Snug Haven (Georgian Bay)

[Kyle]The morning we left Parry Sound, another cold front went through. As we prepared to depart, the cold rain made the prospect of going outside, even under the cover of the bimini, decidedly unappealing.

Unlike the other trips we have done in Georgian Bay so far, this one started with a transit through a swing bridge that was right around the corner from our anchorage. It only opens once every two hours, which didn't allow us the luxury of waiting another half-hour for the last wave of rain to pass if we wanted to get through before the morning was gone. By the time the bridge was swinging closed behind us, the rain had stopped and the building wind was swinging to the northeast.

Starting the trip via the Rose Point Swing Bridge, and then seeing plenty of sea-plane traffic (some closer than others)

We were now out of the wind shadow of the narrow channel and in the wide part of Parry Sound. We shut down the engines and unrolled the jib, leaving a reef in, which raises the foot of the sail to make it easier to see any fast-moving traffic approaching from that side. Even way under-canvassed, the sail was propelling us faster than the engines would have. The only problem, for me especially since I was the sucker at the helm, was that the wind was cooold.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. The front had brought the air down from the Arctic, but by the time it got to us, the objective reading on our outdoor thermometer was already up to 16C. That was still five degrees less than we have been used to seeing and with the wind chill thrown in, it was hard for me to keep warm even though I was bundled up in layers. When the sky rapidly cleared at noon, the sun offered little relief as it was now high enough in the sky to leave me completely shaded by the bimini. By the time we pulled into our anchorage at Snug Haven, just south of Snug Harbor, I was actually shivering.

Of course, after pulling out of the wind and with the help of the bright sunlight coming through the windows, we were back to having a proper summer again after twenty more minutes. Our anchorage is surrounded by cottages and a couple of lodges, which all provide enough water-toy traffic from people enjoying the place to give it a quiet, lived-in feel without being too busy to relax.

Since Snug Harbor is on the mainland and has a tiny marina fed by a road, we took the opportunity to go ashore. Most of the land around here is private, so there are no walking trails, per se, but we were able to exercise our legs by doing a reasonable-sized walk on the lightly used end of the ever-narrowing road.

Afterwards, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at Gilly's Restaurant. Almost all of the reviews we have read compare it directly to Henry's, since they both offer similar fare and both seem to be on the regular seaplane route. The consensus seems to be that Gilly's portions are smaller, but the food is much better. After the walk, we were really looking forward to it.

Despite the lunch rush ramping up, we were able to get a table immediately. We got our drinks and then had to apologize to our server on her next few visits for not yet having figured out what we would like to order. Maryanne and I promised each other to focus and the next time our server paid us a visit, our order was zapped to the kitchen from the iPad slung over her shoulder.

That concluded the table service portion of our visit.

Maryanne and I tend to be very patient in such situations. After all, it's not like we need to be rushing back to the office. Still, even though we could see our server (one of many) going back and forth between other tables and the bar, we hadn't been checked on for what was starting to seem like an inordinate amount of time (well over 40 minutes). We scanned the room and noticed that very few other tables had food either, so it wasn't just us. One poor couple still looked like they were waiting for menus.

We decided to continue being patient, but we're in Canada, so that hardly drew any more attention to us. We then started a campaign to flag our server down, but it took Maryanne fifteen more minutes to get her attention to ask about the status of our food. By then, it had been an hour since we had finished our waters. She said she would go check.

A few seconds later, she popped back to say they were working on it, which we understood to mean the kitchen had just heard about it. A few minutes after that, she came by again to say that the cook had gone off-line, the owner was making our food. Well, let's hope the owner has been keeping their hand in and still remembers how to cook.

Within the next ten minutes, all the occupied tables in the restaurant were covered with plates full of piping-hot food that left trails of steam behind the waitstaff as they emerged from the kitchen.

Our portions were not as small as we expected, but it would also be a stretch to categorize the flavor as "amazing" as many have. I had the same thing at both Henry's and Gilly's, allowing for a direct fish-wich-to-fish-wich comparison. In a blind taste-test, I believe both versions would be tasty, but interchangeable. Their recipe for tomato-based french-fry dipping sauce was even almost identical down to the red squeezy bottle dispenser.

