again, hopefully I’ll be good to go for the rest of the summer. It’s not 100% fixed yet though. I have to see if I can get the wifi extender working again. We had to put Windows 7 on the laptop and the newest drivers that exist for the extender are for Vista. Not sure if that will do the trick or not. I’m posting from town until we see if we can get the extender working again. *grumble*
Anyway, I had to leave the island for a bit last week to go to Albany, New York for the annual classic hearse/ambulance/limo meet. It was lots of fun. It was good to see all of my car friends and see some neat cars that I haven’t seen before. Now that the meet in Albany is over, the focus is on Ohio. We’re hosting next year’s meet, so once the summer is over, our planning will be going into full gear.
Below are some of my favorite pics, along with the video from our sound and light show at the end of the meet.
I’ve been wanting to shoot a video going through Hole in the Wall by kayak for a long while now. Almost a week of crummy weather slowed that idea down, but a few days ago, I went for a long 7+ mile kayak trip and I made this video. The internet has been not completely reliable as of late, but I finally got it uploaded yesterday. So here is Hole in the Wall by kayak. Enjoy!
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