7/27/18 Friday: And the wind keeps blowing. What the heck?! We knew it would be, so we had already paid for two nights here – now we may need a 3rd. This was Friday, and we were surprised how many boats left from here today. Check out time is 11:00, and the docks were nearly empty. The dock hands said that there would be 40 boats coming in today, in the big wind… it would be a busy day! And yes it was!
We even had a float plane putter past our dock!… with a boat coming into the channel on the other side of him, and this channel is not very wide!
The main marina was in “town” on the other side of the channel. OK – It isn’t big enough to be a town. Maybe a village? Probably just a hamlet. Their population is less than 400. We were staying at the Sportsman’s Inn, and they have docks on both sides of the channel. We were on the south (not town) side. So to get across, we had to hail the shuttle Tinkerbell. We have a little hand held VHF radio, so we used that to call on VHF 68. Tinkerbell is a pontoon boat that goes back and forth all day long. The dock hands stay very busy here, between docking boats, pumping fuel, and shuttling people across.
On the main marina side, we walked the 2 blocks of town. Seriously – that’s about all that there is to the metropolis of Killarney. We saw this old church – the church of St Bonaventure. I couldn’t find much history, but I think it’s been here since the mid 1800’s. Gotta like a church that has a saint for Good Adventures, right?
There was a cute little bar here on the docks at Sportsman’s Inn – a Canadian tiki hut!
We were headed to the Sportman’s Mountain Lodge at the other end of town. Along the way I saw Herbert Fisheries with their world famous fish & chips take-out window. I was tempted to try them, but all the other ‘world famous fish & chips’ that we’ve had at other places haven’t been that great. I like more fish than breading in my fish & chips, and that hasn’t been the norm here. Just what exactly about the fish & chips are all of these places famous for, anyway? 🤔
At the other end of town, we found the Sportsman’s Mountain Lodge. They have a marina with a few slips, but they didn’t have any availability when we called for reservations. There were some really big boats here. They are set up as a resort on a lot of acreage – with a swimming pool, cabins, conference center, restaurants, bar, and marina. It was very nice! And we had full access to everything, because our marina and this one are sister properties.
I liked their take on the world. This reminded me of my beer loving sons.
We had thoughts of taking a dip in the heated swimming pool, but the air and wind was a little too cool, and there were lots of kids enjoying the pool. Not what we had in mind. So we went into the bar and had a Bloody Mary. Because that’s what adults can do when it’s too cold outside for swimming.
They had lots of big heavy red Adirondack type chairs sitting all around the property, where you could sit and watch the channel. They were comfy and a nice way to relax. They are the same kind of chairs on the end of our dock back at Island Girl.
They had nice outside dining at the restaurant. Captain always looks for red umbrellas when we’re boating – they are a sure sign of a bar, right?! Here in Canada, red is the favorite color everywhere.
It was really a beautiful setting!
And we saw this little guy named Chip (I presume). He wasn’t at all timid or afraid of us.
We had burgers on the BBQ for dinner, and enjoyed a nice sunset. Miss Rocky still wasn’t feeling very good, with her ear ache and sore throat. 🙁
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7/28/18 Saturday: Oh my – so many boats coming and going! We spent most of the day just sitting in our red chairs on our dock, watching boats come and go. I swear Captain Kenny had heart palpitations just watching the chaos! Big boats, small boats, sail boats, jet skis, kayaks, canoes, fast loud boats, trawlers, peddle bikes, float planes and swimmers. And seemingly nobody was watching the other guy, and someone else is just trying to sneak by behind, and a little tiny sailboat is zigzagging upwind, while a 40’ boat fights the wind as he tries over and over to slide into a narrow slip, and everybody seemed to be in their own little world. Yet- nobody crashed, nobody yelled, nobody seemed to mind. Wow! This place is crazy!! This was one of the most unique boats we saw.
We had fun watching these young men. They would peddle these pontoon bikes downwind, then peddle like crazy back up into the wind.
Of course, Tinkerbell stayed busy. The entire marina was full.
We were in the windiest spot, as the west wind continues to blast through the channel. There was one dock to the west of us, but it was breaking away from it’s supports, so they had to move a boat off of it yesterday. It remained empty today in the big wind. We look pretty tiny – you can just barely see the back of our boat. I swear there was a SeaRay convention going on. Most of the boats in the marina were SeaRays of various sizes and styles.
Some of the docks could accommodate 2 large boats on each side (4 boats total). We watched musical dockings for awhile. There was a big boat already on the dock, (the biggest one in the picture above), and the marina wanted to put another boat on the dock with him, but he wanted to leave tomorrow. So he had to back out and let the other boat in. But he also had to wait for two other boats to go into the same alley to dock on the finger pier next to him. So he tootled around in the channel for about a half hour. This is when Kenny was beside himself while watching the mayhem. As he circled around by our dock, Kenny commented to the captain that this channel was sheer craziness. The captain replied -“ it’s like this every year – It’s Killarney!” OK then – now we know this is normal?! EEK!
Here are a few of the loud rumble boats. These guys were in and out to the fuel dock a couple times a day! This little town seems to be a favorite destination for locals to come. I suspect there were gathering of friends who do this a few times each summer. I mean – they only get to use their boats for about 3 months/year around here, so this is a fun place to meet up and play.
Not only was there a probable SeaRay convention, there also seemed to be a Highfield dinghy convention too! This seems to be the dinghy brand of choice that everyone has around here. Captain had dinghy envy.
We enjoyed watching all of the commotion in the Killarney channel, and were thankful that we weren’t out in it, or out in the wind. The boaters that came in today said it was still pretty rough out. I’m glad we were able to just hang out, Rocky rested, and we had a very relaxing day. We did go to the Sportsman’s Inn pub for dinner, but we didn’t stay on that side of the channel very long. There were parties happening on several docks and boats. In fact, even with our air conditioning running all night and all the white noise that it makes, Rocky and I both woke up and heard music in the middle of the night… Hotel California was blaring at 3:30am. It’s Killarney!