Manitoulin Islands - South Baymouth

Here is how our next adventure started out. We arrived at the Southbay Resort - we use the term "resort" very lightly- and go check in at the office. We meet a friendly employee who welcomes us with a smile and politely informs that they have had geese problems in the area and if our site has some goose poop in it, that we can just let them know and they will send someone over to clean it up.

We find our site, and see that there is already a vehicle waiting in it. Mom politely approaches the driver and informs him that there must be a mistake as this is pur reserved site. He assures us that this is in fact his site. After some classic Maggie banter, the man admitted defeat and drove away allowing us to set up at our new home. We took a quick glance around our site and part of the resort and realized that we were definitely not in a resort of any type and that those online pictures had been quite deceiving. The retaining wall was falling apart, the boat dock was half underwater, most lake front sites were flooded and the one and only life preserver was a ripped and tattered, water logged chair cushion haphazardly hanging on the sinking dock. "Positive attitudes for the win" we told ourselves.

We checked out our own site and immediately realized we would need some goose poop clean up so off mom went to the office to find someone to come clean up our site. A few minutes later, I see mom coming back to the site not with an employee but with her very own pooper scooper and bucket. Yupp, you guessed it! We were advised by another employee to pooper scoop our own site. Mom started scooping and a friendly neighbour chimed in "bet this isn't what you expected you'd be doing on tour holiday"..we all laughed and got back to setting up.

Next up, we had to set up the tent. We had two options. Option 1: set up 2 ft. away from the flooded shoreline or Option 2: set up adjacent to the main road in the campground with constant traffic. We knew they were calling for an afternoon storm so to save ourselves from being flooded out, we went with option 2. After setting up our camp, the rain started to pick up so we hopped in the car and decided to go explore the neighbouring town. Upon reserving out of our site, we heard an alarmingly loud "CRUNCH"! With looks of panic on our faces, mom went to investigate what we had hit. Turns out we had set the pooper scooper and bucket right behind the vehicle tire...whoops! Karma, no? Off we went to explore the town.

Little Current is a nice little town with a fishing harbour and many tourist attractions. We enjoyed looking at the unique fishing boats in the harbour and found out there was a salmon fishing derby on...$1200 for the biggest fish...mom joked about entering but we decided it'd be best to pass. We toured around the cute town with its patios and souvenir shops and explored along the shoreline where we got soaked by some genuine Georgian Bay waves. We were getting hungry at this point and after asking around we were referred to a small family restaurant called "Carol and Earl's Restaurant". Our experience there was absolutely wonderful! Excellent and friendly customer service, huge portions and delicious food to boot! After seeing everything there was see in the bay, we headed back to the campground.

We pulled into our site and could tell that the storm had hit while we were gone and we weren't exactly sure what condition our site would be in. We take a peak and see that there is a solid 3 inch puddle underneath and around our tent. Mom goes inside the tent to see what damage is done and feels a puddly, shloshy, mini lake under her feet. THANKFULLY it was under the tent and not in the tent. Turns out the tent is in fact 100% waterproof - woop woop! We unpegged the tent, moved it to our only other option and hoped the wind didn't pick up in the night. The sun ended up coming out and we enjoyed a nice evening sunset by a crackling fire.

In the morning, we packed up our site and were ready to say sayonara to Southbay. Just before leaving we decided to go for one last swim in the crystal clear waters. We swam out to the floating dock which just so happened to have a slide attached to it. Of course we climbed up, slid down a couple times then swam in and were on our way to our next adventure.Read more