Thursday, July 2, 2009

We stayed at anchor another day. Gale and Lucy took the dinghy out around 7:30 am to see if they could catch dinner. While they were out, one of the neighboring boats hailed him over and asked what he thought about all the commotion last night. Maureen had mentioned to Gale that the boat that came in late in the day seemed to have a lot of lights on it and they were using a spotlight on shore. She also heard someone’s VHF radio with the volume cranked way up and thought another boat came in during the night. She didn’t hear the two little girls aboard hollering things like, “Daddy, Please don’t! Daddy, No!” There had been a domestic incident happening right next to us and we were unaware of any problem or that the woman had sent out a “Mayday!” The Coast Guard and the Ontario Provincial Police were on scene and handled a difficult situation very well. The mom and two girls were taken away on one boat and the dad on another.

While Gale was out, Maureen was putting together some snacks to take along while we ventured out of The Pool and into the fjord. We couldn’t go too far because we were getting low on gasoline, but did make it out to The Narrows portion and had a little picnic on an island. We saw beavers in the water, eagles over the water and loons on the water! After lunch, we headed back to The Pool and tied off to the dock used by the Killarney Provincial Park staff. It was here that we found the trail up to Topaz Lake and hiked up to see the mountain lake. Even though we were wearing full raingear, rubber boots and hats, the mosquitoes found their way into any exposed areas and left us all with a few large welts. As we stepped over the ridge, we discovered that the lake was aptly named because the water appeared to be a beautiful dark turquoise color. Gale enjoyed a little swim in the clear, cold water but neither Maureen nor Lucy joined in.

After the hike and a little break back on the boat, we thought we had better get out and try fishing again. Maureen was the one who brought home dinner this time – a good-sized Northern.