Day 5: Downie Island to Leek Island

By Matthew

We started the day anchored off Downie Island.  I am not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but this Downie Island is also mosquito heaven.  Houseboat Holidays conveniently supplied us with an orange flyswatter, and I used that thing to strike fear into the hearts of any mosquitoes that dared enter our boat.  These mosquitoes are very large and loved to land and stay on the ceiling and walls.  They are also very slow.  And, therefore, most of them are also very easy to kill.  Actually, over two nights at Downie Island, I killed 34 mosquitoes inside the houseboat with that flyswatter.

Anyway, after we woke up at Downie Island, we all bathed and ate breakfast.  Another good thing about this boat was that we could basically bathe whenever the boat wasn’t moving.  And for us guys, we could go to the bathroom whenever we wanted to as well.  Even when the boat was moving.  

After breakfast, the three boys got right back to business trying to complete the three-way football catch off the roof.  Here's one of our many unsuccessful attempts: 

By this time, that had happened something like fifty times.  But we were not going to give up.  And then, that morning, we did it.  Success!  I threw the ball to Patrick as he was jumping off the roof, Patrick threw it to Conor in mid-air, Conor caught the ball with both hands and heaved it backwards over this head, and the ball nestled right in my arms as I dropped into the water.

After our well deserved celebration, we headed off for Leek Island, where we had stayed the first night.  This time, however, the wind was going to be coming out of the south and east, so we had to change where we were going to anchor.  We found a nice little cove to stay in for the night, and it was close enough to swim to shore.

Dad actually took the raft and paddled to shore with our lunch and the camera in it.  We ate lunch on a little point, and then the kids explored the land around our boat.  It was a lot of woods, and I actually saw a deer running around.  Later on, Patrick and I went back and walked around to other coves and points, and we found another houseboat with a pirate flag on it.  After a relaxing dinner and a beautiful sunset, we played cards, and Conor somehow won.  It still shocks me.  It was another extremely relaxing day on the St. Lawrence.