by Johanna Wandel
Eight of us had planned to paddle from Killarney to Parry Sound in August, but at the put-in it became obvious that not all the food bags were there, and our number was reduced by one from the start. So it was only Gord, Bill, Gary, John, Johanna and Nancy who were participating in the Ron Coulson special tour of the Bay.
Our first day was a short one, to Desjardins Point. This area is riddled with premium camping spots, and we spied one that seemed to be the cream of the crop from the water – and it was unoccupied! How could all these silly people bypass this perfect spot – gently sloping landing, sculpted rock, a perfect camping ledge high above the water – for other less enticing ones? Clearly, we were the smart ones for finding it. We didn’t look so smart five minutes later, when we discovered that the gently sloping landing was extremely slippery. I got out of my boat, and I sat down in the water, because my feet slid away beneath me. From there on, we all looked like we were part of a comedy routine – try as we might, we could not get in to shore. I have no idea how Gord eventually did it, but he extended his paddle to me and hauled me in, and by this time Gary was on land and he threw a towline to Ron to bring him in. Of all of us, only Nancy figured out where to bring her boat in and I think she was the only one who never wiped out in the slime.
Our campsite really was great. It had enough room for all six of our tents, it had a downed tree that would provide an emergency shelter (and did, the next morning, when we waited out some rain), it had rocks you could wander up to take in the view. Our first night on the Bay was uneventful, but our second day out there was just chock-full of events. It started with rain as soon as we’d finished packing up. We decided to wait for a bit rather than risk being struck by lightning. So we huddled in our tree, cracking jokes, and then Bill said something about Gary’s boat not complying with the no-paddling rule. It took us a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t a joke, and that the red boat really had launched itself. Fortunately, Gord braved the slime and he and his purple boat came out as a heroes. Eventually, though, we came to the same conclusion as Gary’s boat and launched.
We paddled off into some high winds. There was wind, there was big water, there were shoals, and there was more rain. I pulled out my goofy red hat, thus becoming invincible, and loved the rough water paddling. Unfortunately, we were in the shoals, and there were lots of unpredictable spots – just as I pulled level with Nancy at one point, I saw a big rock and veered right. Nancy, however, was practically over the rock, and had taken a breaking wave just before this one and thus was not even facing this one squarely. All I saw was a wall of white, and then I saw the white of her hull, and then (to my great relief) her head pop up. Her boat, however, was sucked into the washing machine. Gary was not far ahead – and he had his boat turned around and was heading into the washing machine for Nancy’s boat before it smashed on the rocks that were 100 metres downwind before I could even register where her boat was headed. Ron went in to get Nancy. I can’t believe the skill of Ron and Gary (or rather, I can – but I’d never seen it in action like this). I can’t imagine paddling through the water Gary went into to get that boat, never mind snapping on a towline and then bringing both boats in safely to a tricky landing. I was also very, very impressed with Nancy; she was so calm and collected. She got out of her boat, hung out on the rock where her feet could touch, swam out to my boat, and then, with Ron’s help, in to shore, without a hint of panic. Even more impressively, she got back into that boat less than two hours later – and went right back into the same conditions.
Nancy’s courage notwithstanding, the wind had picked up even further, and our next crossing was eight kilometres to the Chickens, with thunder rumbling in the background. That was enough to get Ron to call for us to wait it out for an hour or two – and we landed at a nearby cottage dock. Two hours later, I was shivering and miserable, and the wind hadn’t died down; I decided I needed dry clothes with rain gear over top, and a hot drink. At the same time, the guys realized that we needed a tarp, and a flurry of activity ensued. The tarp hanging job was so good that nobody wanted to leave it, and since the water made no move to calm down, we had to get over our aversion to trespassing and pitch our tents on the rocks around the cottage. It was all we could do, really, or else Ron and Gary would have had a busy afternoon rescuing five paddlers over and over again. John asked at one point, “so, we did about six kilometres today?” and Gord shot back “sure, three up, three down.” In reality, John was close; we had covered seven in the seven hours since we’d launched form Desjardins Point. Oh boy.
