Thomas Bay (near Killarney)

[Kyle]Speaking of scenery; for some reason we were expecting it to peter out as we approached the end of Collins Inlet. It did not. I feel like a broken record saying it (look it up, kids. They were the thing before CDs), but every new vista is just as beautiful as the last, but in enough of a new way to make it seem as if it is the first time we have gasped in awe of it all.

From Mill Lake we transited through the 'other part' of Collins Inlet

We eventually set our anchor in Thomas Bay, just past where Collins Inlet gives way to open water again. On the way in, we even sighted Manitoulin Island on the horizon for the first time in a month and a half.

From the write-ups, Thomas Bay looks like a very popular spot. Because of this, I think we were expecting it to be both big and full of boats looking to escape the bustle of nearby Killarney for a few days. The reality was that the bay is quite small. Without tying to shore, there is really only room for one or maybe two boats to anchor with reasonable depths.

When we arrived, we were the only boat around. The crowds seem to have been put off by a new cottage that was built relatively recently. It overlooks the bay, diminishing the sense that the bay is private or remote. Since were late in the season, when we showed up in the middle of the week, the cottage appeared to be completely unoccupied.

Recent solar flares were causing lots of Aurora alerts to be sent to us over the next few nights. With the cottage being dark at night, we ended up having a good view of an even better show than we had at Nares Inlet, with lots of undulating curtains and quick-moving flashes of red and green light.

We felt so lucky to see the aurora AGAIN!
(Photos taken from the boat)

Staying up well past midnight like a couple of teenagers put a pretty big dent in our original plan to get an early departure in the kayak the next morning. We decided to change it to early afternoon. Thomas Bay is right on the edge of Killarney Provincial Park. We headed a couple miles into it to the parking lot and trailhead for the Chikanishing River trail.

The 3.5km loop is not long, but it varies from deep woods to boulder scrambles to high viewpoints, which makes it seem suitably athletic. We augmented it by summiting a few of the intervening islets on the kayak home. That gave us even more great stuff upon which to gaze.

Enjoying Chikanishing Trail, Killarney Provincial Park & the shoreline to the east of Begonia

The following day, we went the other direction to the marshy river that feeds Dufois Bay. It turned out to be a lot reedier than we had expected. We pushed our way up the narrowing sliver of water in the middle so far that we ended up without enough room to turn around. We had to back out quite a way, which made for some amusing moments when the stern left the centerline and plunged into the reeds.

Enjoying the marshes around Dufois Bay and the shorelines to the west of our anchorage

The lake was starting to get a little choppy by the time we headed back home. Our kayak is narrow and a bit tippy. Traversing the open stretches in a cross-swell, we had to really concentrate on keeping both of our weights centered through the rolling. With the water getting colder by the day, we were well aware that a capsize wouldn’t allow us the luxury of taking as much time as we needed to get back aboard and paddling again.

We had a couple more days after that to wait around for a weather window for the big, end-of-summer sail out of Lake Huron. Even though we were trying hard to put it out of our minds, there was a looming list of administrative jobs that we needed to dig into to get ready for our impending haulout, not to mention deflating the kayak and stuffing it back into its dark winter hole. That last job made it easier to stay aboard and focus.

Enjoying Thomas Bay

While we were doing that, I would pop out a few times a day to stretch my legs with a lap around the deck or to fiddle with some bit of rigging. On one of my outings, I noticed that the two elderly cottagers had arrived for the weekend. They stayed to themselves and we stayed to ourselves. Their routine looked surprisingly similar to ours. About three times a day, one of them would stroll out on deck, meander for a bit, straighten the patio furniture or twiddle with the knobs on the barbecue, then disappear into the interior for hours. I often wondered what they could possibly have to do all day to keep themselves occupied, then I realized they must be thinking the exact same thing about us, not being privy to our extensive stacks of to-do lists. When we finally mysteriously disappeared from their bay at dawn on Sunday, I was glad to be looking forward to unplugging and spending my days worrying about sail trim and weather forecasts.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps