Little Current - Bedford Island - South Benjamin Island - John Island - and Return, August 3-10 2002, Total Paddling Distance 146 km tripping
plus up to 56 km daytrips (for distance breakdowns, click here)
(For a map showing my paddling path, click here)
The Characters:
Ron
Johanna
Bill
Kasia
Ernie
Joe
Hulan
Len
               
It seems like every paddling trip I take, I get a song stuck in my head. During the week we paddled the North Channel, Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" was stuck on endless repeat. This is not surprising, really, since, for eight days in August we paddled in great conditions, found wonderful campsites, and had truly perfect weather.
The trip was advertised as a GLSKA C-3 trip from Little Current to the Benjamin Islands, organized by Ron Coulson. When I asked Ron about it, he cautioned me that we would be paddling in 25 knot winds should they occur, that we would likely be paddling into the wind for the first half of the trip (until we turned around and headed back east), and that we would probably go further than the Benjamins. I said okay to that, as did Len, Bill, Joe, Kasia, Hulan and Ernie. I don't think I actually know how much a 25 knot wind is, to be honest, and I didn't have a clue where the Benjamins were relative to Little Current - but I'd spent an instructional weekend with Ron and had heard so many wonderful things about him that I had full confidence that if he said I could handle it, I would simply handle it (and if I couldn't - Ron had taught me rescues!).
We left Ron and Nancy's cottage in Parry Sound at 6:45 (yes, a.m. - C-3 ratings should not just include the words "experienced" and "strenuous" but also "early riser") and, after various stops to top up our caffeine levels, acquire fudge and jelly beans, and replace a forgotten sleeping pad at Canadian Tire in Espanola, made it to Spider Bay Marina in Little Current. We paid our fees ($21/vehicle for the whole week), packed our boats (and I kept wondering what I'd forgotten, since I had no trouble at all fitting everything into my boat), and paddled out by 12:15.
  We headed west out of Little Current until we reached the Waubano Channel, where we turned north. Both of these channels are very busy, and we were never out of sight of power and sail boats. However, the channels are wide enough that it's easy for a group of kayaks to stay outside the main (buoy marked) channel, and we puttered along at a comfortable pace until we hit the north side of East Rous Island.
Perfect weather in this case meant on the warm side, and we stopped for a quick swim and snack - Nancy had supplied Ron with a banana-chocolate chip loaf (and made sure she mentioned it in front of all of us, so Ron could not be tempted to hide it!). Nancy makes very good banana-chocolate chip loaf, for the record.
Fortified by the loaf, we continued on toward Bedford Island. "Perfect Day" made its debut on my internal jukebox right around this time, particularly so since I was paddling away at my own pace and I wasn't at the back of the pack. This is unusual for me, to say the least - I'm quite accustomed to seeing the back of my fellow paddlers' heads… I didn't get very far away from the group, though, since I didn't know where the campsite was. We were tentatively heading for Landing Beach on Bedford Island, but before we got there, Ron spied some perfect (there's that word again) limestone ledges, and we pulled in there shortly after 4 p.m. This site had some lovely swimming, lots of flat spots, and a wide trail leading into the bush to a half-finished log cabin.
After dinner (Kasia made me steak!) I took a walk along the shore to Landing Beach, and - although there are some flat spots there and it is very sheltered - I thought we had a much better site. The Landing Beach site had some standing water and thus bugs, and some powerboaters had illustrated their generosity by leaving their half-eaten dinners on Styrofoam plates, complete with plastic forks, out for the bears.
         
Next: the Benjamins