All stations, all stations...Happy new year everyone! Yes, it’s a new year and a leap year at that. This may be a great thing for some people but from my perspective it translates into one more day that I will have to wait before I can get my boat back into the water.
I love being on and in the water. And while I’m bound to the shore through the winter months, thinking about the different ways to hit the water come time for the spring thaw, helps take off the chill.
While sailing is my passion, I also enjoy kayaking, snorkeling and surfing. I know what you’re thinking — there’s not much surfing that goes on in northern Ontario. But I do own a couple of surf boards and whenever I can, I head south to where “riding the waves” is a more common pastime.
Snorkeling as well isn’t as big a thing in our area, but when you are chartering in the Caribbean, it is a must with schools of beautifully coloured fish and shallow reefs waiting to be explored.
Kayaking on the other hand, is definitely an experience that is easy to discover on our many local lakes and waterways.
Sailing is an exhilarating sport where you work with large sails, lines, winches and a rudder to harness the wind to move your vessel over the water. Kayaking deconstructs boating and brings you down into the water, where you use your own muscles to propel your vessel through its surface. It is an experience that brings you close to the water, allowing you to explore its surface and shoreline in a much more personal and intimate fashion.
It is such a simple and easy way to get you out and onto the water. My wife and I love kayaking so much, we keep two on the bow of our sailboat.
One of our favourite places to kayak is Baie Finn. This long, narrow fjord is located just north of Fraser Bay and is a spectacular example of the rugged beauty of northern Ontario. A truly unique body of water, the Baie Finn is framed by the majestic white quartz cliffs of the La Cloche range on the north side and the deep green, tree-covered granite mountains of the northern boundary of Killarney Provincial Park on its southern shore. Looking down her length, it’s not hard to understand why A.Y. Jackson of the Group of Seven spent so much of his time here.
We often start our exploration of the Baie Finn in a small anchorage near the top of the bay called Marianne Cove. Paddling out of the little cove, you might travel west toward the beginning of the bay and just hang out beneath the cliffs that rise 50 to 60 feet from the water’s surface. These cliffs are just inside the entrance to the fjord and they rise straight out of the water. Small gnarly pine trees grow out of the deep cracks in the cliffs and floating below this sheer rock face fills you with a sense of awe.
Alternatively, you might paddle across the narrow body of water to leave the tree-filled green boreal forest of the south shore to glide down along the north shore and its stunning white quartz mountains. Sitting in your kayak at the base of these shimmering white giants, it’s hard not to wonder what geological event could have created such a riveting landscape.
When you explore the south shore of this bay, you discover a shoreline that is pocketed by small bays, rocky points of land and little islands that offer the possibility of secluded remote camp sites. Anyway you explore the Baie Finn, I think you will discover a place that is purely magical and custom-made for the kayaker.
Until next month, this is Capt’n D clearing to channel 16. Happy New Year.
Dennis Centis is a member of the Little Current Yacht Club, and has chartered bodies of water around the world, including the Mediterrenean, the Bahamas and Caribbean, as well as the North Channel and Georgian Bay.
Posted by Laurel Myers
