Thursday, July 14, 2016

Day 104 Little Current to the Pool and Topaz Lake


      I have been looking forward to the next few days of our Loop adventure trip since travelling on Lucky Us is going to be just a little more comfortable than making the same trip on the mail boat over 60 years ago. My memory of that boat is that I thought it looked like a converted gill net commercial fishing boat… Today we slipped away from the dock at 6:45 am so we could make the 7 am swing bridge opening (photo at right).  It only opens on the top of the hour from dawn to dusk.  We were the only boat this morning, but yesterday we noticed many boats lined up at different times of the day. 
      Our destination today is an anchorage that is very popular so we are hoping that an early arrival will give us an advantage. Just 3.5 miles past the swing bridge we passed the Strawberry Island Lighthouse (photo at left). The lighthouse is 44 feet high and was built in 1881. It was built to guide ships approaching Manitoulin Island and the Port of Little Current from the South through waters that were largely uncharted at that time. It is considered to be the ultimate design of classic Georgian Bay style lighthouses. It features attached housing for a large family, which gives the lighthouse a combination of beauty and function.
      We are going to a scenic location known as the Baie Fine, which is pronounced Bay Fine.  The entrance is only about 14 miles from Little Current and runs just over 10 miles ending at 'The Pool' which is where we plan to anchor, if possible.  There are white quartz mountains that stretch down the narrow bay making this a very scenic destination. In addition to the beauty, I was intrigued by this suspension bridge from the house on the main island to a guest house on a very small island (photo at right).  I suppose this is where you could house the in-laws stayed when they came to visit.
      We were a little concerned about finding room at the anchorage in the Pool, which was the reason for our early departure for such a short trip. We did get our hopes up as we passed about 8 boats headed out on our way down the channel. The photo on the left shows the beauty of the shoreline in the Pool. The geese in the foreground are feeding on bugs in the seaweed. We did not realize at the time, but the floating seaweed was an indication of how our anchor would be covered with a huge blob of seaweed when we pull it up tomorrow.
       We launched the kayaks after lunch to set off to the dock at the start of the trail up to Topaz Lake. There were several other boats at the trail head (photo at right), but most of them were related to the construction of a cabin somewhere up the hillside. Since we were in our kayaks, we left our Fit Bits on Lucky Us, so I have to guess that we hiked about three quarters of a mile and gained about 250 feet in elevation.
      The hike was well worth it as the lake is beautiful (photo at left). We ended up about 30 vertical feet above the lake in a steep fairly open area, which really enhanced our views.

      The photo at the right is another view over the lake with the rocky hillside in the background. To me the beauty of the setting is enhanced by the combination of rocky outcrops along with the contrasting trees and water. Later in the afternoon three of the go fast boats that we had seen multiple times in the Mackinac Island area arrived and rafted up across the Pool from us. We spent much of the rest of the day enjoying this idyllic and peaceful setting…

     The last photo (at left) from Topaz Lake shows Lucky resting while being scratched. If you look carefully at her ears, you can see that they are flying in the wind. Thus, our weather report for Topaz Lake is very windy, but the breeze was welcome after our climb up here.

      The last photo for the day shows the view back toward Lucky Us as we set out in our kayaks. The entrance channel is out of view to the right, but the wind was being funneled up the channel toward us. Thus, we had to negotiate waves up to one foot in height until we got out of the wind and into the Pool. The boats in the anchorage are oriented in many different directions, which showed that the winds were swirling around in the Pool. 
Meanwhile, the Admiral continues her hopes of a bear sighting...

No comments:

Post a Comment