LAKE WINNIPEG - OUR CRUISING GROUNDS

According to Blogger Statistics supplied to me, I have many readers that are not from the area so, for the non local readers, Wikipedia states, Lake Winnipeg is a large, 24,514-square-kilometre (9,465 sq mi) lake in central North America, in the province of Manitoba, Canada, with its southern tip about 55 kilometres (34 mi) north of the city of Winnipeg.

It is part of the most undeveloped large watershed of southern Canada.
Lake Winnipeg is the sixth-largest freshwater lake in Canada, but it is relatively shallow (mean depth of 12 m (39 ft)) excluding a narrow 36 m (118 ft) deep channel between the northern and southern basins. It is the eleventh-largest freshwater lake on Earth.

The east side of the lake has pristine boreal forests and rivers that are being promoted as a potential United Nations World Heritage Park. The lake is elongated in shape and is 416 km (258 mi) from north to south, with remote sandy beaches, large limestone cliffs, and many bat caves in some areas. The Manitoba Hydro Electric Co. uses the lake as one of the largest reservoirs in the world. There are many islands in the lake, most of them undeveloped.

THIS IS WHERE WE SPEND OUR TIME IN THE SUMMER

 

 

 

 



AH...... SUNDAY

I love Sundays.  The hustle and bustle of the weekend continues for most of the day, but come supper time things take a gradual turn.      . 

Today started off with another re-naming ceremony.  This time for Derek Debets.  Many of us turned out to celebrate this occasion with him.  Most of us put on silly nautical hats supplied by Boyd and Gayle.   

 

 

 

Derek (with the help of his Dad) has made many changes to the vessel previously know as "Margaret" and is today re-naming her "Double D's".   

 

 

The Captain ceremoniously discarded the previous name, into the Seas. 

 

 

And everyone in attendance toasted the new name from shore. 

 

 

 

"Here's to Double D's"

 

Some champagne was poured for luck and a lot more was drunk in celebration of this occasion. 

 

 

 

 

and a good time was had by all. 

 

The party then moved onto the island where there was wonderful food and more good times. 

 

Then as usual come Sunday afternoon, things started to wind down and the normal Sunday evening hush falls over the beach as everyone prepares and resigns themselves to getting back to their weekly routines. 

 

IT'S GREAT TO BE RETIRED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANOTHER WONDERFUL WEEKEND (CRUISE)

It was such a wonderful day on Saturday that we decided to go out for an afternoon cruise. 

 

 

 

We followed Kevaghn's Tiki Lounge out of the harbour. 

 

There were a lot of boats out enjoying the day. 

It certainly was the perfect day for boating. 

 

 

I went for a swim and Ken went for a swim, and of course Sea-Enna went for a swim. 



In fact we find it difficult to keep her out of the water once she has her "Bathing Suit" on. 

So after a couple of hours of bobbing around out there, it was time to return to harbour. 

And judging by the empty docks we passed on our way in, there were a lot of boats still out there. 

 

 

 

 

 

IT WAS AN EXCELLENT DAY TO OWN A BOAT

 

TGIF

Things have been so boring this week I'm really looking forward to the weekend.   


We have another boat ready to have a renaming ceremony. After all the improvements and work done on her, the boat previously known as "Margaret" is being renamed.  Join us on Sunday at 1:00 pm. In the inner harbour at the empty dock between "Misprint" and "Thunderbird". Everyone is invited to attend and join Derek in this symbolic ceremony . 
 


I will be coming around to get some more volunteers for our upcoming Deep Fried Turkey Pot Luck Dinner to be held  July 20th at 7:00 pm.  in and around the Gazebo. 

We have an abundance of Desserts promised.  We need some more Appetizers, more Salads and a few Vegetable dishes.  I don't know why people are reluctant to do vegetables?  Open a couple of bags of frozen vegetables, dump them in a casserole dish or bowl with a gob of butter and nuke them for 10 min.  and your done.  Easy Peezy.  

There were so many boaters not here last weekend, that I didn't catch up with many of you.  Hopefully we will all be here this weekend.    







The next event coming up after that is,The Light Parade, on July 27th.  We will go out to watch the Boardwalk Days Fire Works display then, do our light parade down the beach right after.  This years theme is Caribbean, Carnival, Reggae Music, etc.   I'm really looking forward to that.  It should be lots of fun.  I love that kind of music.   

