Rescue Weekend, 4th Edition

On Sunday morning, I was practicing the J-Lean in my kayak (actually, Kevin’s kayak). For someone who really loves being on the water, I’m a remarkable chicken, and I kept my hand firmly planted on Kevin’s bow (which was, technically, my bow – we’d traded boats that morning). Firmly planted could perhaps be interpreted as death grip, since Kevin gently suggested I just take hold of the toggle instead of clutching the bow like a buoy on a stormy ocean (the latter part of that statement was perhaps only implied, though). I reluctantly did so, making sure my fingers were firmly hooked into the toggle so that it *looked* like I was all casual about it but I was still firmly anchored. No more than 30 seconds after that, however, Ron told me to let go altogether. I didn’t like it, and I looked less like a J than a bent lower-case L, I’m sure…

It was Rescue Weekend, 4th Edition (for me). Like every year since I got to know Ron and the rest of the GLSKA crew, I paddled out to an island in Georgian Bay to practice sea kayaking skills. This year was different, though: it was better. We didn’t just do the obligatory rescue training, we spent a second day working on technique when in the past we just went for a fun paddle. On Saturday, Ron and Gary split us into two groups to work on low, high and sculling braces, sculling draws, and a multitude of assisted rescues (including the spectacular Hands of God rescue). Amie and I partnered up, and since she had been told that women are not strong enough to do the British-style rescue with the paddler between the boats (which I didn’t believe, seeing as I’d done one with Bert only a week earlier!), immediately performed that rescue as well as the conventional crawl onto the back deck one we are used to.

Though most of this instruction I’ve had in other years, I have a long way to go. I did, however, finally get more of a feel for the high brace since I did the chicken thing and put my paddlefloat on to make sure I didn’t have to practice rescues more than absolutely necessary! Chicken, by the way, was the theme of my weekend, even though there was none to be found in my food bag. I also got much more proficient at the sculling draw, which will now replace my goony straight draw for moving sideways.

On the second day, we were back on the water by nine and started with the J-Lean. From there, we moved through more effective forward strokes to low and high brace turns and stern and bow rudder strokes. Nick deserves the award for most diligent student, because he pushed his limits enough that he got at least three additional rescue practices (and even mastered the T-rescue with Dave, saving himself the boat emptying maneuver!). (Nick also deserves the award for most dedicated, since he flew up from his balmy coastal Florida waters to take part in our cold Georgian Bay water training weekend!) But even chickens like me were inspired to work on our technique more (well, once the water warms up…), and it wasn’t all serious work: Artur entertained me with a very imaginative plan for a paint job on my kayak. It involved painting the seams and ends of my fruity-yellow kayak brown, adding a few brownish spots, and making the hatches look like Chiquita stickers. And he didn’t even know me in the days when I paddled a poly boat that Keith named the Brazen Banana!

There was more fun both on and off the water. I somehow failed to pay attention to meeting times (that’s what happens when you email details to my work address!) but happened to show up just as Ron, Nancy, Mike Y., Kevin, Gord and Bill were loading their boats. Well then! Not only did I have boat unloading help, I had people to make the 5 km crossing with (I knew that Dave, Elke, Al and Nick were already there – I knew because I kept telling them I’ll paddle out with you the day before, never mind, I’ll be there for dinner, oh, actually, I’ll be there first thing for breakfast. I made it for lunch). The crossing was fun, with some nice rollers from the side. Gord says they were only two feet, but I got him to admit that *some* of them were three feet big. They were fairly regular and only a few were cresting, so fun (except for Mike Y., who had to work extra hard due to lack of either rudder or skeg). The fun continued when, after lunch, Elke, Al, Dave, Nick, Gord, Kevin, Ron, Bill and I set out for Red Rock, which is a lighthouse a few kilometers out into the Bay. The wind had really picked up, and now we had five foot waves (Gord would probably be more honest and say three to four) coming from two different directions to paddle into. I was enjoying myself tremendously, until Gord casually remarked that “paddling back is going to be fun”. Fun? Maybe for Gord. Not for chickens. Confused waves following me is not fun. Ok, sometimes it’s fun, like when a wave picks you up and rockets you forward. After Ron had us abort and turn around, I had a lot of those rocketing moments (my boat was empty, so very bouncy. Gord asked me if I had any weight in the boat at one point. I promptly pointed out that my *bum* was in the boat, but he didn’t think that qualified. I thought it did). I’ll admit to chicken-like terror while still enjoying the paddle (such is the case when you know Ron, Dave and the rest of the rescue-trained crew is behind you!), and remembering my kayaking rule to live by: every paddle stroke is a brace. I never stopped paddling, and I was fine, even if I needed to hip flick a few times to stay out of trouble when hit by two waves from different angles simultaneously.

