Thursday morning, July 13th, we were up and moving by 8:30 am. Not that we were in a rush, but there wasn't much else to do this morning. It was flat calm, and the skies were again crystal clear. It promised to become a very hot day.
After a short motor up Mill Lake, we entered Collins Inlet heading west. This was the remaining seven miles of the inlet, having done a few miles on the eastern end yesterday. The first stretch of the inlet was very gorge-like - steep rock walls with clinging pine trees. Not a soul in sight for most of the trip, though we did pass one fast-moving aluminum work boat and a few cottages.
At the western end of the inlet the waters open up a bit, providing us with our first good views of the white quartz mountains to the north. We'd heard about these ranges - it looks like there is snow on the mountains because the quartz shines bright white. They're magnificent - especially when seen across turquoise waters, red rocks and deep green pine trees. What a vista!
Out in Georgian Bay for the five mile run over to Killarney the water was once again clear and either deep blue or turquoise depending on depth. It's amazing - I've only ever seen water this color in the Caribbean - didn't know it could exist on an inland lake. The water was calm across the Bay, and we were rounding the Killarney Lighthouse by 10:15am.
Killarney is a tiny little town lying along a one-mile long natural channel of water between the mainland to the north and George Island to the south. A trading post back in colonial times, it remained an outpost of civilization until 1962 when a road was finally built to connect the town to the rest of Canada. It's still way off the beaten path by car and quite small, but it's a boating Mecca. Killarney is the diving line between Georgian Bay and the North Channel, and if you're in G-Bay heading to the North Channel, or going in the opposite direction, many boats choose to pass through Killarney. The channel is narrow - only a few hundred yards wide, but is lined with marinas and docks, and even the liquor store has its own dock. We knew from talking with others that this would be an expensive place to stay overnight, but decided the cost would be worth it since it's such a cute town.
Based upon the advice of Sarah and Lee on the trawler Growler, we pulled into the Sportsman's Inn. They have docks that line both sides of the channel and a little pontoon boat water taxi called Tinkerbell that runs back and forth across the channel so that boaters docked on the south side of the channel can access the tiny town on the north side. After pumping out and filling up our 1-gallon dinghy fuel tank (we'd run through all our fuel in Bad River!) we requested a dock on the north side so that we wouldn't have to take the water taxi. We were moved to the inside of the main dock, where we had a great view of everything going on.
The channel is a really active place - boats of all sizes and even a few sea planes motoring back and forth. It's a great parade and entertained us whenever we were on Golden's back deck. The dock crew here at Sportsman's really hustles business, calling out on the radio or megaphones to passing yachts trying to entice them over to their docks. They're quite good at it too, and we watched several yachts come in at their urging.
We took the opportunity to do some laundry, and while waiting for laundry to cycle through went to the famous Herbert Fisheries Fish and Chips. Again, in talking with people, they all said that if you go to Killarney, you must have Herbert's Fish and Chips. Herberts is located right on the docks, with their fishing "tug" docked alongside. The "kitchen" is an old bus permanently located on the dock, and the place is easy to find since the bus is bright red and it always has a crowd of people waiting for their orders. The advice was right on - outstanding meal! Fresh caught fish deep fried with home made French fries. I've never had better. It was light, crunchy and flavorful. Yum. We split a large order between the two of us, and knew we'd be back for dinner.
Laundry folded and back on the boat, we biked off to see a bit of the town and then ride out to the lighthouse. The tour of the town took less than five minutes - not much to see beyond the one road that runs along the channel. We headed out to the lighthouse, about 2 miles out of town. Easy bike ride on gravel roads, and we passed the municipal airport along the way (3500 feet long, we saw several planes coming and going). The Lighthouse afforded us a beautiful views of Georgian Bay and the entrance to Killarney Channel, and once again we were captivated by the color of the water. One thing to note, however, while the water might look as inviting as the Caribbean Sea, the temperature is only about 65 degrees! Not warm enough for me to swim in it, though we did see several families swimming off the lighthouse point.
On our way back to town, as we were cycling through the scrub and forest, Mike noticed a large dog walking along side the dirt road a few hundred feet in front of us. A REALLY large dog. No, wait, THAT'S A BEAR! Holy Cow! The bear was as disconcerted by our presence as we were by his, and he made for the bushes - faster than I could get my camera out of my pocket. Mike and I then sat there for a moment, looking at each other, both thinking, "and we're supposed to just ride on down this road?" We waited for a car to catch up to us - they'd seen the bear, too - and we asked if we could ride along the side the car until we got well past the place we'd last seen the bear. We figured we be a bit safer that way, even though the bear was probably long gone. We were excited - our first bear sighting!! And at a much better distance than our rattlesnake sighting a few days ago.
After a quick stop at the boat, we took Tinkerbell across the channel and hiked up on the rocks that overlook the south side so that we could get a couple of good photos of Golden at Killarney. We stumbled through a few beautiful blueberry patches which slowed our progress immensely; they're just too good to pass up. We also ran into folks that we'd spoken to at Bad River a few days ago - two of the four express cruisers to whom Golden had drifted too close were at the Sportsman's southern docks. One couple had two Yorkies, so we chatted for a while about the little dogs since that's a breed Mike and I are considering should we ever get another dog.
Sportsman's has Wi-Fi at their docks, so we were able to get email, but something with their proxy server settings prevented me from loading any web pages. Frustrating. Mike was able to beg a phone line and get his work done also, and we both made a few phone calls since cell service is strong here. Since we're all caught up with the rest of the world, we'll head back out for a few days in the back of beyond before hitting civilization again over in Little Current.