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. :-)