Down to Jam Sandwiches

With Libbie and I out at anchor for seven or eight days, it meant that we were running low on food.

We were joking that we were down to jam sandwiches for at least one meal a day.

We also needed to be rid of garbage.

Clean clothing was also getting low.

It was time to head to Killarney from Snug Harbor.

We had arranged months ago that we would meet up with some cousins there and they were headed that way.

The plan was to hang in the Killarney area with them for a couple of days.

They came up from southern Michigan with their airstream camper trailer to meet us.

We pulled into the Sportsmen’s Inn in Killarney and got a slip assignment.

The cousins came through Sudbury, Ontario on the way to Killarney.

They asked if we needed anything while in Sudbury as it had better grocery opportunities.

They may have regretted asking as I sent them a pretty big list.

Lib and I worked on getting both ourselves and Selkie cleaned up after a week of being at anchor. That included refreshing the laundry situation.

We were going to have dinner in Killarney.

The cousins finally arrived with their pickup and camper a little heavier with our groceries.

I was going to pick them up at their campsite in our dinghy, but I misunderstood where their campsite was.

Once we figured out where it was, I headed their way.

However, it was not long before I figured out picking them up was going to be much trickier than I thought.

Their campsite was set back in a bay with very shallow water. Soon I had to lift the outboard motor up so I would not hit bottom.

That didn’t work as eventually the engine stalled and would not restart (probably due to a vapor lock as I later discovered the gas tank vent was shut).

The situation left me with a 1 mile row back to Selkie.

As my very sympathetic cousin said, I needed a workout anyway.

Luckily about halfway back to Killarney some folks on a cocktail cruise took pity on me and gave me a tow back to Selkie.

The cousins drove to meet us. We had a good dinner at the bar at Sportsmen’s Inn.

The outboard motor started just fine the next morning.

Lesson learned (and I should have known better anyway): check out the water depths before proceeding in a shallow body of water…and make sure the outboard gas tank is vented.

The next morning, we decided to go on a hike.

The land forming the south end of the Killarney Channel is George Island (probably named after the old King George… a lot of land features in the area seem to be named after British royalty).

The George Island Hike is listed as a 4.3 mile hike on my hiking app AllTrails.

It crosses George Island southward to the coast, then meanders along the coast for about a half a mile. It returns through the middle of the island north to Killarney.

We proceeded on the hike, crossing woodlands, swamps, glacier moraines, and huge pieces of granite. The mosquitoes weren’t too bad, except for in certain areas.

As we neared the south shore of George Island, we could start to hear the rumble of thunder off in the distance.

We couldn’t see what was going on because of the dense canopy of trees around us, but it seemed that the weather was traveling from southwest to northeast based on the clouds and their movement.

We exited the forest onto a rugged coastline of rocks and boulders. The colors of the land and water were beautiful.

Libbie had packed a very nice picnic lunch complete with a thermos of wine for us to share once we reach the south end of the island along the coast.

We started to have our lunch, but it became obvious quickly that we needed to hurry up and finish it.

A very large, dark cloud with intense lightening was headed our way. Pretty soon, we saw a huge bolt of lightening, followed by a very stern thunderclap.

We scurried to get our food put away.

Luckily, we all brought rain gear.

However, this turned out to be quite an energetic thunderstorm.

We could see the land masses across the water disappear behind a rather dark torrential downpour with huge flashes of lightning and loud thunderclaps.

There was really nowhere for us to go other than getting in a safer place to reduce the chances of getting hit by lightning.

We moved away from the shore and trees and squatted down between some low granite boulders in a depression and proceeded to wait out the storm.

The storm itself was pretty ferocious with winds from all directions blowing up to probably 25 knots, a torrential downpour, pea sized hail, and lightning strikes to about a 10th of a mile from us.

Some of us had better rain gear than others but we were all glad we had something. The temperature was not bad, even with the hail.

The storm blew over, the sun came out (as did the mosquitoes), and we proceeded north back through the center of the island to finish the trail. As it turned out, the 4.3 mile hike was really more like 5 miles.

We were all tired, but proceeded to enjoy some adult beverages on Selkie and talked about the day. We were glad that we were back at the boat safe.

We spent another night in Killarney.

The cousins joined us the next day on Selkie, where we proceeded to cruise east of Killarney about 45 minutes to Collins Inlet. The plan was to let Libbie and my cousin fish once we got there.

Inside Collins inlet, we anchored Selkie behind an island.

My cousin and Libbie went to catch fish for lunch.

When they returned we had pancakes. No fish.

We then proceeded back west from Collins Inlet through Killarney to the Covered Portage anchorage and anchored near our old spot from last year.

We enjoyed that evening, including lamb chops for dinner. No fish.

It wasn’t just us not catching fish. The fish had disappeared, probably because the water was warm enough to swim in.

I took the cousins back to Killarney on the dinghy so that they go back to the campsite.

The next morning I picked them up in the dinghy.

We spent the day in and around Covered Portage.

We decided to go on another hike.

We went to the top of the bluffs overlooking the anchorage, and caught great views of the anchorage as well as Selkie and other boats in the anchorage.

After the hike we went swimming in the rather refreshing water in the cove.

Libbie paddleboarded around the cove and found a boat that had people from the cousins’ hometown. As it turned out, one of the people on the boat knew my cousins a little.

It truly is a small world.

We transferred to the cousins campsite for dinner at the end of the day and enjoyed the sunset.

Before it got dark, we said our goodbyes to each other, and Libbie and I headed back to Selke for the evening.

The next day we went our separate ways, and Libbie and I continued east further into Northern Georgian Bay.

We had enough food to not have Jam Samdwiches for a while.