That's when I figured out the thing about Gilly's reviews. Maryanne and I once ate at a restaurant in Scotland that had a Don Quixote quote painted on the wall: "Hunger is the best sauce in the world." By the time anyone at Gilly's gets their food, bread and water would taste like ambrosia. I don't mean to say their service is slow, but by the time we got back to our boat afterwards, it was the Google Earth picture for that spot. Some of the cottages had their Christmas lights up.

Okay, that last one probably doesn't mean that much. A lot of the cottages up here seem to have their Christmas decorations on permanent display. It seems to be less an abundance of the Christmas spirit than a case of the last owner putting them up, then not surviving the winter. At any rate, if you want to go to Gilly's for a nice dinner, do what we did and go for lunch. Otherwise, it's very charming.

{Maryanne:Gilly's also had a splendid icecream shop AND sold smoked fish AND a selection of basic provisions all of which we enjoyed. But mostly it was so nice to get ashore and have a reasoanble length of walk to stretch the legs and give us a half-decent bit of exercise}

We also spent a day kayking aroud Snug Haven where we found some great skinny 'kayak' channels.

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Anchorage location On google maps

Parry Sound (Georgian Bay)

[Kyle]Our next leg to Parry Sound weaved a sinuous route through dozens and dozens of islands along a channel that varied in size between deep, wide sounds and narrow, rocky passageways barely big enough to fit a boat the size of Begonia. Even though it was blowing pretty hard in the main expanse of Georgian Bay, we had light winds and flat seas the whole way. We set anchor in a quiet bay just out of the main traffic zone fed by the towns and marinas around the tourist center of the village of Parry Sound.

Passage was via 7 mile narrows

Rain moved in for the night, covering the area in a gray blanket of gloom. It lightened up in the morning, so we boarded the kayak for an extended paddle of the area. We might have jumped the gun a bit because as soon as we were too far from Begonia to sprint home, the rain started again. Kayaking can be a wet way to get around anyway, so we weren't too bothered by it as the temperature was still quite comfortable.

The weather probably helped keep most of the leisure traffic out of the main channel. That kept us from having to deal with dodging too much traffic or having to ride out many wakes while we were transiting it to get to the more protected little inlets. Our favorite part was an unplanned side trip up the Boyne River. It was just wide and deep enough for a kayak as it wound over a mile between the main channel and the head of navigation at a small, rocky rapid. Along the way, we slid past flowers and reeds topped with cattails.

We did our usual thing of poking into each of the little channels and coves we could find. By the time we made it back to Begonia, we had been out long enough that we were both well past our limit for sitting in the one position.

Kayaking about off Victoria Island, finally a decent Loon picture. We had to share one short stretch with much bigger boats (picture is of the tour boat Island Queen V.

Since we were unusually near a population center, the next morning we decided to dig out the electric dinghy motor for the longish trip to the public dock on the outskirts of the village of Parry Sound. This gave us a chance to do “town” stuff. We visited a museum, had a long walk along the waterfront trail lining the harbor, and then treated ourselves to a pub lunch. Then, of course, we topped it off with another half hour of walking, which took us to the store where we could load the empty bags we had been carrying around all day with heavy provisions.

Visiting the town of Parry Sound, and its museum, and gardens, and a tower to climb for the views

Ordinarily, I prefer using my own human power to get to shore, resorting to the electric dinghy motor only for longer distances or if we need the extra power to fight strong winds or currents. After lugging our haul another half-hour back to the dinghy, which to be honest probably weighed twice as much as we could have easily handled, I was glad the trip to town had been long enough to be worth the trouble of digging out the motor. Now, at least, I didn't have to face the prospect of a two-mile row back to Begonia.

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Anchorage location On google maps

Sans Souci Island Group (Georgian Bay)

[Kyle]When we left Bernadette Island, it was a Sunday, and a nice one at that. We even had a bit of a tailwind, which allowed us to shut down the engines for a while and sail down a long, exposed stretch.