I’ll also admit to relief when I reached the shoals, and beelined for shore. And then, while the rest of these eager folks took a turn around the island, I sucked first on my coffee cup and then my beer can and talked to Mike Y. and Nancy. Soon after, more fun people showed up in singles and pairs: Mike D. and Amie, Sarka, Sam, and Ed and Artur. We were following the usual GLSKA style of camping with individual stoves and dinners, except for the Dave, Nick, Al and Elke group. I had a good opportunity to observe their collective gourmet feasting, since I’d set up under my tarp and then complained that I felt unpopular because nobody was hanging out with me and thus Dave et al. joined and I got to watch Dave make hummus and falafel (I think they were on an all chick-pea diet). We started at about the same time. By the time Dave had the hummus almost done, I was done heating my leftover curry and had already eaten it. By the time I finished my second can of beer, he had chopped onions and tomatoes and lettuce.


By the time Sam, Artur, Amie and Mike D., who started cooking well after I was done eating, joined us, he had mixed the falafel gunk and opened the tahini sauce and the group had negotiated on what dessert to make that night (Elke baked a cake). By the time I was done cleaning up, had brushed my teeth, taken out my contacts, read a 300-page novel and constructed seven inukshuks (yes, I know, the plural is inuksuit, but it’s not like my fictitious rock piles were authentic), they started eating. Well, maybe not the inukshuks or the novel, but you get the point. It probably was delicious, it may have been healthy, but it was definitely good fodder for me to make fun of.

Most of us aren’t big fire-campers: we never cook over them, and in fragile environments like Georgian Bay we rarely make them. However, Mike Y. had the coolest gadget: a portable firepit that kept everything off the rock and thus would not leave a mark, and his own wood supply! So we had our evening get-organized meeting around the fire on an exposed point upwind of nothing but water.

Saturday morning, Dawn and Andrew showed up and then, while we were working on stuff on the water, Jim and Lise. Though the day had started sunny, it quickly got cloudy and it was quite cool, so I was happy about my soup at lunch, and even happier about my dry clothes and I had every intention of sitting under the tarp (though it was not raining), perhaps occasionally stirring to make coffee, for the rest of the day.
I followed through on this intention when all of these eager outdoorsy types went for a hike around the island, staying under the tarp and chatting to Kevin (who, unlike me, was not too lazy to go for the walk but had already done it on his own). When Ron announced a fun paddle to Bateaux Island, I was still in sloth mode, but peer pressure convinced me to put on the neoprene and climb in my boat…

…and then, as usually happens, I remembered that I love my boat and that being a weenie is kind of boring, and when Ron said we’d turn around at a certain point, I got ready to pout. Until, that is, I realized that Sam was going to keep going, and I quickly announced my intention to go with him – as did Sarka, Kevin, Bill and Mike D. Sarka and Sam disagreed on which channel to take through the archipelago we were in at one point, and my boat was the only one to follow Sam. Note that Sam and I were also the only ones to do two portages on this trip. But we had more fun! So much fun that we just took longer because we were enjoying ourselves too much, and our channel was the better choice! Yeah, Bill didn’t buy it either.

