Destination Paddled: Petrie Island, Orleans, Ontario
Date: June 25, 2020
Number of Paddlers: 3
Temperature: 18C (64.4 F)
Distance paddled: 6.3 km (3.9 miles)

This was our second Covid-19 paddle with “social distancing”. We launched from the same place as our last paddle and headed to Petrie. Our objective this time was not to paddle around Petrie but to explore the back bays etc.

As we paddled into one of the bays we saw the familiar cut that goes into a marsh area. What the hey, we hadn't paddled this one in a while so in we went. We paddled in just over half a km (.3 miles) until we hit a dead end. We then retraced our paddle back out. We had three GPS devices running and were not concerned about getting lost. Pretty interesting. At times the track was so narrow that it was just barely the width of our kayaks so we were poling off the reeds. The view was often non-existent because of the foliage around us. Sometimes it was a good 3 to 4 feet above us. Great fun. NOT a place I would paddle if we were in Florida. I think we made the day for a couple of women who were on the shore as we were coming back out from the marsh. They were not expecting three kayakers. One of them had a camera and asked us to pose for a picture. No problem. Only saw and heard a few Red Wing Black Birds in there with us.

Back out in one of the main bays we decided to head over to another bay closer to the Ottawa River. We found an easy paddle crossing to the bay and headed left to see if we could find a way out of the bay. It dead ended so we put in to shore, loaded our boats onto our kayak carts and hoofed it over to the Ottawa River. It wasn't a long portage.

Once on the Ottawa River we were back in the elements. Winds were quite strong and blowing right in our faces. It made for a fun paddle with the waves crashing against us and splashing us. Progress was not easy fighting the wind but we did it fairly quickly. It was a 1.3 km (.8 mile) paddle to the end of the island. Once we got back down to the end of the island we were able to duck out of the waves and most of the wind.

Saw a lot of Canada Geese and their babies. Also saw some cormorants. We did see one Blue Heron as we were coming out from the marsh paddle.

Enjoy the pictures.


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