The Color of Emeralds!

They were ready for us at lock #39 at 920a this morning.  We pulled into the lock along with 3 other boats, two small ones and one about our size.. It is amazing how fast we locked down compared to locking up.  Because the turbulence of the water coming into a lock for raising the water can cause damage to the boats it must be done slowly but letting it down takes only about 10 minutes.  It still took us about 90 minutes to complete the three locks. This was because of waiting for boats that were locking up (going opposite way) and the distance traveled between locks at 4MPH or less (had a slow boat in front of us) and waiting for 4 boats to get tied securely in each lock. But the day was glorious with sun and cool breezes.  

It is always interesting chatting with the lock students.  You can start working at a lock when you are 16 and keep this summer job until you are out of the University.   Here are two student lock personnel standing on the walk above the lock gate.

Lock Gate almost opened.

Here is why they love hiring the kids... youthful muscle power. Student is hand turning lock open.

This is my favorite photo today because of missing my Grand Wonders!  These darling kids beside the canal were throwing me kisses!

Here we are leaving the canal for now and entering beautiful Lake Simcoe.

The water was an unbelievable CLEAR emerald green!

We are entering the “narrows” between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching.  Something important for us to remember was that the red and green markers had now changed sides (markers on both sides of bridge)...... REALLY important in the shallow rock bottom water!!

The Narrows is where we stopped for fuel... takes a long time to put in 124 gallons of diesel!  But along with it came a FREE pump out!

We were concerned that the storm would be upon us before the fueling was done but it only sprinkled and then we ran for the marina.

We crossed Lake Couchiching (have no idea how to pronounce it!) to our marina at Orillia.  This is a nice town with grocery store and drug store and so many restaurants I couldn't count them.

The Captain had not eaten lunch and it was 3p by the time we got docked... we were completely out of lunch stuff and you can't heat leftovers on the way.  So we took off to find a place to eat... I could hardly keep up with the man ….. he was on the hunt for food.

He had run into some other Loopers we know and they told him about Mariposa... even though it was almost to the top of a hill we went there.  You walk in and first see the desserts!    All manner of sweets but also plenty of great regular food but... they specialize in FUDGE... YES!.... we brought home a small box of a few different flavors like Rollo and “Death by Chocolate”!

The sidewalks were brick and many flowers and trees along the way.

Cleaver planting of flowers at the Marina.  

The marina is run by the town and has a pretty park right here.  I especially liked the painted metal boats all around the sidewalks.

We just made a late run to the grocery store to provision the boat for Georgian Bay... don't think there are too many food stores near there and we plan to anchor out a lot.

The storm we were expecting never did arrive and now appears to be only rain so we now plan to head out tomorrow and stay near Lock #44, THE BIG CHUTE Railway!  We have seen the pictures but tomorrow and next day we will not only SEE the lock but RIDE it!  

Houseboats Gone Wild!

I have long since lost the butterflies I used to get just before locking or knowing I had to lasso a dock cleat because no one was there to catch our lines.  I am actually to a point now that I prefer no one be there since I can rope the cleat and loop it back to the boat while standing on the bow...and tie us tight at the bow end so Walter can pull in the stern.... those who catch our lines don't understand that we do not have bow or stern thrusters so the bow line MUST be tied first and rather fast to keep our stern from swinging out if it is windy...... a very neat way the Captain has devised to get us docked.

But this morning I awoke at 530a with a headache probably because of what I feared might be ahead of us today... HOUSEBOATS gone wild!  Just before dark last night another houseboat arrived.... The poor guy SLAMMED into our wall missing everyone... Praise God.  I found out that these renters get one 20 minute lesson and then are given this large barge to handle!!  We would be going through several locks today and you usually stay with the same boats all the way.   And all but one of the 5 houseboats around us had a terrible time yesterday controlling their ship!

Walter went over early to talk to the Lock Master to see what the plan might be... if we should wait and go for the second locking. To our surprise the slammed houseboat folks were not locking through today... probably still recovering!  Only the very large houseboat with a pilot that seemed to know how to pilot his craft and another small one.  And one small boat with a big family aboard it.   WAHOO!  

Here we are in the first lock: Miss gg beside large houseboat.

Small houseboat ahead of us.

As we motored along a few Seadoos enjoyed our wake.

We traveled several lakes today but what stood out was the long, VERY NARROW and VERY SHALLOW Trent Canal!  You can SEE the rocks under the water.  When you enter the canal you are suppose to get on the radio and give a "securite" which means you announce who you are and that you have just enter the canal and give the direction you are going.  There is hardly any room to pass so hopefully this warns other boats coming opposite way.  

Also one man-made flooded lake had stumps to watch out for..... 

Here is a glimpse of our GPS screen.

Notice the depth indicator on bottom left and then notice that narrow white area (Trent canal) our little boat is about to enter! The yellow is land..the green is marsh.  Once when I took over the helm I got so nervous looking at the GPS the Captain hollered for me to stop looking at the screen and just keep the boat in the middle of the canal!  Aye aye Captain!

In the middle of this exciting day we came to another Lift Lock, Kirfield Lock.  At this point we were at the highest a boat can be on its own bottom in North America. Then at this lock we started going back down. This lock dropped us 49 feet down.  Here we are approaching the lock.

Here we are in the “pan” going down to where you see the water at the top center of the photo.

Here is a lady at the bottom taking our picture so I thought I would snap her also so you can get another idea of how high we were at that point.

Leaving Lift Lock.

Lift lock after all boats are out. Shows pan down on right and up on left.

