In early July of 2007 Dan and I decided to take a cruise up north. No one else was interested in going at that time, so we put our bikes on board and went on our own. Once up at Gull Harbour we ran into Chris and Penny Goodfellow. So we had friends to visit and socialize with. We were all trying to get a little further north on our little mini vactions, but those darned north winds were just not co-operating. So, we did some cruising around Black, Deer and the Punk Islands, waiting for the wind to co-operate. We did a little exploring of Hecla Island on our bikes. 
We couldn't even get around grindstone point to get into Wells Harbour. We explored the harbour at Little Grindstone, spent a couple of nights at Hecla Village then decided to re-explore the Manigotagan River. We had been up this river years ago with our 25ft Bayliner "LINDAN". But Thunderbird needs a lot more water than a 25ft fibre glass boat with a stern drive. But the Rivers and Lake were known to be quite high that year, so we decided to give it a go. 
Now this is a tricky river entrance to get into. And after checking all my charts I could not find the one with my notes about the two different sets of range markers you had to follow to get in there and our new GPS did not make sense to me and didn't add up, to how I remembered it.
So we ignored the GPS and Dan relied totally on my memory. We approached the river entrance from the north west because that's how I remembered it. And sure enough there was the first set of range markers that I was looking for. We cruised on down that range, keeping a sharp lookout to port for the second set of range markers. Because when we found those we had to get them lined up and when they were aligned we had to make a 90 degree turn to port and cruise down that second range. There were no floating buoy markers to assist you, or anything else. You had to rely totally on those two ranges. So, we did and simple as that we were in. Once in the river there are buoy markers to designate shallows etc.
Let's see how far we can get up the Manigotagan River was the challenge. So, we took it really slow and nosed our way up the river.
Now the last time we were here, the volume of water was more like what you would get out of a very large fire hose or culvert and it was spilling out of what would be the opening to the right of this picture. The falls were much higher and young boys were climbing up beside the falls, jumping in the water and climbing back up again.
Now, of course the falls have not shrunk, but with that huge volume of water coming over them, even spilling into two channels as one can not contain it. It is bringing the water level up so much that it gives the allusion that the falls aren't as high as they were. Plus no kids could ever dive and swim in that torrent. We are also able to get just as close as with our 25ft Bayliner.
We could hear her keel hit a couple of rocks as I was out on the bow taking these pictures. Once I got the shots that I wanted, we carefully crept out of there, with our fingers crossed that we wouldn't damage our prop. We would have never gotten that far up the Manigotagan with Thunderbird if the river had not been running almost at flood stage. But we did it and I have these pictures to prove it.
ANOTHER GREAT ADVENTURE
