We delayed our departure from Sportsman's Inn until 8:00 am when the second dock hand came on duty. In the photo below the red star with white center shows where we started, and the red line shows our approximate path. I had to pull the stern out away from the dock and back between the 33 foot white boat and the finger pier across from it. The gap was about 30 feet, and we are 15 feet wide. If that wasn't fun enough, I then had to turn 90 degrees to negotiate the first corner. We not only had the two dock hands spread out of both sides, but the owner of the white boat was standing on his bow watching anxiously. The red line shows something like our path as then we had to back up 75 feet before turning again to get where Lucky Us is in the photo. In the photo Lucky Us is now continuing to back up to finally exit the marina. We did not touch anything or need a helping (e.g. a push) at all. It was fun to glance up and see the owner disappear once we cleared his boat, and by the time we were safely backing past the fuel sign, the dock hands also gave up and left. If you look very closely, there is a small yellow rectangle near the star. Inside the rectangle are the 2 dock hands walking toward shore and not looking back... By this point, I was really ready to burst with pride (?). That or maybe the reality is that I was on a huge adrenalin rush after making it out without any help.
Herbert Fish Company is home to what they describe as "World Famous Fish 'n Chips". We ate inside there after arriving at Killarney on Day 105. The white part of the building is the restaurant with a take out window outside and an ordering counter inside. We ate inside as we so often do after a trip on the water. Herbert Fish Company is also a commercial fish company with at least one of their own boats that also docks here. This building complex is fairly new, and the diner part was more famous in the past for having done their cooking and serving out of a converted school bus parked on this site. 
We also passed by the waterside of the local grocery store. The Admiral shopped here yesterday and also bought some locally grown vegetables from a pickup truck and stand across the street. We have finally reached a point if the summer where locally grown vegetables are becoming both very good and abundant. We did not see any truly local stands where farmers were selling their own home grown vegetables.The grocery also has a gas dock where both boats and cars can pull up. Our marina also had a gas pump on shore where they would gas up vehicles. We never saw a gas station that faced a street, and I am pretty sure that we covered all of the remotely main streets in our various walks.
My personal favorite sighting in Killarney was the LCBO (provincial liquor) store (photo at right). The sale of hard liquor is often still tightly controlled by each province, but the sale of beer and wine often has been allowed in grocery and convenience stores. This LCBO is probably unusual in that it has its own dock in back. As you can see the docking time is limited to 30 minutes. You wouldn't want to keep any customers waiting...
At the very eastern end of the town and of the channel through the town is the Killarney Mountain Lodge. One of those inappropriate names since there is no mountain here, but the lodge, facilities and grounds are very nicely done. They have a small marina for their own boats (rental and charter) as well as a few guests and visitors. This is owned by the same folks that own the Sportsman's Inn where we stayed, and we supposedly had access to Lodge's pool and hot tub, but it was too far away to be useful at night when we would have used it.
If you look closely in the picture above, they have a rather unique drive under lighthouse at the front entrance (photo at right). I tried, but I could not get any information about it so I guess that it is purely a functional cover for vehicles loading/unloading at the front desk. Anyway, Lucky and I had a nice walk around their beautiful grounds.
The photo at the left is one last look back over the stern at the town and channel. The Killarney Mountain Lodge is just out of view at the right. I suppose that we are still officially in the channel, since we have still not passed the Killarney Lighthouse East, which is just ahead. Yesterday I posted a photo of this lighthouse taken while I was standing on the rocks down near the water's edge. The red is a little faded, but the bright white column really lights up in the sun.
About a half mile inside the channel there were several, protected anchorages just off the main channel. All of the anchorages had boats in them, but there was room for more. As we were to discover later, the other end of the channel does not have nice anchorages like these. The rocks across much of the entrance were imposing, but we are learning to "look for a brown color" that signals the bottom is close. Often a very narrow passage can have water that is deeper than the passage is wide. However, you should note that I used the word "often" rather than "always". Boater beware!
The channel crosses one narrow, long lake, but there are many cabins on the lake, which would limit its usefulness for anchorages. Finally, at the other end of Collins Inlet it opens up into Beaverstone Bay. The "water" may widen, but the actual channel is dredged and is very narrow. These red and green channel markers are only about twice as far apart as Lucky Us is wide. We had been hearing boats calling on the radio to alert other boats that they were about to transit this half mile long section from one end or the other. Now we could see the reason for the calls, since we did not want to meet even a small boat in this narrow, winding channel...
After we exited the narrow channel, we got our first view of the upper (eastern) end of Beaverstone Bay. I had not been here in about 56 years, but it still was as beautiful as I remembered it. Our plan was to explore two places where I had stayed with my family back then before finding a protected anchorage for the night. Many islands ranging from a few square feet to several acres ranging from bare rock to heavily forested.
The first island that we found was owned by friends from back home in Ohio. It had been in the wife's family for quite a few years, and had a lovely (small) home (photo at right) with a guest cabin that must have been at least 10 feet square... They had only one child, Davey, who was my age so we had a lot of fun together. Boating, water skiing, fishing and exploring were all on our agenda. My first flight on a seaplane was from Sudbury, Ontario about 50 miles to here. As a 15 (?) year old, it was quite a thrill to land and taxi right up to this dock. The channel here is pretty narrow with an island just behind me. The Admiral looked a little worried, but I assured her that, back in the day, the owner of the island behind me regularly brought his 35 foot cabin cruiser in here at night while seemingly quite drunk. So, I was confident that we were quite safe...
We continued on across the bay to where the Beaverstone Bay Lodge had been (photo at left). We had first stayed there when I was 11 or 12 years old. My brother and I spent long hours fishing the bay in a small rowboat with a 5 hp motor. We were pretty intense, and as a result, we caught a lot of fish. The family "rule" was that we did not keep a Northern Pike" less than 30 inches long so we threw many back. It was exciting landing a large fish on a spinning rod and reel with something like 10 pound test line. The main lodge building with a dining room, lounge and kitchen appears to have been converted into a private home (in photo), but some of the cabins and other outbuildings also remained.We had eaten lunch on the boat, but now it was time to stop the "trip back in time" and find a protected anchorage for the night. The admiral had identified three possibilities, but two were surrounded by several cabins and one was too exposed for the predicted southwest winds. So, we made the decision to go back and find an anchorage back in the narrow, well protected confines of the Collins Inlet. The weather report was not great for tomorrow so we might be anchoring for two nights.
Hi there. You are correct, the place you used to stay "Beaverstone Bay Lodge" has been owned by a private family for many years. They still have lots of memorabilia from the past including the "House Rules" and other stuff. You will be happy to know that many kids are still doing exactly what you did when you were there - fishing, swimming and exploring. The family had many children who have had many children, so there is always kids visiting the old "Lodge"!
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