That night, there was another production in Camp Dave et al, and another case of heating things up on my stove – though this time I joined Sam, Sarka, Artur and Ed’s kitchen, and Dawn and Andrew came to keep us company. It’s stressful, having a group of so many people I like, I don’t know who to suck up to anymore. Though I suspect I made some good calls, since both Ed and Amie gave me wine, and Sam handed me a beer, and Elke showed up with leftover pineapple cake
(I was asleep by the time their dessert was ready the night before!). Later that night, after Sam had gone to the campfire, I showed my gratitude for the beer by anchoring his sleeping bag with some rocks: it looked like the wind might pick up, and his sleeping bag was so light, and his tent was open! I’m nothing if not considerate.

Sunday started predictably: with an hour-long cooking session from Camp Dave (blueberry pancakes. I stole blueberries while they weren’t looking). I adhered to the dump in pot and stir approach and made my predictable oatmeal. After the on the water session, people started leaving. I wasn’t hurrying back home for any reason, which was good, since Sarka had parked behind me and she wanted to paddle more. I also needed to stick with Amie, since I had some roof rack attachments for her in my car and I had been designated t-shirt courier for Mike Y. and Jim.

The solution was obvious: paddle with Sarka and Amie, which meant Mike D. (since Mike and Amie had carpooled), and Sarka convinced Kevin to join us too. We had a great afternoon poking around Franklin Island, and Sarka and Amie even swam voluntarily, without wetsuits. I expect this of Sarka, but I was impressed that Amie was brave enough (and then, when Sarka wanted to get out before Amie, Amie guilted her into going for a longer swim. I sat on my warm, dry rock and laughed).

These weekends are always too short. Even if you stretch them out by going out for dinner in Parry Sound (and Don Cherry’s helped us stretch it even further, with the world’s slowest service). Good thing I’ll get to see most of these characters again next weekend!

Thanks Ron and Nancy for excellent hosting and organizing (and cookies!), Ron and Gary for instruction, and the whole crew for making this the best rescue weekend yet.

Lake of the Lorax

From The Lorax:

"You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed!
No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed.
So I'm sending them off. Oh, their future is dreary.
They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary
in search of some water that isn't so smeary.
I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie."

It's been unusually hot, and somehow, the thought of a weekend sitting around slick with sweat while staring at the not-yet-opened pool and slapping bugs didn't quite measure up to an amorphous idea of "doing something" (and "vacuuming the pool" does not fall into the category of doing something for some reason).

Fortunately, when you're me, "something" often presents itself, even if you're lazy about planning and halfhearted about committing. In the case of this weekend, I accepted Amie's prodding to go paddle on Lake Erie because, as she pointed out, it's new territory for us.

Lake Erie is the shallowest and least appealing of the Great Lakes: the topography is on the flat side, it's very sandy, and there are all those rumours of a dead zone. I know, objectively, that it's recovered remarkably from the nasty eutrophication which suffocated it a few decades ago, but its very name brings to mind The Lorax and its images of gluppity-glupp and schloppity-schlopp and smeary water.

But! I'd never paddled on Lake Erie. And if I can enjoy a day paddle in Hamilton Harbour, chances are, Lake Erie will have something interesting to look at too. And Amie pushed all the right buttons with tales she'd heard of a historic lighthouse and a shipwreck, and then Sarka said she was going and the peer pressure was getting to me so, next thing you know, I'd even convinced Stef to come on this trip. Kayaks on the car, we headed down to Crystal Beach, where we met up with Bert, the organizer of this adventure, and six other paddlers: Amie, Sarka, Louise, Dan, Mike, John and Keith.

Our destination was Point Abino, which I'd ignorantly called Port Albino all week. There is no port - the nearest port town is Port Colborne to the west - and no conspicuous presence of albinos (Lake Erie weirdness nothwithstanding). Not only that, you don't pronounce it the way you'd think, it's locally said AH-bin-o (which itself stems from a mispronounciation of Aveneau). Bert had provided directions to a free gravel parking lot with three ramps, and the put-in couldn't have been easier.

Within 20 minutes of putting in, we neared the Point Abino lighthouse. Like most of the grand old lighthouses of the Great Lakes, it is no longer operational and has been replaced with an automated beacon. The light itself was (and is) necessary because limestone ridges extend a long way out from the point. We barely cleared them on a flat water day in our kayaks - I would imagine this to be a minefield of breaking waves if there were any significant wind. I like gliding over really shallow water, though it was disconcerting to have massive carp dart right under your boat, practically brushing your hull.

