7-22 – 7-24 Bad River Bay and Devil’s Door and Crooked Rapids

This is the BEST PLACE ON GEORGIAN BAY!! First of all, the scenery is breathtaking.  We are anchored in a nice big bay that is protected from the upcoming weather with plenty of room for many boats.

We had heard about riding the rapids with the dinghy, but were unsure what that would exactly look like and would entail.  Off our port side, there is a cut in steep rocks with rapids moving swiftly through the cut.   To get to the good stuff, you have to go up these rapids.  Off we went with the thrill of shooting up our first rapids in the dinghy.  Yeehaw!  We have done enough river canoeing that we knew what the current will do to a boat and had respect for them, but no fear.  The rocks and trees and water…..I can’t even begin to tell you what it is like.  I of course have photos for you, but once again they don’t do justice.

Pointy rocks

Mounding rocks

We went exploring and ran up one channel and down the rapids of the next.  It was like being on a carnival ride.  We didn’t have our life jackets on us at first, but quickly came to our senses and wore them all the time after our initial jaunt.  We traveled up other rapids and found some fishermen, they warned us of some shallow spots in one area but then it was clear to go up to the next rapids, which were just too strong to attempt.  You may think we’re fools but we know our limit. I made Scott drop me off at a rock across from one of the rapids so I could get photos.  It doesn’t look like much but is a thrill in a dinghy. When he came to pick me up we went rock hopping .  It was great to climb to the top of the rocks to get a new view of the amazing place.

After exploring a bit, we got our fishing gear (Yes! with our Life Jackets ON us) and went back. We went through Devil’s Door rapids and anticipated that we catch a ton of fish and we caught nothing. That’s Okay because we were just having fun….until…. Scott hooked his line on a rock and in the process of trying to unsnag it, he accidently dropped his pole.  This is tragic!!!  We are in the best fishing spot and he loses his pole.  We tried to snag it with no luck.  Of course, we are down river of a rapids so there is a fair amount of current and of course it is too deep to net.  Back to the boat for the dive gear. Now mind you, Scott tweaked his back the day before and I was concerned about getting him back in the boat if he had a spasm.  We made a game plan to get him to a nearby rock if that happened.  Sloosh! In he goes.  He can see it and grabs his dive knife to cut the line free.  Down he went and up came him and his pole with no back spasms.  Back in the boat in a flash and our fishing dreams are still alive.  We came back to the boat after that.

The next day, Scott’s back was killing him again.  He did stretches and took a muscle relaxer which zonked him out.  I needed to get off the boat so I took the VHF and my phone and took off fishing by myself.  I hadn’t caught anything when I see Scott standing on the boat.  I called him on the VHF “Last Call, Last Call this is Wifey Poo do you want to join me?”  He laughed and I went to pick him up.  I wasn’t brave enough, nor should I, go up the rapids by myself. When we were together we decided to go up to the base of a small rapids we explored the day before.  We immediately caught 3 nice Smallmouth Bass.  They were practically under our boat.  We probably scared off a bunch, but needed to be at that spot in order to get out of the current.  We caught a few smaller ones, which we didn’t keep then moved to another spot on the other side of the river.  We only caught a few small ones and plenty of rocks until it started to rain.  The forecast was calling for rain the rest of the day so we bagged it.  It was yucky, cold and raining the rest of the day.   Scott cleaned the fish.  We got our first Bass with the black specks in the meat which are parasites. It is obvious when you find one. Needless to say, we won’t eat that one.  Darn it was big.  The locals told us as the water gets warmer to start watching for them. They were right.

So, what do you do on a rainy afternoon? Well of course, you wash down and oil all the teak cupboards then watch a movie.    With the cloudy weather, our solar isn’t keeping up, which meant, we needed to run the generator for a few hours.  It was the perfect time to turn the oven on while the generator ran.  We happened to collect enough Blueberries to bake a small pie. Our boat never smelled so good. Thanks to my mother for teaching me how to bake and make pie crusts.

We would have liked to stay longer but the weather wasn’t agreeing with us so we moved on.

Hope you are all enjoying your summer,

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

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