Dead Island Wingfoil Circumnavigation - Life Goal Check!

I’d set wingfoiling around Dead Island as a goal for this season. They say you should try things that scare you a little….

After a failed attempt in early September I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to achieve that goal this year. I certainly wasn’t going to do it on a freezing cold stormy fall day - and/or without Jen or other boat backup available if I ran into an issue (like a deflated wing or broken foil or hypothermia) in swells 2km out from the normal boat channel.

Then this October warm spell comes and it is 22c with a steady and increasing south wind. Ok, let’s give it a try. I pumped up the 5m Duotone Slick and put the 2000cm foil under the Fanatic Sky 125l. I only needed my 2mil long leg wetsuit as the water is 18c even in the middle of Georgian Bay!

Now I’ve already circumnavigated Dead Island on a windsurfer in August 2014. And I’ve circumnavigated Dead Island on  a windfoil in August 2020. (See note at the bottom of this post about why it is called Dead Island.) But I was really worried about what happens if the wind drops and I can’t get going in the big swells with the WING foil. There is no way I’d be able to slog back in those swells - I could barely do it in smaller waves and a shorter distance.

The south wind direction was perfect though and the forecast was good with no thunderstorms either. I headed out of the Launch Pad channel and after a few falls and slogs I was up on the foil. I wound up foiling for 10 km over a half hour without touching down.

I was making it upwind along the Dokis Island sight line and then out to the south tip of Dead Island. I never really looked back to see the Keefer Island sight line, but knew roughly where I was past the turning buoy. The shoals out past Dead Island were easy to see as they were breaking as the swells were HUGE. I could also see them easily with my polarized lenses.

I stopped intentionally and sat on the board to send a SPOT message and take a selfie with my cell phone which I also had with me as extra safety backup. I was really hoping that I’d be able to get back on the foil! Much to my relief I was able to pump back onto the foil - yeah!

Me out alone way southwest of Dead Island

Photo out in the middle of Georgian Bay through the dry pouch!

Love how the photo has the GPS location!

Then it was off along the small craft route 1/3 of the way toward the Bustards. I got to marker D64 and turned back and fell of course. So I sent another SPOT message. Again, worried I wouldn’t get going - and again I succeeded. This was now the sweetest part - picking my line through the swells and heading down the sight line toward the Fox Bay turning buoy.

As I got closer to the north end of Dead Island it seemed pretty windy and I thought I might have a chance of picking up some speed and then pumping my way through the channel. Nope, even after trying to head back out and get some upwind ground I wound up on the intermittently windless north side of the channel (where the PS33 fire was finally extinguished!). I stopped and took another selfie!

I wound up swimming upwind, slogging, and eventually after 20 minutes made it back to the windline. A lot of back and forth barely making upwind ground and getting super tired. I did eventually make a foiling tack again though!

Finally I was into clear air and out in front of Dokis Island. I headed upwind on the sight line to where I proposed to Jen and tried drawing another heart with the GPS. It requires imagination but the thought counts!

My attempt at drawing a heart for Jen…

Now for the final stretch, and boy felt it windy now. My last bit into the Launch Pad channel had me doing some fun jibes and one more foiling tack. The Launch Pad camera caught an image of me heading in…

Foiling back after 30km in 2+hours

But by then I was spent and got changed and made some freeze dried food for lunch!

Full GPS map of my route

The small craft chart of the same area

A long time on the foil at the beginning.
And a long slog in the middle.

The wind had been pretty steady at 15 knots average during my session

After an hour, Jen and Liz came out. I rigged up the 140l Stingray board with the 99cm Slingshot foil and 24 inch mast for Jen. I took it out for a run and Liz got a nice video of me heading into the little bit of deep water by the dock!

I foiled the gear upwind for Jen to try it and will report on the rest of that and Liz’s simulator lesson on the Launch Pad Blog - one last t-shirt lesson.

Late afternoon foil

Needed to get out to the windline for some longer runs!

Image of me foiling to Jen on the Seadoo before her session

Overall an amazing day. 36km of wingfoiling in just under 3 hours. Pretty stoked to have succeed on something that is a challenge and definitely had me a bit scared before and while I was doing it!

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Important Post Script about Dead Island. Growing up I had heard and read about the First Nations burial site on Dead Island. Most of the information comes from a book: Northeastern Georgian Bay and Its People by William Campbell which chronicles the theft of the bones from Dead Island for the Chicago World fair over 100 years ago.

Much better news in this link from 2021 that the remains had been kept at the Chicago Field Museum and have now been returned to the Dokis First Nation! A nice bit of Truth and Reconciliation. 

I captured some of the text from the above book about Dead Island:

For generations the local Indians of the area brought their deceased to Dead Island which is a short distance from the mainland. Their burial customs (strange to the white man's ways) was to wrap their loved one with 'their personal belongings in either blankets, furs or sheets of birch bark’. Then their bodies were placed or hung high up in the trees.

Another method of burial was laying of the bodies on the rocks (as the island had little or no soil) and cover the bodies with many rocks. The purpose of these two methods of burial was to keep the bodies safe from prowling hungry animals. This still did not keep the sacred burial grounds safe from the wild beast with two legs and trousers - the white man…

Thus the unthinkable act of ransacking Indian graves occurred. Stories have been told that seem to be factual, that a group of Americans from Chicago came to Dead Island in a ship. They were looking for interesting items for a side show for the Chicago "World's Fair", at the turn of the century. When they landed on Dead Island, they stripped the grave sites of their weathered mummified remains and the buried artifacts. They were loaded into the hold of the ship and the men returned to Chicago. The Canadian authorities took no action against these men and indeed seemed to look the other way. (As far as it is known by this writer)…

No one knows what happened to the Indian remains that were featured at the World's Fair. They disappeared either just before or at the conclusion of the Fair. It is known that the remains were never returned to Dead Island. It is presumed that the bodies and artifacts were either dumped at a rubbish site in Chicago or into Lake Michigan. If so, there is a part of Canada's history somewhere in Chicago, possibly on the sandy bottom of Lake Michigan. 

Neither the Canadian or the American citizens can be proud of such a despicable act. Certainly the Canadian authorities at that time were callous and sub-human towards the Indians…  Now when Canadian or U.S. citizens anchor their boats at the government dock at Dead Island, fishing in the weed bed east of the island, they should take a closer look at this infamous island surrounded by the blue waters of Georgian Bay and stop for a moment to remember the past.