Later we came to this perfect half circle bridge made in 1905 when it was an engineering marvel.

We are tired though the locking was so easy today...made it through 6 locks by 445p and we are now on the lock wall just above Lock #39. Three other boats are waiting here with us and one down at lock #40. They will probably have him wait for us to get there to lock all of us together as these are now what is called flight locks...several together that must be completed once you start.

The Captain fixed dinner tonight while I waded through more photos than I have ever taken.  We look forward to a good night's sleep and a beautiful day tomorrow...weather was perfect today... mid 70s and plenty of sun shine. Loving it!... remember my “office” is out in the SUN on the fore deck. :-)

Cruising to Bobcaygeon

We were not in a hurry to leave Buckhorn this morning because our trip today would probably take us less than 3 hours.  However, when we were ready we had air in both engines! Before we left New Bern Walter had installed fuel filter vacuum gages to read pressure drop across the fuel filters. Okay, I do not know what all this means either!  But the Captain detected that these gages were the cause of air getting into the fuel system.  So he decided to take them out this morning and then used the priming pumps to get the air out of each engine. This all worked well and we were off with the Cats (two caterpillar engines) running beautifully.

We traveled through Buckhorn Lake to Pigeon Lake which we were on until we turned into the channel leading us to Bobcaygeon and the next lock on the Trent-Severn Canal..... number #32. (45 locks total)

Here is a fun “high” diving board down on the water from a home we passed.

We hoped the area below the water was very deep cause here was a sign not too far away from this diving area.  It says “Submerged Rocks”!

This was a bridge we passed under approaching Bobcaygeon. 

We saw many large and lovely homes along the water here... here is our pick of the day for the yellow flowers.....but they are hard to see.

We thought this was a cottage because it was so large but it was apparently the boat house!

Bobcaygeon is a great little town with lots of good smelling restaurants... we couldn't resist having lunch in one of them... then found the laundromat and got caught up on that chore.......

Here we are on the Lock wall tonight... blue line across from us.

We have been watching houseboats come in all day... these are rentals... folks on board are very nice... one group even caught our lines for us.....but frankly most don't seem to know how to run their houseboat.... we will probably be locking with a bunch of them tomorrow.  One just in was crosswise in the canal until he figured out how to maneuver the stern to the wall.  The lock masters usually take the houseboats in first and make sure they are tied and then let us & other cruisers in but then there is the getting out of the lock which can be scary with these big barges, too... even letting them go first out … if they swing around too wide they can do some real damage!

Lock master's house from the 1800s... taken down from another lock and reassembled here. There were some interesting old photos inside and a loft inside where he slept.

This is the swing bridge just ahead of where we are docked. Tomorrow the lock crew will “swing” it, flower pots and all, when the lock opens at 9a. This bridge is part of the main road into the little town of Bobcaygeon.

And here is the Captain with his Canadian Charts, calculator on the Ipad and the helpful waterway guide planning our next day's cruise.

I'm so glad he invited me along on this Adventure... I hope you will join us again tomorrow.

Waiting on Oil Change at Buckhorn Ontario

The mechanic didn't show yesterday but came this morning at 10a!   It took until almost noon to drain the oil and put in 9 gallons of fresh oil.  We considered leaving and going a little ways up the river but it was & is so windy today..... there were a few white caps on the water! 

Our tie up behind the fuel dock. 

We got a free night here due to using their services so decided it would be best to stay put.  It is hard to just do nothing when Miss gg ALWAYS needs cleaning so...... I cleaned the Isinglass on the bridge.... not an easy task with wind blowing and me balanced on the roof of the sun deck for some of this work.

Walter did some sanding and painting and later made an anchor retrieval line from that yellow rope. 

Then we took a walk to town to buy milk and bread... over $8!

We will leave early tomorrow... no locks and just a 20 mile trip at 7 knots except when we have to slow to 5 knots due to “no wake” area.  It will take us about 3 hours to reach Bobcaygeon.  We hope to find the city wall dock empty since all the weekend house boat rentals will be returned by the end of today.  Or we may go far enough to be on the wall at the next lock.

CLOSE? Friends

Late yesterday afternoon as we were relaxing on our sun deck two big boats came out of the lock and went by us.  Both waved... one we didn't know but “Second Wind” was flying a Looper flag so we “know” them.... the other one was our new friends aboard “Golden Hawk” that we met in Trenton.  Glad to see some Loopers!

We didn't know we would see them again today and be VERY close to them in the first lock.  The lock master surprised all of us when he waved us forward into the lock.   We were going to wait until next locking.  The Captain did a terrific job of easing in Miss gg while the folks on Second Wind almost turned the color of their boat! 

Here is a view of Golden Hawk in front of us in this lock.

Boat Behind Second Wind actually had to turn sideways so the lock gate would close! 

We thought we would not have to deal with rocks until Georgian Bay but we have reached rock country!   Many houses here are built on little rocky islands.

Channel Markers on rocks 

And talk about a church built on the Rock! 

We had to zig zag for a couple of miles through what some have nick named "Hell's Gate".... we hear there will be other spots like this also... rocks are not forgiving like mud and sand!  We had to go on right of Green marker here and then quickly back on left of Red marker.

Today's prize for the prettiest Yard went to this house.

Here we are behind our friends as they entered the next lock. 

The lock master was waving us to come on in..... but I am sure our friends were grateful when we said, "No thanks! We will wait for the next locking". 

Good-Bye!  See You up the Trent-Severn Canal.