New adventures can be exciting or scary, but this particular adventure – my first time kayak camping in Georgian Bay – was both!
Friday
First thing Friday morning, I picked up a kayak and met Christina at a marina. Since I have never completed any trips in a kayak, I did my research (watched one of Christina’s past videos on packing a kayak) to be as prepared as possible. Following her tips, I had many tote bags filled with smaller dry bags which I stuffed into the hatches on the kayak. I then placed the smaller items at the ends and the bigger items near the hatch. I was amazed at how much space I had in this kayak! So much more space than my backpack that I take when canoeing.
Once we had the boats packed, it was time to hit the water so off we went. I was definitely nervous since we would be going out into big water as our destination was approximately 13 km west to the McCoy islands.
After about 3 hours of paddling in 1 to 1.5 m waves and battling some cross wind we landed on Big McCoy to check out some potential sites. We had received some intel about possible sites, but on arrival the one site was already taken. So we hopped back in the kayaks and checked out about 3 more possible locations before landing on our home for the weekend.
This site was beautiful! We had a lovely cove to land the kayaks, a big flat rock surface for the tents, a rock ledge to sit and watch the sun set, and a side trail that brought us to what we called our private beach.
Once we set up our tents and bug shelter it was time for lunch. I was hungry! I had a new meal to try – a Bistro Tuna Bowl. It was really good and I am going to bring more of these on future trips. The remainder of the afternoon consisted of the usual camp chores and soaking in the sun on our rock ledge.
As the evening approached we started our fire and cooked our supper. Christina brought hamburgers accompanied by a cucumber and tomato salad and I had brought some lettuce to add to the salad and burger. All that yummy food attracted some company in the form of gulls. They would come close to see what we were up to, but not close enough for really be annoying, so we had some fun with them over the weekend by giving them names.
Friday Evening
As the sun went down over Georgian Bay, we sat by the fire taking in all that nature was giving us. The Delta kayaks were put to bed and soon we would follow.
It was a very long day and I was glad to finally crawl into my tent that night. We were expecting some rain overnight and into the morning, but you’ll have to come back next week to read more about the rest of our weekend.
To continue to part 2 click here.