Muskoka Madness

We're just back from our second lake cottage get-away of the season, this time thanks to the outstanding hospitality of the Emersons and the awesome Lake Muskoka. It's the Toorak of cottage country and it's not hard to see why with the multi-million dollar cottages, all much grander and lavish than our home in Oakville. Kent and Aleyks have rented the same place for the last several years and it's not hard to see why. The owners have built themselves quite a compound with 3 'cottages' (aka mansions) four docks, two boat houses and two floating rafts mored just off shore. A natural spring trickles clear, cold water down the rocky shoreline into the lake. Pretty hard to take, check out the panorama I took from a boathouse upper deck.We left after the peak hour traffic on Thursday morning and took the 2 hour drive through Gravenhurst to the small town of Torrance on the south shores of Lake Muskoka. Kent had picked up a 175hp jet boat the day before and we wasted no time getting the kids into a fantastic 'biscuit' and towing them around the lake at a high clip. I also got back on water skis and tried a little too hard to improve on my last outing, mostly resulting in high speed wipe-outs, a headache and my balls as earrings at one point. I was pretty happy to get straight back up though so that was good and I wasn't as sore as last time, but that's relative, I was really sore last time. Jo also had a go and did get up although only briefly, the photos on Flickr show her out of the water nicely. I then took Kent for a spin and succeeded in putting him down really hard by driving the boat far too fast, poor guy. I hope he's forgiven me, I think the spray from his stack is still raining down on the lake right now.But despite that he got right back up, kicked off onto a single ski (no mean feat at 25 knots) and showed us how it's done with some outstanding slalom skiing. We spent heaps of time in the boat, which could hold everyone at once. The kids loved the water which was a great temp and spent time swimming between the rafts and scooting around in the kayak and canoe. We dropped the kids off at a small island in the middle of the lake, Exile Island as it became known as. Stocked with some water and snacks we left them there for an adventure and they hollered to us back on shore when they'd had enough (actually Cam fell into the water without his life jacket and they had to 'rescue' him which dampened their spirits a little). At night we had a fire and toasted marshmallows and wieners and were pleasantly surprised to not be bothered by mossies at all. The kids spotted a large turtle in the main boathouse which was pretty cool and we saw several loons diving for fish in the lake. Friday was the better day weather-wise with blue skies and a cool breeze. We headed out into a larger part of the lake to Ship Island, a small rocky bird reserve populated by lots of cranes. We stopped about 50 meters off shore and all enjoyed the warm lake water by diving off the boat.We drank Corona's, margaritas and Caesars, ate like kings, swam, boated, watched a float-plane land in the lake and got heaps of sun. The kids were awesome together and all us parents enjoyed ourselves at least as much. Today we're back home and all a little 'done', back to work tomorrow for a rest [grin].

Andy, out.