Gary at the Chickens
But hey, it’s Georgian Bay, and on Georgian Bay, when it rains, it only does so for a short time, and then the sun comes out. And it did, we woke up to sparkling skies and big rollers, but none of the confused mess of the day before. We stayed out in the deep water for the most part, and it seemed like we were having a lunch break and heading for the Bustard Rocks in no time. At the Bustard Rocks (which have three lighthouses, they must be serious boat-munching rocks to warrant that), Gord and I realized that we both knew of the same campsite in the Bustard Islands, and we were on a mission to spend the night there. Ron humoured us, and we took the lead to get there. The landing was crap, the site was great, and there was swimming. And then there was dining. I had already reached the part of the trip where my dinners involve words like Lipton Sidekicks, and I had a hard time working up the enthusiasm to go through the whole thing. Lucky for me, Gord came to the rescue.
The sun continued, and we had an easy paddle day the next day; we were only planning to head as far as Champlain Island. Ron gave us a bearing. I noticed we were not following it too closely, but brushed that off with “magnetic declination” explanations to myself. But those explanations didn’t cut it after an hour, so I surreptitiously turned my GPS on – and then I had the confidence to call out to Ron. The GPS was right, we did a detour, but were still on the Churchills in time for our morning pit-stop and at Champlain Island for lunch.
The Champlain Island site was great: it was a high ledge with a great view and sheltered waters in front, and Gord hauled some rocks to construct stairs to deal with the slime at the swimming spot. We set up our tents, ate lunch and watched a bear in the neighbourhood. The poor thing; we blew our whistles at it; the people camped over at the next site blew their air horn at it. I pictured the bear ricocheting from one site to the other all afternoon, not feeling welcome anywhere.
The day after Champlain was hotter and stickier than the rest, but we had some good conditions for paddling, and we flew on down until lunch on the Naiscoot River. Bayfield Inlet is uninspiring to say the least, but we’d had a long day of paddling and there was nothing better on the horizon. Our site had flat rocks aplenty, but not even a tiny patch of shade (but Ron put up a tarp for that).
So, three great weather days, it was time for some more nasty stuff – and Georgian Bay delivered. The wind picked up overnight, and though the water was not too rough, we had a lot of headwind to plow through the next day. From Pointe au Baril to the McCoys – the last bit of our route – it was an eight-kilometre crossing, and I took the lead with Gord. That man can paddle like it’s effortless, and I was pushing and grunting and cursing him for setting that pace – but too proud to drop back. It wasn’t until we landed at the McCoys and I found myself cranky and fully into the signs of low blood sugar that I realized that my crankiness was unnoticed because everybody else was also cranky and equally low in blood sugar! Now, reasonable people would eat something at this stage; GLSKA types race to get their tents up.
The wind continued to pick up. Pretty soon, it became obvious that we needed to hang a tarp, and Ron did so. We sat under the tarp while Bill and Gord went blueberry picking, with which Nancy and I – with ingredient contributions from everyone – invented a dessert.
I’ve always thought the McCoys was a good place to be weathered in, and I’m happy to spend time there. The weather gods agreed on this trip: gale-force winds picked up during the afternoon. Gary needed a truckload of rocks to anchor his tent, which was pitched in an exposed place. In the morning, I crawled out of my sleeping bag to find the rest of the group looking out over the Bay, and I heard Ron say, “It would be foolish to be out there.” Nancy filled me in that this was actually a diminished version of his earlier opinion, which had the word “suicidal” in it. The diminishing kept up, too, because by 9 a.m. we launched anyway.
Boy oh boy was it fun
And boy oh boy, was it fun! We had following seas, and big – well over 1-metre – waves. It was a lot of fun, even when Gary surfed himself right onto a rock. Still, the water was big enough that Ron proposed we consider camping at Henrietta Point instead of paddling to the more exposed Snakes, but that site was taken – and it turned out, we all had fun crossing to the Snakes, even if by now the rollers were form the side. This was a fast group of good paddlers.
And then the Snakes. There was some swimming, there was sitting in the sun, and dinner and then there was a shooting star, and then we went to bed; and then the trip was, for all intents and purposes, over. We paddled back to Parry Sound with a good tailwind and some more fun surfing; we showed off for the tourists on the cruise boat; we watched Ron sweet talk the lifeguard into letting us land at a beach we weren’t supposed to; and next thing, we were sitting in a restaurant with burgers and beers and it was back to “reality.”