I realize I am delinquent in my posting to this website. It has been a little while, but I account my truency to an overactive calendar (something similar to an over active bladder, but at least you can sleep at night).
In lieu of actually owning up to this issue, and forcing myself to write, I will attach a little of my writings from vacation. I spent a little bit of that sun-soaked time writing my book. Which although is non-fiction, may approach a work of pure fiction given it will most likely never become reality. However, I tease you with a little, a section that talks about at least one activity in Canada...
The Thousand Islands, nestled along the meandering St. Lawrence River and US-Canadian border, are best described as being afflicted with a permanent wind-blown look, much like the local residents. The trees all lean away from the West with green, piney cowlicks. Each island rises as a tumble of stones, brambles and a mixture of leafy and piney trees – in fact an island is an island only if it has a tree. So yes, there are some fairly small, one rock islands you wouldn’t want to be marooned on.
My wife’s family has been traveling for years to the Canadian Hay Island outside of Gannanoque, where a cottage has slowly developed, or grown, above the granite cliffs. It’s been five years of summers for me here, and I love the mixture of the summer weather, family time and adventure. The weather can change on a dime, with blistering sun blacked out by a churning thunder storm in a matter of minutes. The islands have an air of mystery around them, sometimes as thick and still as the morning river fog. It’s like a melancholic tale, written by M Nite Shamala. Some of the islands remind me of the fantasy geography of Treasure Island, with Spy Glass hill, cliffs, and pirates. And yes, there is a good deal of pirate stories here.
I am a somewhat more adventurous than my wife’s family, perhaps because they have much more history here and have seen everything multiple times. But every summer, as I face the six hour drive, I make a list of new adventures to taste. I’ve roamed deserted islands looking for lost ruins, probed hidden inlets hunting pirates and tried to drink in the Thousand Island life.
This year I decided to try a completely new adventure, a way to learn something new and discover the islands. And it took multiple explanations at the dinner table to exactly describe geocaching. For any of you also unfamiliar with geocaching, it is a relatively new ‘sport’ where people look for hidden treasures, or caches marked by longitude and latitude coordinates. Usually the cache contains a small logbook and a variety of trinkets people leave behind and move around. It’s much like a modern day, pirate treasure hunt – a mix of adventure, mystery and puzzles, without the danger of ending on a plank, at the end of a seadog’s sword or in Davy Jone’s Locker.
Prepared with a list of local caches, I began to plan for my hunt. Pulling out my navigational charts, I began to generally plot the referenced islands. Mermaid, Camelot and Leek islands; they even sounded exotic. The red grease pencil helped me plot out my boat approaches, a somewhat difficult endeavor given the interesting channels. As one local explained it, “you can have 14 feet under your transom, while the bow is stuck on a rock.” I’ve heard enough horror stories of being aground on a sandbar at the mercy of the occasional passer-by, to know to avoid this. My adventuring spirit is not that adventuring.
Armed with my trusty sextant (read as GPS), treasure map, and sea rations (a collection of chips and lemonade to prevent scurvy) I kissed my kids farewell and stepped onto my schooner (an 18’ sloop with an 185hp motor, without the mast and sails). It was my own personal Pirates of the Caribbean, and my wife even agreed to play the part of Keira Knightley. (I can’t say I picture myself as Johnny Depp yet).
This is just the start...If you'd like more you must ask nicely...
HRP
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