The lighthouse was built in 1918 in Greek Revival style. Before this, there was a lightship, but this went down in one of the November gales in 1913. Apparently, the waters off the point are littered with shipwrecks. Unfortunately, the lighthouse is private property and thus not available to exploring beyond gazing at it longingly from the water. Not even an intrepid trespassing soul (who you looking at?) would be bold enough to land here on a summer weekend morning, when it's at the tip of an anthill of stately residences and in full view of a very busy with recreational boating bay.

We had glassy water to paddle. This is one of my least favourite paddling conditions - I find it kind of boring - but I'll admit a huge advantage when negotiating shallow rocky areas, gliding along a developed and interesting shoreline and, best of all, exploring a shipwreck. Bert had promised a visit to the wreck of the Steel Products (what an imaginative name for a laker!), and in his description had noted that we would be able to paddle inside the hull if conditions were very calm. Well then, there's an argument for calm conditions right there! Furthermore, I had no chance to get bored, what with nine other people there. And one of those nine people was Dan, and Dan has an affinity for being upside down. I watched roll after roll, and other antics worthy of an aquatic yoga master.

Bert pointed out the beach he had in mind for lunch, and I worried that he'd suggest lunch before the shipwreck. I really, really, really wanted to paddle inside that hull, and wind conditions can change! Plus, I was excited about it, and I'm the impatient sort. Fortunately, Bert had already read me well enough to note that we should probably explore the wreck before we take a break, because "otherwise Johanna will whine". Keith augmented that caution with a few more synonyms for whining, and I couldn't even be bothered to be insulted seeing as Keith did paddle with me for eight consecutive days once and has every reason to know of my extraordinary skill at expressing my displeasure. And besides, they can call me all the names they want as long as I get my way (isn't that the whole point of whining?), and we were headed for the shipwreck.

Bert explained that he'd had a hard time finding any information on the wreck of the Steel Products, because most of the information that is easily accessible comes from diving sources and this one is not suitable for diving - it's in such shallow water that you can wade around inside it, and it's used by some locals for duck hunting in season. Here's what Bert did ferret out: the ship was already decommissioned, and being towed by tug to be scrapped at Port Colborne, when the tug and towload were caught in a storm, the tow line snapped, and the laker sank.

Well, it sort of sank. I'd say it ran aground. But this makes for fascinating poking around (and a good canvas for graffiti too, it seems). I wished for one of the engineers that so often seem to be around to be there to talk me through the operation of the guts that were on display, but no such luck.

After the wreck, I saw no need to whine when Bert announced a break at the base of some dunes in front of Marcy's Woods. I took off for our destination, stopping only to do a rescue with Bert when he deliberately dumped and wet exited (very deliberately. He rolls like a seal, but close to the lunch spot, on a hot hot day, a swim is probably more fun). There was a strip of the infamous sludgy mossy algae on the sandy beach, and I wrinkled my nose as I pulled my boat up on the sand and waded back in to get the slime off (how I planned to get back to the beach without being re-slimed was not something I'd given any thought to). As I stood in shallow water, the others came in - and Dan suggested that I climb onto his rear deck and he'd roll with me as deadweight. Well, that's an invitation I couldn't resist - after all, who wouldn't want to be deadweight? - and within seconds I was completely wet. The rolling stunt was performed repeatedly - Dan leaning forward, Dan leaning back, Dan rolling three times in succession... The only one he couldn't figure out seemed impossible to me anyway: I sat behind him, grabbing hold of his cockpit coaming but sitting up fully. There was no plan for me to lay back or tuck forward - I would simply be a big, upright protrusion on the boat. It didn't work - Dan didn't have to wet exit, but I was no longer on the boat when he rolled back up.