A lovely passage - on a busy traffic day

Of course, being a nice weekend meant we weren't the only ones out there. There was a constant stream of powerboats ranging from big cruisers to cottager's small tenders, plus two or three sailboats. Whether we were sailing in the light winds or motoring on one engine, Begonia was the slowest of them all. This was generally not a problem, except for the few pinch-points in the channel where there was not enough room for two boats to pass if one of them was a catamaran. At these narrows, we were like the RV lumbering upward toward the mountain pass, trailing a long line of single-file traffic that was just dying to get past; we obviously pulled over and slowed down when the waters allowed for it. One guy in a home-built catamaran that was just barely faster than us made a point of cutting us off at the last tight spot before a wide, five-mile-long straightaway. Most made their displeasure at being delayed a minute or two by flooring it and throwing huge wakes before they were clear of us, just as soon as there was enough width to do so.

People were being testy everywhere. We heard several heated radio exchanges between one party who clearly didn't know the rules, and another who clearly didn't know the rules either. One guy's argument was that he didn't care what the rules said, he wanted right-of-way and he was taking it because he was the first one to say so on the radio. Ah, the little-known Dibs Rule…

Passing Frying Pan Island, we got a glimpse of Henry's, the only restaurant for miles. They were doing a booming business. They even had three floatplanes docked out front, with more coming and going almost constantly.

We had originally thought we might anchor in Echo Bay, just to the north of Sans Souci Island. The closer we got, though, the more we noticed a whole string of boats going in. We decided instead to anchor with only one other boat in the little bay south of the entrance to Echo Bay at Hare Point.

There were a handful of cottages there. Only one seemed to be occupied and the residents were a pretty laid-back bunch who didn't appear to mind us at all.

The next day, both the wind and the traffic had died down to practically nothing. We decided that, instead of just pootling around in the kayak in the local area, we'd take it for a more ambitious circumnavigation of Sans Souci Island.

A lovely exploration, every new turn opened up another bit of great scenery (helped that the sun was shining). And birds - some area easier to find and photograph than others so we were quite amused to come across this giant inflatable duckling. The other birds are a Bald Eagle and a Loon

We started on the main channel side, just to be sure to be clear of it before any potential afternoon traffic started. We made a point of poking into every inlet deep enough to float the kayak before we finally joined the Garden Channel for the back route into Echo Bay.

This route is appropriately named and it is very pretty. The shallow water is covered with lily pads and their flowers. At the far end, just before Echo Bay, we saw three Bald Eagles. They seemed accustomed to people and let us get pretty close before they started to act nervous. There is a park dock there, where we gave our backsides a rest from the kayak while spending a happy half-hour enjoying the eagles.

Crossing over the ridge to get a look at Echo Bay, I was glad we had anchored where we did. It wasn't by any means full, but it wasn't empty either. All the boats had a stern line run to shore. Most were powerboats rafted to each other as well. Almost all of them sounded like they had generators going that blended in with the echoing sound of dinghy motors. One outlier had a dinghy with a Honda four-stroke that was quieter than our Torqeedo. He made up for this by cranking up his sound system.

Yeah, the guy has a dinghy with a sound system. Why go to nature for peace and quiet when you can crank Def Leppard and scare away all the animals in the Garden Channel instead?

Sunset arrives and brings pretty skies

We had intended our next day to be a milder one, circumnavigating much smaller Echo Island, to the north of our previous day's loop. Once we got to Echo Bay, though, I proposed we just go down the Garden Channel and back, since it was so nice. The eagles were gone from their perches, soaring high overhead, but it was still a nice paddle down the channel.

At the other end, Maryanne remarked that, if we wanted to go to Henry's for lunch, it would probably be slightly quicker for us to get there by continuing the rest of the way around Sans Souci again than by retracing our path. Plus, we could poke into some inlets that hadn't been on the way last time. That made the day's kayak about the same length as yesterday's.

We ate at Henry's. It was good, with generous portions, but they definitely charge you like they know they're the only game in town. Henry's is on Frying Pan Island, which isn't completely private. This means they have a couple of short walking trails. These are surprisingly rare in Georgian Bay, so our policy is to always have a walk when we can. Despite having already had a long kayak and currently suffering from food comas, we set out for the other side of the island.

Scenes from a Walk across Frying Pan Island (from Henry's Restaurant)

The walk wasn't far or strenuous. After only one kilometer, we were already standing on the rocky shore opposite Henry's. Just before we got to the end, we passed a little pond. I reflexively had the thought, "Ooh, we could have a fresh-water swim!" Then I remembered. We decided to put it off until we got home, where we could have a clean, dry change of clothes waiting.

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Anchorage location On google maps