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Tastings dinner with friends Cathy and Ron at our
favourite restaurant in Midland - The Explorers |
Jen and Rob Reader are international guides who returned to Canada (Rob continues to guide in the Arctic and Antarctic) and opened The Explorers Restaurant in Midland. The food reflects their guiding careers, from South America, India and Thailand. The theme of this, their final tastings dinner of the season, was Ontario and every item except the wine was sourced within 100 km of Midland. The wines were all from Ontario and matched the 5 courses perfectly. Rob is a big bear of a guy while Jen is a petite little thing and they bring such joy in their creativity and humour with Rob's great delivery, that we do our best to enjoy at least one tasting between September and June.
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Then out to anchor at Chimney Bay...and what is
that in the background? |
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| Our favourite pair of.... |
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| ...loons comes by to make certain it's really us |
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Haven't seen this boat for 2 years and since North Channel,
miles and miles to the north. |
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| We explore pretty little channels in the dinghy |
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| Leanin' tree on a tiny island |
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| Uh oh! |
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| Yes indeedy....a storm swoops in and we hunker down... |
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| We spend a day hiking on beautiful Beausoleil Island |
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| Discover a First Nation cemetery |
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| The forest trails are fabulous |
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| The children love it and I just stand back |
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Back to the boat to celebrate Canada Day. Some boats
were completely decked out in red and white |
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Captain Canada wears a flag around his shoulders and flits
about the bay |
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| Saluting Canada Day are many Inukshuk's on the shore |
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Pretty moon huh? Actually, it's the sun...perfect
sun in a dark sky in tribute to our country's anniversary.
As darkness fell, we were surrounded by fireworks
and floating Chinese lanterns that floated up, up and away,
accompanied by cheering crowds and boat horns. |
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Next day - our annual portrait of TULAW, seemingly suspended
between water and sky |
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| Mommy Canada goose and youn'un |
On July 9th, our three grandson's arrived to spend the week with us. What a treat! It was the first time for Ben and Matt to spend several days on the boat and they seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.
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First up - FISHING!!! This is Matt, fishing
off the swim platform |
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| Ben fishing on port side |
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| and Sean on starboard |
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| All three fishing from the bow |
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| Sean and Ben having a rest while Matt persists |
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The boys take turns helping Grandpa set the
stern anchors in shallow water |
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| Then into the water they go and off to the beach |
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| Fooling around on the giant stone chair on the island |
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| Silly sods at breakfast the next day |
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Cute little wooden sailboat behind us with an even tinier
tender |
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| Games and foolishness at night |
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Fishermen heading out to bring back something to
eat for dinner....alas.....not one fish was caught |
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Off we go to Picnic Island at Honey Harbour, for
lunch, ice cream, ice and supplies |
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| Gorgeous water lily at Picnic Island |
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| Cute little barn swallow eyeballing us |
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| More silly ice cream faces |
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| It must be a "boy" thing |
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One of the requirements for children onboard, is that they
be able to swim around TULAW with Grandpa. All of them
were star swimmers and left Grandpa puffing |
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Each of them took turns learning life-saving
with a throw bag.... |
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| Saving Grandpa |
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| Back to the beach to dig water holes |
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| And they never got sick of fishing! |
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I spy this unusual wispy insect with it's li'l buddy on the hatch
over our bed. |
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Back for ice cream at Picnic Island, we watch the Canadian
Coast Guard arrive...probably to buy ice cream |
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| Beauty! |
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Our friends, the Waddell family, arrive and raft their boat
to ours. The boys immediately hop onboard their boat to
meet the family and Bella, the smallest dog in the world |
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Big boy Brent (17 yrs) takes the boys out for a spin
in his much faster and bigger dinghy |
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| Then Brent challenges each of the boys to a swim match |
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| Brent and Matt |
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| Brent and Ben |
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Brent and Sean. They all did well against this champion
swimmer who won first against all the high school swimmers
in Ontario. |
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A week after swimming with our boys, here is Brent (red cap lane 6)
in Montreal competing in Nationals |
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| Silliness in the aft cabin |
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| Brent readying the dinghy to take the boys tubing |
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Matt says he'll go first but looks a little apprehensive as he
waits |
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| Ben and Sean discuss technique while waiting their turn |
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| Matt |
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| Then Sean, who got dragged face first through a huge wave |
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We watch the great action in the anchorage while waiting
for Ben to return |
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| ...and here he comes! |
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| Brent with sister Dana and little Bella |
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Heading back to port and the parents. It was a wonderful, fun-filled
holiday with our terrific grandboys |
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Dinner at the dock and my sincere apologies
for cutting off 2/3 of Sean's face! |
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Next morning as we head out of our slip, we
watch this monster harvest weeds from the channel. |
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After 4 days at anchor, the marine weather channel warns
of severe squalls and tornado's. Dark skies seem far away,
then suddenly this appears quickly over the island in front of us.
We batten down the hatches and wait, counting on our
heavy anchor and chain |
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The boater anchored next to us (the only other one in the bay)
hauls his anchor and sits behind us in the channel....engines running |
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As the tail of the tornado hits us, he disappears into the water that
is lifted up and flung at us |
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Our trusty anchor holds and we survive. Our neighbour did as well.
He returned two days later. |
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| Mother Merganzer duck and her chicks float by |
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There are so many of them (I counted 12) that they keep sliding
off her bum. Then they scramble back up again. In shallow waters
the tiny chicks run across the surface of the water, just like Mom
but in deeper water they know they are safer from predators if they hitch-hike
on Mom's back |
We move on to the gorgeous First Nation Islands of Beckwith, Hope and Christian, a two hour boat cruise north of Penetanguishene and a 20 minute drive by car. The water is Caribbean turquoise, clear to the bottom and about 10 degrees cooler than at Beausoleil.
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| "Dragonflies on my shoulder make me happy", sings Bob |
More to come but we are headed out from port once again, to anchor in remote bays.
Happy long weekend everyone!
