Category Archives: Lake Muskoka

Buying a cottage, cottage for sale, home for sale, Lake Muskoka, Muskoka Properties, Uncategorized

NOW SOLD! Serene Pine Point, Lake Muskoka

We are very excited, and justly proud to be able to offer such a rare Muskoka property.

Private cove for kids … or floatplanes.

There is no question that the majority of people we take to see Muskoka properties spend 80% of the time inspecting inside the buildings and 20% on the property. This doesn’t seem right. Although lots of us do it this way, we should spend most of the time wandering the property.

Ahhh, but so many properties are not really wanderable; they have nicely built decks and stairs, to take us from the cottage to the waterfront to the boathouse because they are often steep.  The perfect cottage properties were developed many decades ago.

On this property the superb architecture of the cottage and boathouse, although beautiful, are secondary to the level point, cooling in Lake Muskoka, comprised of almost 900 feet of waterfront.

A simple path, not stairs, wends its way to the boathouse.

Once you have satisfied yourself that the property itself is incomparable, then it’s always nice to have buildings like these.

Pine Point’s boathouse.

Lake Muskoka, dotted island views from cottage
Grand kitchen area
Main cottage Muskoka Room
Architectural details
Inside the boathouse

Additional details are here.

Lake Muskoka, Sailing, Uncategorized

From Maine to Muskoka and 5 years later, we’re sailing again

Sunday was forecast to be a beautiful day: 18 degrees, sunny and steady winds. And, we had the boat fully ready to go. So, after some preparation – we had to tie the mast hoops to the sail and tie one reef in the sail – Catharine and I, and our son Chris and his dog Kirby were going to take the catboat on its first sail in Muskoka. We headed out into Lake Muskoka and tacked through between Pine and Birch Islands.

Catharine tied on the mast hoops one by one to the sail, while I tied in the reef.

You can see the mast hoops in the picture below.

In the lee of Birch Island on Lake Muskoka it was calm enough to go forward for a picture.

For those who aren’t sailors reefing is a way to shorten the sail somewhat so as to not be overpowered by winds. You’ll see the reefing points tied onto the boom in the picture of Chris below.

Catboat, Lake Muskoka

Soon to be sailing in Muskoka again. New launching of old catboat.

Steve with "Dartry" at Muskoka Wharf

 

We brought a sailboat in need of restoration, back with us from Maine some 5 years ago. Today she was officially launched in Lake Muskoka at the Muskoka Wharf. Previously, and still currently named Dartry, she will be re-named Swell for the 2012 sailing season.

We first discovered these wonderful boats while living in Massachusetts. Known as a catboat in New England, these were the working boats in the 1800’s.  Typically using one large gaff-rigged sail, these wide beamed boats – ours is 18 ft. long and almost 9 ft. wide – had lots of room for the work at hand. They were used to unload cargo from much larger sailing vessels, to get good to and from shore. Catboats were also the fishing boats of the time, used for swordfishing, lobster traps, scallops, etc.

As you can see, the mast has not been raised yet so we planned to motor – there is a 4-stroke outboard built into a motor well – from Gravenhurst to Indianhead marina on Lake Muskoka.

Our timing was great and Cath caught a picture of the Segwun just as we both approached the Narrows from opposite directions. We exchanged greetings: two toots from the wonderful steam whistle on the Segwun and two dings from our bronze bell.

Although the weather was mostly overcast, our trip up Lake Muskoka was beautiful. Both the air and the lake were warm and the sun was beginning to dip below the cloud in places.

After five years of on-again, off-again restoration, this was truly a joyful trip. I did not know for sure if there would be leaks somewhere, so I was happy that I had given work on the bilge pump a high priority on the worklist; we made it with a dry bilge.

Mast still on cradle, but the boat arrives at Indianhead