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!