Killarney to Covered Portage Cove

Friday July 23 - We have been moving slowly this morning: I got up around 9:30am, washed some dishes, and made coffee; Kathi got up at 10am. No we did not "party" last night, but went to the "Pines Inn" and had a light dinner and some beers and wine. The owner, Paul, sat down with us and we talked from dusk until almost 10pm. He was a mechanic in Hamilton and wanted a life change and bought this Inn. He lives here year round. He also told us about his health experience with the system here in Canada. He woke up one day peeing blood and went to the nearest clinic. They immediately got him scheduled for an ultrasound, which happened within a day or two. The results indicated that he had a lesion on one of his kidneys. He had his results sent to his regular doctor and after review was scheduled for an appointment with a specialist. The end result was that they decided to remove the kidney and it was found to be cancerous, but totally contained and had not spread. This all happened within a 4 to 6 week period, and not a penny out of his pocket. Hummmm... Sounds like a awful system doesn't it.

We plan to go out to breakfast this morning at the Gateway Marina restaurant that claims to have the best breakfasts. This is the same place that has the bakery. A bunch of people have recommended their blueberry pancakes.

It rained overnight and still is off and on. We plan to head out around noon, and were hoping the "flotilla" would be on their way already, but no such luck. The rain is supposed to taper off as the day continues and stop early this afternoon. We will probably go to Covered Portage Cove to anchor.

Well, we are off to the showers and then to breakfast... More later... Did get our breakfast at the Gateway Marina restaurant. We arrived there around 11:45am and asked for their famous blueberry pancakes - breakfast, in particular pancakes and waffles stop at 11am - boo-hoo on the pancakes. But wait a minute, the waitress (sister of the owner) pleaded with the cook and we got our excellent stack of three 8" blueberry pancakes with butter and syrup! I also had two eggs over easy and two pieces of peameal bacon... yummmmm...

We got a bunch of ice: one block, and 4 bags of cubes. We will see how long these last. We are currently waiting for a space on the gas dock to open up for us - we have to wait for two sailboats to get service before us, then off to the anchorage...

We left Sportsman's Inn marina around 1:30pm after we topped off the diesel, water and got a pump-out. Even though we spent exorbitant amounts for groceries, fuel and the pump-out were very reasonable. We headed West out of Killarney harbor, past Sheep Island and into Covered Portage Cove. At first I was worried about the depth in the inner cove, but we made it past 5.5ft of water (probably weeds) and onto 10ft of water in the inner anchorage. Unfortunately there were probably 25 boats in the inner anchorage by sunset. There are impressive quartz cliffs to the East of where we are anchored.

There was a catamaran named “Dues Paid” that had a couple of guitarists and probably a ‘recorder” onboard and visiting from other boats. It was a real “Kum-By-Yah” moment as they sang folk songs by Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, John Denver, The Eagles, and others until dark (when the mosquitoes attacked en-mass). There was a lot of clapping and cheers after songs finished from anchored boats (and a very inappropriate horn blowing from a Canadian powerboat). We would have been happier with a “silent” anchorage, but the performance was not unwelcome.

We met the crew of “Shadow” as they headed to their sailboat anchored astern of us, but as we talked the mosquito wave increased to an intolerable level and they headed back. We have met so many friendly Canadians we just really feel at home.

We saw our cruising friends that we met at Golden Sword Island anchored here. They don’t do marinas much – “our cruising budget doses not allow it…”, so we did not seem them in Killarney (although as they passed through they saw us at Sportsmand’s Inn). I went by in the dinghy after my excursion in the outer anchorage and talked about our experiences. While out in the outer anchorage I saw “Ragtime” from Thornberry that we anchored next to in Little Sand Bay (Northeast corner of Christian Island in the south of Georgian Bay) and talked with him for awhile.

Had some Lake Trout cooked on the grill (fish, onion, seasonings in aluminum foil) and corn on-the-cob, followed by leaf lettuce salad with onion and tomato for dinner. Once the mosquitoes attacked we headed or bed.

Herbert Fisheries where we bought fresh Lake Trout and Whitefish just off the fishing boat!

Killarney chart with location of Covered Portage Cove in the upper right.