I got water up my nose, and relinquished my death-grip on Dan's kayak - but Amie hopped on, and I managed to snap a few pictures of these cool rolls. After lunch, Dan and the rest of the rolling aficionados (Bert and Mike) talked boat, and then Dan spent some time with Stef and her roll (she ended up nailing it). Sarka and Amie went for another swim. Keith practiced the cowboy self-rescue. I went for a very brief exploration of Marcy's Woods (read: I had to pee), but got annoyed with myself for knowing absolutely nothing about

Carolinian forests - and just as there was no engineer at my service, there was no ecologist handy to pester with my questions. So I settled for asking Mike questions about sewing your own paddling clothing, but the conversation quickly went over my head when Sarka joined us and words like serger started getting used...

With water warm enough to swim in and such a hot day, we didn't leave that beach until 3 p.m. - and since Stef and I had to be back in Campbellville by 6 p.m., we pretty much needed to paddle straight back to the car. Everybody else came with us, though some of the crew was planning to launch again after our goodbyes were said (however, I did see at least two other kayaks come off the water when we called it a day).

Bottom line? A relaxing paddle, an interesting place to explore with some great highlights, an unexpected early season opportunity to swim without a wetsuit, and the usual fascinatingly diverse crewof sea kayakers that I enjoy so much. Thanks to Bert for organizingand Amie for encouraging me to come! But, truly, Lake Erie? Really is a bit smeary (probably smearier than the unopened pool).

p.s.: I've been getting grief for not posting pictures of myself of late. So, here you go, enough narcissism to make up for all the entries without goofy self-portraits.

Recreational Geek

So, this week I had a look at some of my access logs - and consequently discovered that there are services like bloglines and, more importantly, that people *do* look at the older pages.

That's good, right? After all, I put those pages up. Some time long ago, long before I even started a hit counter. Some are so old, the pictures were scanned in from prints when I first got my hands on a scanner.

But here, the pride. I've never been overly impressed with my own formatting, but hey, once uploaded, I forget. I don't really need to remind myself that relative widths might have been fine when every monitor was a CRT, set at 800x600 resolution, and about 14" in diameter (I remember the excitement of my very first 17" screen). As I'm typing this, I'm looking at my 17" LCD monitor set at 1280x1024 - and when you pull up old pages that are set to have tables at 70% of page width, with fixed-width thumnails inside table cells, and text with individual font tags inside other cells, it looks... like crap. And the thumbnails are too small. And I don't like it anymore.

So, pride dictates that I start reworking some of the old pages - but what a beastly volume of work that can be! So far, I've cobbled together a stylesheet for the old (non-blog) archive pages and re-formatted one (1!) old page. Go look at it. I'm proud. Not a single table there.

(I know it's mickey mouse for some of you. But let's remember that I'm only a recreational geek, not one by profession, ok?)

At this pace, the whole site should be reworked sometime right around the time that I decide that I hate this design too, because it will be using obsolete technology that is as painful to see as the old table layout...

Flowerpot Orchid Hunt

They say there are 44 kinds of orchids on the Bruce Peninsula, and I'd never seen any of them. Just as importantly, they told me there's camping on Flowerpot Island, and I'd never been there. So when I clued in that Rob's orchid hunting trip was no sissy little stroll along a meadow with a tea room in the background but a camping trip, I fired him an email and proclaimed my new-found love for wildflowers and confessed to being too chicken to paddle to Flowerpot Island by myself, and he let me come.

There were seven of us would-be botanists (and at least two of us, of which I was not one, had bona fide botanist leanings and knowledge). I started my botanical apprenticeship at Rob's cottage, where I not only investigated grape products but did the tiptoe through the side yard thing to see a ramshead orchid - which is oh so tiny but very, very pretty. I also saw some yellow lady's slippers (bringing my orchid count to two!) as well as little pinkish-purple flowers called gaywings and - so Rob tells me - the leaves of dwarf irises.

The real trip began at 9 a.m. in Tobermory, when we registered for campsites on Flowerpot. This is where the not for sissies part starts: you can't reserve campsites on Flowerpot, thus you must present yourself at the registration office at an ungodly early hour to have a good chance of getting a spot. Amie, Rob and I managed to secure three tent platforms, and then we located - using the strategic "park three cars with kayaks on top outside the reigstration office" maneuver - John, Burke and Howard, who had spent the previous night at John's cottage. The last member of our crew, Dan, met us at the put-in at Dunk's Bay.

