Sunny Days: Echo Island

We left Papoose Island and met up with the small boat channel of the Georgian Bay. This is a nice combination of open water and the skinny water with homes on rocks. Don’t miss the locks but do miss the comradery of fellow travelers and the kids on the locks. Whereas we went through the 1,000 Islands up near Boldt Castle—the Georgian Bay is the water of 30,000 Islands. I think the definition of an island here is a rock always out of water with a tree or shrub on it. Mind you there are about 100,000 rocks slightly submerged that quest to be an island with their own name. We went around 40 miles-- by O’Donnell Point (named I am sure for our O’Donnell folk), Pate Island, and one we had sorta been looking for-Omemee Island which might be one our friends the Schwide’s own. At around 2:30 we anchored in Echo Bay with 4 other boats because it is about a mile and a half from Henry’s a restaurant on an island that is supposed to be great—it was OK. Echo Bay, though, is a terrific, protected anchorage—we have found the perfect weather of t-shirts and shorts and cool nights—haven’t even been tempted to turn on the air conditioner. Happy hour was spent touring the little inlets around Echo Island where we saw a lot of wild iris in bloom and the windblown trees that were all directed to the east (much like the Divi-Divi trees in Aruba). Along the way we have seen a lot of stone men called Inuksuks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk) that are interesting--they line the waterways. We will stay here until Sunday when we are due in Parry Sound for Wi-Fi, groceries and mail on Sunday.