After all the Canadian Escapees were present, the captains of each Canadian boat went to Young's Bay to talk in a phone booth with a video camera to U.S. Customs. It's a strange feeling to talk to a customs person 50 miles away on a phone about who you are and what you are bringing into the U.S. Kind of ridiculous.
The trip over to Young's Bay Resort in Rolf's 37' SeaRay Sundancer was interesting. The canal into the dock at the resort is narrow. It's not designed for large boats. Turning a 37' boat around in an area 38' wide takes some skill. Fortunately, Captain Rolf was up to the task. The bow just grazed over a few cattails when turning around.
Flag Island Resort put on a great Oriental dinner featuring short ribs, stir fried rice, stuffed shrimp, sweet and sour chicken wings, ice cream, wine and salad.
Bob Lund came around 8 p.m. and put on a show with the help of Escape members Rolf as Elvis Presley, Pauline and Kim as ballerinas and Elizabeth and Katie as pony riders. All performances were done to accordion music. All of these performances are documented on YouTube of Fall Escape.
Following the show, Bob played the accordion while musicians from the audience accompanied him on the Stumpf fiddle. See YouTube of Fall Escape to see the Stumpf fiddle players: Greg, Jan, Bob, Katie, Laurence, Elizabeth, Russ, Pauline, Stan and Barb.
Sunday morning after breakfast, Escape headed out to Fort St. Charles. I can't imagine traveling from the East Coast to Lake of the Woods by canoe, making a fort and spending the winter on an island and surviving the winter.
Sunday afternoon Russ and Pauline headed across Big Traverse Bay towards Warroad and the rest of Escape headed towards the Kenora area. By late afternoon, "All or Nothin" and "Summer Place" were anchored in Queen Island anchorage in close to the south shore. Rolf put his anchor out at the bow and swam to shore with his shore rope, wrapped it around a tree stump and swam back to his boat. A few minutes later, "Big Dog" came into the anchorage and put out an anchor and tied to "All or Nothin." Soon "Lady Di" and "Endless Summer" appeared to complete the group. There was swimming, laughter, food and party time on a warm summer afternoon and evening. Life was good. The wind was still strong out of the south, but by anchoring close to the south shore with a rock bluff and tall trees, wind and waves were not a factor throughout the evening.
Monday morning was warm and sunny and uneventful until Katie Cameron screamed, "there's a big turtle swimming in the water!" It turns out "Queeny" the large snapping turtle who's been living in the Queen Island anchorage for some 30 years or more, came over for a visit in hopes of getting fed. We didn't disappoint "Queeny." High on "Queeny's" list is meat. A distant second choice would be bread.
The Queen Island anchorage broke up about 10 a.m. on Monday morning. The Canadians headed closer to home to anchor at Whisky Island with Al and Anita Malbranck on "Silverton" for a while before heading for home.
Patti and I on "Big Dog" started back on the long ride to Warroad. The wind was still 25 mph out of the south. We weren't looking forward to crossing 32 miles of open water on Big Traverse. In the beginning, wind and waves weren't bad. I took pictures for YouTube and all was well. However, when "Big Dog" passed Garden Island, the wind picked up to 45 mph out of the south and the size of the waves grew much taller in proportion to the wind. In a short time the chair in the pilothouse fell over and the waves got so big that it became necessary to quarter into the waves to keep the bow of "Big Dog" from coming completely out of the water and smashing into the next wave. I was having trouble seeing out of the windshield in the pilothouse even with the wipers so I went up to the flybridge to steer where I could see better. That worked well although every 30 seconds or so I was getting drenched by waves that crashed over the bow and over the flybridge. Remember...the flybridge on "Big Dog" is about 10 ft. above the waterline, so you can imagine what kind of waves we were quartering into. That nightmare went on for 1 1/2 hours! This crossing of Big Traverse was very memorable and even though Maggie slept through the entire event, the thought of parking "Big Dog" at Northern Harbor Marina next year is sounding better all the time.
You can see great pictures of "Queeny" hanging onto the swim ladder of "Summer Place" and other Fall Escape pictures on the 2008 pictures segment of our website.
Everyone who attending Fall Escape is on www.Youtube.com. I'm sure some of you thought you'd never be on YouTube, but you are! In the search box on YouTube, put "Fall Escape Flag Island 2008" and click search. There are 18 Fall Escape YouTube episodes for your viewing pleasure.
Your Commodores,
Al & Patti Halfaker
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