The crossing from Dunk's Bay to Flowerpot Island is 6.5 km - not a huge crossing by open crossings standards, but across what can be a treacherous channel because it's wide open to the full width of Lake Huron in westerly wind conditions. As you can see, we faced conditions that could well be called as being on the sissy side of challenging: mirror-flat water, no wind at all. Our campsite was equally challenging: pre-fab tent pads, a beautiful composting outhouse, picnic tables, and a big dock for landing. Soon after setting up, we decided to venture into the thick undergrowth of Flowerpot Island to find the elusive Calypso orchid. We intrepidly set forth along a cushy rock-lined path, and flagging tape alerted us to the location of the calypso. But! We wouldn't have needed the flagging tape - we had seven pairs of eagle eyes (or a couple of pairs of eagle eyes, and a bunch of followers, however you choose to look at it) and we (Burke) spotted our first orchid - a striped coral root - within minutes of starting down the trail. The next hour was botanizing and picture-taking - Rob embarked with a suitcase of camera equipment, and between Rob and Burke my available information holding capacity was filled halfway across the island. The last thing I remember learning is that there are red-bellied salamanders under some logs. Everything that came after that was only superficially accepted - I know, for example, that there was some discussion of an area of blocky limestone debris, but it didn't register.

We spent some time poking along the cobbles on the other side of the island, looking for snakes (northern water snakes - but I only know that because John called out "I need a biologist" as soon as we got to the campsite, and Burke identified the snake that prompted this call for a biologist as such - and at that point, my brain capacity indicator was not yet on full. I did learn later that there are no rattlesnakes on Flowerpot). We saw many snakes. And then we trooped back through the bush at varying paces - Amie and Dan, the superwoman and superman of the team (just *hearing* them talk about marathons and road races and Lake Ontario crossing paddles and bike trips made me want to take a nap!) walked so fast I figured I'd wait for the botanizing group and thus not embarrass myself by starting to pant and sweat profusely just to keep up with those two. And that's when I freed up a tiny bit of brain space to remember that the woodpecker we saw was a a hairy woodpecker, not the pileated kind, and that the chief difference is size and the pileated woodpecker is bigger (about the size of a crow).

Maybe all this tough botanizing needed a physical challenge to balance it, because we soon got into our boats and took off for Bear's Rump Island (with a detour to the flowerpots that give Flowerpot Island its name - but I read in my park brochure that the flowerpots were concrete reinforced, so was not as impressed as I would otherwise have been).
The calm seas continued, livened up by the wake from passing tourbouts and Dan's very impressive rolling antics (look ma, no hands! leaning forward! leaning back! with my hands tied behind my back and blindfolded! I'm only kidding on the last one of these) and the midges started being a pain - but Bear's Rump Island was so totally worth it. It has high limstone cliffs with well-developed (but now high and dry) sea caves. It also had a bunch of birds that Burke identified, but my brain was still on full.

After Bear's Rump, the goal was to circumnavigate Flowerpot Island. The seas were still dead calm, and the midges still a pain, and I found myself not enthralled with the paddling - though it was cool to watch Amie get comfortable with a greenland paddle, something I've never tried. When we got to the northwest corner, Dan decided that returning to the campsite from there would be sissy (he didn't use those words, I believe he said that GLSKA paddlers are "laid back", but I interpreted that as sissy) and he, Amie, Burke and Rob decided to be hard-core and paddle to Echo Island. I was comfortable being a sissy (and I had to pee), so had a leisurely paddle back with Howard and John - and then a mellow hour of sitting on the dock in the sun with some beer. It's good to be a sissy, sometimes.

