Monday, July 11, 2011

Day 41 - Yes Bay to Bell Isle




One wall still standing





Not much left of the lodge





Barely standing still




We were last here three years ago and what sad sight when we pull up to the docks. As documented by some other blog readers, the main lodge is now collapsed, the docks are sinking, and basically nothing has been done to clean up the mess that we last saw. If this place was in Canada on a fish bearing stream, the owners would have been forced to at least clean up anything on the stream. The house and bridge are all collapsed into the stream and the place is mess! Besides our little “herd” a sailboat called “Impossible dream” with two brothers aboard also tie up. Turns out that their boat once belonged to Ray Disney (brother of Walt) --- Tom and John end up coming to shore with us and having dinner with us.
The pool (hot spring) is still full of water and someone has taken the time to reconnect the hot spring water enough to keep the pool from freezing, but not enough to heat up the pool. Please refer to this link to see the “before” photographs and how nature starts to take its own back in a relatively short perod of time when no-one is around to maintain. Some yahoos have come through and broken all the windows on all the remaining cottages and someone has been trying to take the diesel fuel that is left and try and get it down to the dock.

My turn to cook to night, so I opt to stay behind while the others trek off to see if they can find Bailey hot springs. Someone in the last few weeks told us it was a 10 minute walk. Judging from the complaining, its more than a 10 minute walk. Its almost 3 miles through rivers and up the side of mountains, we will save this seek and find for another time. Meanwhile...back at the boat, Betty is feeling pretty full of herself being on schedule with the cooking tonight and having a lemon Meringue pie in the oven. She should know better than to be so smug....calamity is about to reign! First I run out of propane - so I head upstairs to switch over the tanks, done! Cooking proceeds. Next, I am on schedule so a little clean up is in order and a table to set. While I go up stairs to set the table, I start the sink filling up with water to do some clean up so that there are minimal dishes after dinner. Must be old age or something, I can't find my lighter to light the candle and see it on the dock....I am so chuffed with myself, I stop to have a smoke and a chatter with the brothers....meanwhile, a steam bath is happening on the boat. When I go back to te galley to get the plates, I hear the cascade of waterfall and suddenly remember that I have left the tap running on the kitchen sink....in I run and I do not see the water on the floor, after promptly slipping and falling on my face, I finally get up to shut the water off. The water is overflowing from the sink and cascading over the edge onto the floor.....OMG.....there are 80 lbs of clumping kitty litter in the hold under the galley (where all the water is seeping down to) --- I quickly hop down below and manage to get the 2 boxes of kitty litter out before they turn to cement along with all the other items getting wet. While picking up the 20 lb flour bag to put it out of the waters way, the bag bursts, so now I am not only wet, I am white (covered in flour) and in the humidity, I am quickly becoming a human glue stick. I change my clothes and proceed to mop up the mess.....for days after, I am opening drawers and finding things are still full of water.


We are thankful that we saw it 3 years ago before it came to this ruin and with our memories of what was, we have a nice dinner with our new neighbours and call it a night.

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