Canatara Beach Earns One of Sarnia-Lambton Blue Flag Designations.

From Stephanie Schaves.

Four Lambton waterfront beaches are once again flying the prestigious Blue Flag.

Canatara Beach will fly the Blue Flag again this summer, for the fifth year in a row.

Grand Bend Beach, Grand Bend Marina and Port Franks Marina in Lambton Shores also made the list again this year.

Tourism Sarnia-Lambton spokesperson Kyle Morrison says the Blue Flag status has led to an increase in the number of visitors.

“It’s really a marker that this beach is clean, it meets a certain set of safety criteria and there’s also amenities that it offers as well,” says Morrison.

Link to the rest here.

Images: Zach Neal. Google maps.

Notes. After hearing about this on local radio, roving Wit Ventures photographer Zach Neal went down and had a look. While the whole of Canatara beach is only a kilometre long, there is a certain feeling there, deserted as it is, in the slanting light of a sparkling spring morning. That feeling is one of serenity, or zen.

It is the sort of place that a person can breathe, and to know that one is alive—and to be alive is good.

Zach smashed this with PAINT and Pixlr.

The water’s a bit cold yet, but it’s a nice place to have a coffee and count the boats on the horizon—this morning, there were thirteen at one point, including one laker coming in from the north, one cabin-cruiser coming up out of the St. Clair River, and the rest were all local sport-fishermen hunting the big salmon, trout, pickerel and other tasty game fish.

In the Google maps image, the wreck of an old ship can be seen, (centre-left). At one time there were at least three down there, perhaps the others have been obliterated by time and the waves, ice and storms. Back in the sixties, the big wooden beam of the fore-peak of one such vessel stuck up out of the water, and people used to swim out, climb it, and then dive off again.

It’s just the sort of thing you remember.

Thank you for reading.