31 July – 1 August 2014

The trip from Harbor Vue to the entrance of Baie Fine took about an hour. Once we entered into Baie Fine it was like entering another area of Canada

There were soaring walls of white rock that had pine trees clinging to the faces. The water travels back nine miles. There is a little sub channel that then heads back another two miles and dead-ends into what the locals call “The Pool” We opted to anchor out at the far end of the Baie Fine. Baie Fine is the largest freshwater fjord in the world.

We tried to fish that night, but it was a little too windy, we didn’t catch anything.

My friend Doug from the Bayliner’s Owen Club came over in his skiff and introduced himself. We spoke for quite a while. Doug and his wife Mona have been coming up here for decades. It’s always cool to meet people in person you only know on line.

We had a slight scare overnight. We use an application called Drag Queen. It tells me how much the anchor has dragged and sounds an alarm when the anchor drags too far. I had I set assuming the direction of he wind would not change. Over night the wind went from SE to NW and the boat promptly turned around. And it set the alarm off, so we were on deck trying to figure what happened. A quick check of the GPS showed that we had moved 180 degrees, total distance moved was 200 feet, the length of my anchor chain.

On the other hand it was a great sky show. Lots of stars to see, and I even saw 5 shooting stars go by. The stars are so impressive, it’s a shame that I needed to go so far to get away from all the light pollution.

In the morning we got up and had breakfast. As we were packing up, Doug came by to invite us over for a fresh fish lunch. We set a time and we loaded up in our dink to head to “The Pool” and Topaz Lake. It’s about a 15 minute ride down the small channel. The water was super flat and calm, it was neat riding down.

At “The Pool” there were nine boats anchored in different spots. While I can see the beautiful location, I’m not sure that I want to sit in a place that everywhere you look is another boat. We puttered to the far end to look around the corner into the marsh. Very pretty. A U-turn and back up to the north shoreline where there is a small dock. We tied off and started our trek to Topaz Lake.

The walk starts of easy enough but then the trail becomes the rock strewn bed of a dry stream. The fist sized rocks makes walking interesting. After about half a mile the path turns to the left and goes up through the forest. It’s a pretty strenuous climb for people that spent the last two decades behind desks. I’m glad we did some walking and biking in the weeks before.

We got to the top and Topaz Lake was spread out about 50 feet below us. The promontory we were on gave us some great pictures of the lake and the mountain behind it. It was a steep climb to the rocky ledge at the waters edge. The water was warm and more of an emerald color than topaz.

While we were eating our snacks a group of 5 people came through, two hauling inflatable standup boats. They said they had never heard of anyone trying it, they thought they were the first. A few moments later a group of 6 people came through, one of them hauling a Kevlar canoe. I was amused by this, I had been complaining about the trail and here is a guy with a canoe. They weigh about 50 lbs, but still…. We watched the boarders and the canoe people for awhile before heading back.

On the trail home Susan stopped suddenly and pointed to the right, hissing “deer”. Coming through the trees was a small deer. It crossed the trail behind us and bounded up the hill. It didn’t seem to be concerned by us, I’m guessing that they run into hikers all the time.

We were soon back at the dink and then back to our boat. We changed out of our swimming stuff and headed over to see the crew of the Shannon. We met Mona and their cat. Doug had caught pike in the morning and Mona had lightly breaded the filets and fried them. Grilled white potato slices and salad rounded out our lunch. I’m going to say it was the best fish dinner we’ve had in Canada. Mona told us the secret so once we get to a bigger town we will get the ingredients for the coating.

We spent time talking about boats, and the modifications they made to Shannon to be able to stay out for weeks at a time. They have been boating here for 50 years so we heard about the history of the place and the amazing yachts that came here before fuel costs skyrocketed. They are both interesting people, it was a very pleasant visit. The spot Doug had chosen to anchor gave them a view down the smaller part of Baie Fine, a great vista and not a boat in sight.

Because we had gorged ourselves on fish, the rest of the afternoon was taken up by naps. After naps Susan took her kayak across to a cove, while I fished from the boat. We were both unsuccessful, but it was still fun.

And like the last night, when I got up to check on the anchor, there was a huge star show. Wow!

In the morning, Shannon was gone, they had headed into town for supplies. Susan jumped on the kayak and headed to the spot that Doug had suggested for morning fishing. She was very successful, she had lots of nibbles, caught four and kept the 17” bass and one a little smaller. Fish dinner for us!

Soon after we packed up and headed to Kagawong. I’m really glad that we decided to double back and come to Baie Fine, it is one of the high-points of our trip.