ESCAPE

Recap Fall Escape 2009 September 4th, 5th, & 6th
by Al Halfaker

For those who attended, the weather was perfect. For Patti and I, the trip across Big Traverse was calm, beautiful and boring. No islands or shoreline to look at. It was a great time for snoozing...although Patti kept waking me up and telling me to watch out for deadheads. The dogs, Max and Maggie, took full advantage of the time for a three hour nap.
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We spent Thursday night at Flag Island after crossing 32 miles of Big Traverse. Dan Schmidt and his girl friend Kioki are still there. Some happy fisherman from Iowa were there to share fish stories into the evening. There have been some docking additions to Flag Island. The main dock has been extended about 60 feet to the west toward the breakwater the pelican’s sit on and another 70’ dock has been added down the shore a ways.
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There is a big backhoe on site. It is used to pound dock pilings down to the ledge rock. It is driven onto a giant barge and moved into position for pushing pilings down through the mud to the ledge rock.
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Friday morning about 10:30 we started cruising to 22’ Bay. I over shot the bay a couple of miles because I was using my chart plotter which does not identify 22’ Bay by name. Patti finally pointed out all the 22’ depth marks on the bay which is known as 22’ Bay.
We arrived about 2:30 p.m. and found only one boat in the bay. It was first time new Escape members Lynn and Bob Siemens. They are new to Escape but not new to Lake of the Woods. They have a gorgeous 1990 SeaRay Sundancer called Sundancer Four in immaculate condition they keep at Northern Harbour Marina. They asked who I was and I asked who they were and we went from there. Betty Ann and Kerry Hossack, more first time Escape participants, arrived in their brand new SeaRay right after Patti and me. Now there were three boats. A few minutes later Barb and Stan Newman arrived in Endless Summer and then there were four boats. Russ and Pauline Warne arrived about the same time with their new to them “fordy fooder,” a 1997 Bayliner Avanti 40’. They already have a new name on the boat “Dragonfly”. It was a repo boat they purchased in Spring Lake, Michigan and cruised up through Lake Michigan and down Lake Superior two weeks before Fall Escape. They are very excited with their new boat. Needless to say, everyone got a guided tour of the new boat. Russ and Pauline enjoyed entertaining lots of members on the back of their new boat for the weekend as you can see in the pictures.

Big Dog put down an anchor and backed up to the south shore and tied off to a tree with the help of Stan Newman helping me bring the rope to shore to go around the tree and back to Big Dog with his Sea Do and everyone started to anchor off of Big Dog. Shortly after that “Into the Mystic” arrived with our Commodores, John Wiebe and Shawna Gillespie, followed by more boats.. Glen McKnight arrived with a new friend, June Lang, who until recently lived in Alberta.
We had ten boats anchored together for the evening. Food, drink, and sea stories late into the evening.

Rolf and Kim pulled a fishing boat and Glen McKnight pulled a fishing boat. They left for a couple of hours with June Lang, John Wiebe, Brian Hughes, Tim Hughes and Russ Warne to catch some fish. Upon their return I don’t think they did very well, but the following morning they tried it again and did very well. There was enough walleye for everyone to eat on a fish fry Sunday morning at anchor in Double Echo Bay.
Saturday afternoon boats peeled off the anchorage until everyone was free and we were off to Wiley Point Lodge for some game activities and supper. Our Commodores led us on a nice scenic cruise to Wiley Point Resort about 10 miles away. Upon our arrival at Wiley Point Resort the wind was out of the southwest a little too strong to have 11 boats tied up to their docks. Wiley Point Docks are floating docks which can and have moved in the past from wind pressure from too many big boats tied up to the docks in high winds coming from the southwest.

We anchored together in the Wiley Point Lodge Bay. Wiley offered to ferry people to shore anytime anyone needed a ride. After all the boats were anchored our commodores requested everyone come ashore for a game. Stan Newman and Al Halfaker were chosen to be the two opposing team leaders in this contest. They commenced to pick team members by alternating picking members until everyone was on a team. After the two teams were set, our commodores told us that we would be building a boat out of cardboard, duct tape, plastic wrap, a blue tarp, and rope and then racing the boat from the dock with a paddle back to the shore. Both teams picked a lighter member of their team to paddle the boat. Each team had a half hour to build their boat.

Stan Newman’s team won the race with Lynn Siemen at the helm beating out Kim Gretschmann for the Halfaker team in a close race. See video posted soon.. It was great fun!!!