 

 

 

 

COME JOIN THE FUN

 

 

 

 

 



DIY: MY TWO UPHOLSTERED SALON CHAIRS

There is quite a story behind the two upholstered chairs I have in my Salon.  Ever since we started the refit on Thunderbird, I had been looking for two chairs that would suit the Salon area.  I had fashioned a little game table with a chess board on top and I needed a couple of chairs to use with it.  Everything I looked at was always too large.  Then I finally came across a pattern to make fitted covers for plastic lawn chairs.  I tried a lawn chair and it was the right size so I purchased the pattern and some fabric that would go well with the Salon Couch.  I would make those covers as soon as we finished the new floors.  So, that was settled. 

Then low, and behold, one day I walked into the hangar and sitting in the kitchen were two small upholstered chairs.  I asked "What are these?"  and someone said "Oh, those are Scotties old chairs." Now there is a tradition in the storage hangar that if there is something you are disposing of, you "Donate it" to the galley and see if someone else wants it.  If nobody wants it, it eventually gets used in the galley or thrown out.  That's where a lot of the galley supplies came from.  When I redid my Condo kitchen, I even donated a a section of cabinets and countertop.  But, I digress. 

These chairs just sitting there and up for grabs were a perfect size.  There wasn't a break in the leather and the leather colour matched the accent colour in my Salon Couch.  The woodwork was a little the worse for wear, all dark wood who's finish was cracked and peeling, but that could  be dealt with, so I grabbed them.  I took them on board and found that they fit nicely, so I got busy.  Took the back and seats off and went to work on the wood.  I sanded and sanded and sanded, right down to raw wood.  Then I put a light stain on them to match my interior, then three coats of Spar varnish with sanding in between.  After three weekends they looked great sitting in my Salon.  I was so pleased,  I chucked the lawn chairs and gave away the fabric that I was going to use to pad and cover them. 

Then one day Bill Chatterly and I were sitting in the galley chatting and he asked me if I had heard what happened.  I asked "What?" and he proceeded to tell me that "Bill Phillip (Better known as Scottie) had his chairs stolen right out of the galley." Again I said "What?"  He said, "Yeah, he put his chairs from his back deck in the galley here, while he laid new carpets down on his deck and someone stole them on him."   Needless to say my heart was up in my throat and my stomach did a flip flop.  I felt sick. 

I went back to my boat and stared at my beloved chairs and thought about what I had done, and what I had to do next.  I don't lie and I don't steal, so I somehow had to fix this. 

Maybe I could offer to buy them?  If he wanted them back maybe he wouldn't like how I had stained them?  Maybe he didn't really want them anymore?  Maybe he had already bought replacements?  I knew for sure I had to go and apologize to him for stealing his chairs and offer to make whatever amends he wanted. 

So, I climbed the ladder up to his boat and asked permission to come aboard.  I was welcomed aboard and as I gave him  my description of what had happened, and started into my apology, the two Bills (Phillip and Chatterly) could no longer contain their laughter.  What started out as snickers, turned into roars of laughter, before I realized I'D BEEN HAD. 

It seems they knew I had refinished the chairs and had concocted this story to get a rise out of me.  I wasn't the least bit embarrassed or angry at their prank.  I was just happy that I got to keep my prized Salon chairs.  And lets face it. 

THEY GOT ME GOOD

 

 

 

2007 - A TRIP UP THE MANIGOTAGAN RIVER (CRUISE)

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.

 

As we rounded the last bend in the river and the falls came into view I was surprised to see how close we were getting. 

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

 

 

 



AHHH... THE WEEKEND

It was a very pleasant weekend that started with my Daughter Tracy Elizabeth coming out for a visit for her Birthday, which was a very nice surprize, but other than that it was a very subdued weekend. 

A date has been set for our Deep Fried Turkey pot luck dinner.  It has been set for July 20th at 7:00 pm, mark that date and time as I am looking for people to sign up for that.  So I did some visiting around the marina with a sign-up sheet.    

I have always heard of the term "Captain's Table" and thought of it as something very elegant, but some how our "Captain's Table", just doesn't measure up to that. 

Our "Captain's Table" is where all these old farts that are Captains from our marina sit with their coffee in the morning and drinks in the afternoon and evening. 

The weather was not very co-operative this weekend, so the "Captain's Table" was well attended.  The wind was up and the waves were plentiful, so not much boating was done this weekend.  The captains had to find lots of things to discuss and gossip about. 

I GUESS THAT'S ONE OF THE PRESSURES OF BEING A CAPTAIN