Aug 16 – At the Cottage

A few more pictures from this last week at the cottage.

On Sat the 8th my cousin and I decided to go for a short boat ride because she was leaving the next day. There used to be an eagle’s nest in the islands out in front of us but it had fallen down. My aunt had found a new one on a small island near the far shore of the large bay that we are on. She couldn’t remember exactly which one, so we headed off to explore.

We scanned island after island with the binoculars until we found it.

It is in the open area just below the top of the tallest tree.

The red plastic bag that somehow got woven into it sure helped.

No sign of the eagle.

We then decided to go a try and get through a narrow channel that our family has called The Spragge Channel. That is not the real name, if it even has one. In other years it has been too shallow to get through in our large boats but we had no problem this year.

As a kid I remember that it was an all day trek across the bay in my grandfather’s boat with all the family to have a picnic on these rocks. It is about 7 km from the cottage, which now takes us less than 10 minutes.

Since we just idled up the channel the kayaker’s ahead of us didn’t hear us until we were right behind them.

Looking back. Clouds ahead and blue sky to the rear.

Passing by some of the hated cormorants, that have eaten most of the sport fish in the lake around us.

And home on an almost glassy smooth lake.

That night Jennie’s nephew and family arrived for a 3 day visit. Since it was so calm I took them out for a short ride.

By now there were some rolling waves so we got some bounces.

Their son loved it.

Their daughter retreated to the back where there is much less motion on the ocean.

On Sunday we all had a tough day at the beach.

Jennie spent some time adjusting all the windsocks we have along the dock.

We have a seagull that thinks it owns the beach. It has a habit of eating and then relieving itself on the dock.  The windsocks seem to stop it from landing.

After everyone left we had a few quiet days and then on Thursday we walked down to the nearby creek and causeway.

As a comparison of the water levels, in previous years this has been what the creek looks like.

Now it looks like this.

The causeway has a boat launch and used to have a community dock. I sometimes use it with my telescope as it has great 360 degree views of the sky.

We saw this little monster crawling along the ground.

In the afternoon the weather got much nicer so I decided to head out and try and find out what happened to the old eagles nest.

I was pretty sure that it was in a tree that used to be in that empty spot in the picture above so I landed to scramble around the island for a while.

This fallen dead tree was the best I could find.

It seemed to be in the right place and have some debris at about the right height but there did not seem to be enough for an eagles nest. On talking to my relatives later we also think that the nest was in a live tree and this one looked like it had been dead for a long time.

If it had been in another tree in that area I am pretty sure I would have seen something on the ground so I guess it either disintegrated or I was in the wrong place.

It was still fun climbing around the island even though I did get covered in spider webs.

Lots of interesting trees.

It looked like some large animal had been using this area for a bathroom, more than once.

Looking back towards the boat.

I noticed that the Blind River police boat went by. A lot of people spend the night in these sheltered islands during their extended cruises. I guess he was checking up on them. I always make sure I have all the required safety equipment.

After getting back in the boat I decided to check the lagoon in the island at the left side of the map below.

When I was a kid this was a prime fishing location. I didn’t really like fishing much but it was very peaceful and I always loved the boat ride.

With the low water, it has been many years since we could get a boat in. I wanted to see if there was enough this year.

I guess not. It looks like the entrance has been dry land for so long that enough vegetation grew to create a sand bar. I then headed home.

We had a few more quiet days with nothing worth a picture. We are heading home until next weekend, tomorrow.