We had our respective dinners, which ranged from crudites for everyone (Amie) followed by pasta with pesto and chicken (Amie) and dark orange-flavoured chocolate (again Amie, and yes, she shared everything) and wine in real stemware (Amie) to... well, thai noodles in a paper cup with most of the spice already leaked out. The rest of us fell somewhere in between. I was determined to follow the loop trail on Flowerpot Island before it got dark, and our tough crew was all game, so off we set right after dinner. I started off right behind Amie and Dan, but once again, I realized that stopping and smelling the violets was a much more comfortable pace for me, and thus they left me in the dust in the first 700m. That was fine by me, since my brain had processed a few things by now and I could thus get acquainted with trout lilies and bishop's cap and learn that buttercups are not native.
There was much discussion of ferns, and I remember there was a ladyfern and a maidenhair fern and bracken fern and holly fern (holly cow, it's a holly fern, Rob said), but I couldn't tell you which is which. I did ask, once, how you know, and I got an answer that had words like bracts in it.

We took the detour to the buildings which used to house the lighthousekeeper. Apparently, it's a base of operations for the Friends of Fathom Five, but they've temporarily suspended operations (so the sign on the door) and closed the Loo with a View composting toilet. We continued on to the observation platform by the beacon, over a narrow concrete catwalk. Then, determined to see all the highlights, we clambered up the stairs to the viewing platform for the cave (and I was glad that Amie and Dan weren't there, because that made me feel way out of shape even at my pace), and down to the shore for both flowerpots, and through all the visitor facilities by the tour boat dock. And then it was dark. I sat on the dock with Howard, John, Burke and Rob, and they all identified stars while I used the fact that I'd taken my contacts out as an excuse to not know anything about constellations.

It rained overnight and I saw some lightning flashes from the comfort of my sleeping bag, but all was dry in the morning. Rob listened to the weather forecast, and it sounded as though a thunderstorm would hit mid-afternoon. We set a departure time of 9 a.m., with the decision as to what to do with the rest of the day to be left until after the crossing back to the mainland. The weather forecast was right, if off by about five hours - and the thunderstorm hit when we were halfway across the channel. Despite the lightning flashes, I was enjoying myself hugely: there was finally a bit of rough water, and my wonderful red hat was keeping my head dry while the seas looked like they were boiling all around me with heavy rain, and I loved it. When we got to the other side, the storm looked like it was either taking a break or all finished, and the group decided to take out and call it a day.

I wasn't too happy about being done already - I was having too much fun that morning. Funny how mirror-flat water and warm, dry weather brings out the sissy in me, but a good soaking and some wave action makes me want more. Lucky for me, Burke just rejects all things sissy on principle, because he was game for more paddling and, after ditiching our camping gear in our vehicles, we set off for the Grotto, which Rob told us was 12 km distant.

What followed was just great: some good paddling (Burke cruises at around 7.5-8 km/hr, which I can maintain thanks to having a very fast hull) and lots of poking along the shore. We saw and paddled into sea caves. We got all smug about seeing the grotto from the water while all the daytrippers with inappropriate footwear gingerly worked their way down the rocks. We spent some time gliding along the underwater escarpment, with 30cm and 30m water depth on either side of the boats, which made me feel odd. We ate lunch, and I can now identify the ring-billed gull for what it is. We tried to have naps, but the daytrippers kept having very noisy discussions about whether or not 2 km was too far to walk so we gave up and started paddling again.

For me, it was a wonderful paddle - I've hiked this stretch of the coast numerous times, and have often wished I had a boat handy to see it from the water. The only time I'd seen some of the features from the Georgian Bay side was in winter, when Lee and I snowshoed on the ice and explored an icicle-encrusted sea cave. And kayaking blows hiking out of the water - because it's a full day's walk from the Grotto to Dunk's Bay, but not even two hours of paddling! And you see just as much!

After such a satisfying day for me, I think Burke needed to do some more botanizing to catch up to my fun level - we stopped to see Rob and Iet at their cottage, where Burke and Rob indulged their botanist hearts and discussed ramshead orchids and about a million other plants, but I got distracted by the wonderful rainbow trout Iet served me and spent my time there blissed out on the porch. Ahhhh...

Thanks to all who were on the trip, it was most enjoyable. A special thanks to Rob for organizing and Rob and Iet for their generous hosting at the cottage.

Total paddling distance: Saturday - 23km without the Echo Island detour, 31 km for Dan, Amie, Burke and Rob. Sunday - 6 km as a group, and a further 25 km for Burke and me. See the map.