August 24, Day 72 - Stairs Island to Mill Lake

This is going to be a long day. It is a 50 mile run in the open water, so this will take us 8 to 10 hours. We will miss the sights of the Byng Channel and other inside channel stuff (like the Hangdog Reef and Channel - a 55 foot cruiser sank here last week after being advised to go outside).

It is a beautiful morning with puffy clouds and zero wind. The water looks like a mirror and the critters are making their morning noises – the loons are particularly active this morning.

Gerry put the dinghy back on the davits while Linda made coffee. After a quick bowl of cereal, we were on our way to Beaverstone Bay.

We had an uneventful run in calm seas over to Beaverstone Bay and arrived so early that we decided to press on a bit. We made it through the shallow entrance to the Collins Inlet and went to Mills Lake and anchored behind Green Island. This was a very quiet anchorage, but the west wind sort of funneled down past all of the small islands and kept things a little breezy all night.

Gerry tried fishing again, but still no luck. Linda read before cooking some pork cutlets for dinner.

We had zero cell coverage here, so Gerry got out the Wilson cell phone amplifier and voila – 4 bars, just like that. Plugged the phone into the computer and returned a few emails.

After dinner, we kicked back and relaxed (didn’t even take the dingy off) and then off to bed.

Leaving the Stairs Island area


Some of the sights along the way .... two islands obviously owned by the same people with a bridge connecting the two.

House on a rock. Gerry loves this kind of yard. No grass to mow

House and lighthouse .... liked the colors of gray and white

More islands with houses ..... very typical of the area


Pointe au Baril Lighthouse

The Barrel. In the mid-1800's the aids to navigation in the channels of Georgian Bay often consisted merely of piles of stones. In order to better guide boats into the channel, local residents erected a barrel with a lantern on top at the point of land now known as Pointe au Baril (translated meaning the point with the barrel). In 1889 this barrel was replaced with the current lighthouse.

The sign depicting the spot of the "original" barrel

The mountains (La Coche) in the distance as we approached Collins Inlet

The landscape we traveled though as we came into the inlet (lots more picturesque than the open water)


More of the landscape ..... lots of rocks

Kayakers shown below a rock wall


A passage on the way to our anchorage

Sunset at our anchorage on Mill Lake