Ice is Gone!!

Boated from Bare Point Marina across Bigstone to Eagles Pass at 13:00 today and the only ice we saw was being pushed up against Hay Island ,and we had to go North side of Copper Island because South side had ice but with waves from East wind this will be gone by dusk tonight.Moore bay and Andrew bay are both clear,still a little white 2 miles South of French Narrows. This will be last posting till fall freeze up,Safe Boating!

BarePoint

Just in from a trip to BarePoint Marina,pushed through candled ice Rocky Narrows( should be gone by 17:0 tonight? Then had to go West side Lunnys because the ice in Bigstone was solid right up to East shore Lunnys,So West end Bigstone still Bigstone still White with ice, also you can not get into Hades from North end. There was also ice around day marker East side Scotty's but that should also be gone today.Tomorrows winds should bust up a lot of ice.Andrew Bay ice starts at Square Island and looks solid to East ? Also you cannot go more than 1/4mile passed French Narrows.

I made it out!!

At 10:30 this morning after I posted decided to give it another try! Boated from our dock to Queer Isl,through Elbow and followed South shore of Shammis Isl. To Crow Rock Island (shammis narrows) from here you can boat to town !! So anyone using Bigstone is out of luck,so if you normally travel through Scotty's ,Hades to reach your place you will be able to follow my route and get to camp!! Will post when ice out at Scotty's and again if Bigstone ever clears out!!

Still solid ice

Just got a call from Jeff Lunny and he said we still cannot get through the ice at South end Scotty's ,you can get around South side Nanton to Rocky Narrows but blocked after that. Looks like we will stay home and have a baloney sandwich!! Jeff said he would call me when we could navigate through there by boat. Have heard they are boating from Town to Welcome Channel through Holmstroms Marsh,Manitou still solid,same with Bigstone!

Boat ride

On the news this morning the Coney bridge will be coming out today. Yesterday we boated to Cat Island on East route,as far as the Red Bouy in Hades and 1/4 mile short of Eagles pass in Moore bay.Solid ice on North side of these points.Can boat around our Island but that's it solid ice beyond to South and East.Lunnys have boated from Town to beach at Scotty's, and say you could boat from BarePoint to Town so we only have a very small section of ice on East side of Scotty's to get through but Bigstone is still to thick. We are going to try for BarePoint Friday afternoon.

Not looking good?

We had 2 beautiful spring days,sunny,18c over the weekend.currently 6c,raining,damp,cold feels like a fall day,looks like we have this weather with a little wet snow thrown in till Wednesday, then a couple nights with minus. Not what you would call real good ice melting weather.talked with Terry this morning and he said they made it from Town to Camp Stevens on 9th,confident to reach Scotty's Island by 14th. The bridge to Coney will be removed 13 or 14 weather permitting and no later than 15th. Noon today I thought I could make Queer- not even close!! The ice has only receded from Red Bouy E26 half way to Green day marker @ Bald Island.The ice in this area is 9" thick and pretty solid. The Manitou is also solid,no cracks to allow movement.Its looking like we may have to ice boat family members down on 17th and hopefully boat out by 19th.

Good News

We have the exact same conditions yesterday as we did last year !! And we were able to boat out by May 14th.After the 1 5/8" rain stopped at 14:00 I ventured out to see how far I could get.Made it as far as Red Bouy # E26, at this point the ice was a little thicker @ 8" and the boat just drove up on top and would not move any further. To get this far I had to push through ice 5" thick.From this area I'm looking towards South tip of Queer Isl. I can see the open water at Queer but solid ice between us,by Monday Eve should be able to touch Queer Isl? Also my source on Laurenson Lake informs me she is almost 1/2 open,again exact same as last year,he expects it to be completely gone by Monday? Since the first open water showed up around the docks the lake has risen 7", should be a nice level by start boating.Now for the bad news,the only reason the ice went out when it did last year was the strong winds that switched from N then to S. The longest it has taken us to reach BarePoint once we get to E26 (site of the sample ice) was 9 days in 2009-that would mean boating on May 18th,From this day forward we need winds to get ice moving but this am. Winds are calm and the open water out front flashed over. Still cannot boat around our Island.Next post will be Monday Eve after I try getting to Queer.By clicked on pic will enlarge it.

Ice Thickness

Drilled the hole like I said I would,21.5" and worst part is it's still blue ice.A group of 6 ice boats went for a picnic yesterday afternoon South and West of Crescent Island.one of the couples lives in Tranquil Channel area and they boated to Kennedy island,picked up by ice boat and transported to picnic site.we had a bright sunny afternoon with only a light N breeze and a high of 10c.This morning the open water out front skinned over,2days ago when this happened it took till 13:30 that afternoon for the fresh ice to disappear! This morning,s forecast has a windchill,and 40% chance of flurries?Not exactly what you folks that are packing for th May Long weekend want to hear.It is still a little early yet but we will be telling our family to have a back up plan for long weekend.In our travels yesterday we crossed several holes 2-10' diameter ,also several cracks that were wet but no open water in them yet.The ice on the South side of the Barriers appears softer than the ice on the North side.The closest ice out prediction I can give is when we get the phone call that ice is out on Laurenson Lake ours is gone 7days later.

Slow Melt

With the screaming NE winds of the past couple days the ice has disappeared between our West Point to East Allie,as of yesterday we can canoe across. On Monday I went in to BarePoint Marina by ice boat.French Narrows has lots open water as well as Does the Elbow,the Most NE tip Queer has a long finger of open water heading towards Pipestone.There was a small open area around Strawberry,the rest of my travel was pretty solid ice. They are still driving snowmobiles from BarePoint to Scotty's and figure they will for another week,there is no sign of melting at the North end!! Will drill a hole on May 04 and post measurement,on that day last year we had 14" ice and boated in May 14th.Have only seen 1 skitter this Spring, hopefully the long cold winter has lowered there numbers!! Check out this new blog: www.icepatrol.ca