Later on Rolf Gretschmann challenged our Commodore John Wiebe to a race. John used the Newman team boat and Rolf used the Halfaker team boat. As the race started Rolf, who is considerably heavier than Kim, got into the boat and started paddling to shore. John got into the Newman team boat to paddle to shore and the boat sunk. It would seem the Newman boat won the important first race but was not built to the high nautical standards of the Team Halfaker boat. Later on both boats were burned in a campfire on the sand beach at Wiley”s
Supper must have been well worth waiting for. Supper started at 7:30 p.m. and was over by 10:00. Wiley’s was a little shorthanded due to a wedding at Totem Lodge, but the staff left did a great job. Nobody really minded the wait. See pictures below.
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Sunday morning after breakfast we headed for Double Echo Bay about noon. After traveling just a mile, “ All or Nothin” was giving Rolf and Kim problems. Seems “All or Nothin” was working on “Nothin”. Both engines were dying and sputtering. They had engine problems. We were all on channel 12 talking back and forth on what to do. We were two miles from Double Echo Bay. Glen McKnight and June Lang in “Knot Enuf Time” and Alain Mathieu and Susan Desjardine in “Life is Good” went to help “All or Nothin”. When great minds get together problems are solved. The way I understand it, Glen noticed the alternator power wire on an engine was off and the other engine alternator wire was loose. Neither engine was charging the engine batteries which resulted in failure of each engine’s electrical ignition system. With one engine alternator wire reattached that motor worked just fine. By the time “All or Nothin” got to the Double Echo Bay anchorage we were ready for them to slip right into the anchorage. After getting to the anchorage and taking a good look the other engine alternator, a bolt lead was broken off. Once again when great minds get together problems are solved. A jumper cable was attached from the good battery fed by a working alternator to the dead battery which made that battery come to life so the electrical system on the other engine would once again work. Problem solved.
Once again some went fishing in the two fishing boats and others stayed behind. The evening’s socializing progressed as usual. Lots of good food appeared on deck and gas grills were everywhere.

The following morning was warm and beautiful just like every other morning. It was time to eat all the walleye fish fillets people had been catching for the last three days. Rolf set up a powerful one burner gas stove and put on a very large frying pan and commenced to bend over a hot pan for more than an hour cooking fish for all, bacon and eggs. It sure tasted good eating in the great Canadian wilderness with the smell of water and pine trees. Hats off to Rolf for cooking a fine breakfast for 18 people!

There should have been 2 more for breakfast, but Alain Mathieu and Susan Desjardine did not feel well Monday morning. They had been sick all night and had a bad headache Monday morning. Susan asked if anyone else got sick from what they ate the night before. Everyone felt fine. Upon further contemplation everyone, including Alain and Susan, came to the same conclusion that they were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning from running the generator the evening before. Somehow carbon monoxide got into their bedroom which is at the lowest spot in their boat and caused them some problems. Pain medicine for their headache helped to a degree, but carbon monoxide poisoning takes time to disappear. I think Susan’s dog Tucker had a headache Monday morning also. He was not doing his normal morning barking. It probably doesn’t feel good to bark when you have a headache.
Susan, Alain, and Tucker are all fine. Susan sent out a good article about where carbon monoxide comes from when you are boating to all the Escape members on the email list for our education and safety. We need to read this information again as a reminder from time to time. Thank you Susan for that email.
It was a beautiful day on Monday with light winds, warm weather. As Big Dog and Dragonfly headed back to Warroad we were surprised that we could hear Escape conversations on the marine radio from members heading back to Kenora and Northern Harbor about 20 miles away. I asked Russ and Pauline to pass me full throttle just before Sportsman's Lodge so I could get a good picture of Dragonfly on step to send them later. They love their new boat.

When we arrived at Sportman’s Lodge, Russ and Pauline visited people they knew who were fishing on the south side of Oak Island and we headed for Baudette and the Rainy River. There was more of the same boring 32 miles of open calm water traveling at 10 mph with me trying to snooze, Patti waking me up to look for deadheads, and the dogs sleeping. We tied up at Adrian’s Resort for the evening and pulled Big Dog out the following day and winterized the boat for her long winter’s rest inside a large storage building at Lake of the Woods Marine. Here is a picture of the fancy adjustable trailer that Lake of the Woods Marina uses to pull out larger boats up to 48' long and 44,000 pounds at the south end of the lake. Big Dog is 28,00 pounds dry weight.

Check back for information on Winter Escape coming soon. We will be traveling to Victoria, B.C. We may be going for a boat ride. Talk to your commodore.