7/22/2019

We departed the marina at Orillia late this morning and continued on through Lake Couchiching to the lock by the same name.  We didn’t go very far today, but at least we got a start at it.

Lake Couchiching is shallow with a decent, marked channel, but even with that there were some shallow surprises.  We would be moving along in the channel with 25 feet of water, and then suddenly we were over a rock with only 6 feet depth.  That is a little unnerving, especially when you can see big rocks a few feet either side of the boat while in the channel.

As we were coming up the lake another Looper messaged us that the railroad bridge was broken and couldn’t open.  This bridge is notorious for making boats wait 1-2 hours in a narrow channel while holding position.  That isn’t easy to do.  The five boats in front of us had anchored out in the lake, and that was our plan also.  Just as we got to them they messaged again that the bridge was fixed and now open.  We fell in with them and went through the bridge without a wait.  But when we got to the Couchiching Lock we decided to spend the night.  The lock walls up ahead are likely to be full, and this was a pretty spot anyway.  We will go on in the morning.

With the early stop for the day we had time to raise the radar arch and put up the bimini.  We passed the last low bridge, and we can get under all remaining bridges without a problem.  The arch allows us to use the radar again (not important in these conditions), but more importantly we could put up the bimini so we can have shade on the flybridge again.  It has been a very warm three weeks, and I will enjoy being out of the sun.

I promised a couple days ago to write about Canadian lock procedures.  In the US you normally call the Lock Tender on the radio and coordinate what to do.  In Canada the Tenders don’t have radios, and it is common at every lock to tie up for the night.  At these locks there is a blue wall as shown below, and a gray wall (basically unpainted concrete).  If you want to spend the night you can tie on the gray wall, but if you want to lock through you go to the blue line.  The tenders either yell at you through a loudspeaker, or one will come down the wall and tell you what to do.  After the last locking of the day you can tie up on the blue line for the night, but you have to go through the lock on the first locking the next morning.  A pretty simple system really, but I still prefer using the radio.

Tomorrow we will get an earlier start than today, and try to make it to Big Chute.  This will be a treat.

7/18-19/2019

On Thursday morning, 7/18, we departed the lock wall and moved to Orillia.  In doing so we discovered damage to one of the propellers.  On Friday we found a boatyard that thought they could help us, so we went there.  Unfortunately they weren’t able to get us out of the water, so we’re back in Orillia for the weekend.

After departing the lock wall we transited the last two locks on the Kirkfield canal and moved into Lake Simcoe.  This is the largest lake on the Trent Severn Waterway, and is about 15 miles across.  If the wind blows above 15 knots or so the seas can be very uncomfortable in a lake this size, but the winds were low this day.

While crossing the lake we tried to run the engines at higher RPM to blow the carbon out of the cylinders.  This is generally good practice for diesel engines, and I try to do it every couple days.  When we tried this there was a thumping from the port propeller, indicating it was no longer balanced and had sustained some damage.  The vibration was only at higher speed, so we think it is minor, but it must still be fixed.

On Friday I found a local boatyard that thought they could help us.  We moved the boat there, but when they tried to lift us we were too heavy for their equipment.  I thought our weight was 50,000 pounds or so, but the weight gauges on their travelift showed we were well over 60,000 and were still partially in the water.  So they could not help, and we came back to Orillia.

We are back in Orillia where we will stay through the weekend.  Weekend boaters sometimes aren’t very talented, and while alcohol makes them more invincible it doesn’t really help their skills.  We found a boatyard that can definitely help us, but we will need to go through the rest of the Trent Severn to Midland, Ontario to get there.  That will be sometime next week.

7/17/2019

Today we departed Fenelon Falls and continued on through the Trent Severn Waterway.  Tonight we are on the wall at Lock 39, named Portage.  This is a rural area, much to my liking.

Yesterday and last night we had some issues with a local man in Fenelon Falls.  We don’t know the source of his issues, but at 4:30 this morning he was cruising up and down the lock canal in his boat.  We reported it to the authorities, and we are hopeful he can get the help he needs.  Unfortunately I didn’t get much sleep last night.

We began today cruising through some open water, and then entered the Kirkfield Canal.  This is manmade, and is 40 feet wide with a 30 foot wide channel with control depth 6 feet.  Our boat draws 5’4”, so we are always concerned with this.  We hit several things with our propellers, probably submerged logs.  We don’t have any new vibrations, so we think we didn’t sustain significant damage.  The photo below shows the width of the canal, but it doesn’t show the submerged rocks we could see 5 feet either side of the boat.

This stretch of the waterway is at 841 feet above sea level, the highest point we will be at on this trip.  From here on it is almost always locking down in altitude.

After passing the first half of the canal we came to the Kirkfield Lift Lock.  This is the second highest lift lock in Canada, and for us was a drop of 49 feet.  What is disconcerting about this lock is you drive into a pan of water suspended five stories in the air without significant guard rails around you.  It isn’t unsafe, and you can’t fall out the end unless you really try, but it is a challenging thing to do.

The photos below were mostly provided by our friends Greg and Susan Costa on ‘Lucky Me’ (great people, but Susan is such an introvert).  They were in the lock pan in front of us as we came in, so got better photos than I could manage.  These show the view out of the lock pan and our boat as we came in.  I did manage to get photos of the lock operator console which looks adequate to control a nuclear reactor.

After passing (or surviving) the lock we continued on through another long stretch of shallow water.  We passed the Hole in the Wall bridge (photo below), and then through three locks out of a series of five that lead down to Lake Simcoe.

It was HOT today, and we are sitting inside running the generator and air conditioning.  We expect to cross most of Lake Simcoe tomorrow, and may stay at Orillia for a few days.  They have a Scottish festival this weekend which I am interested in.

7/16/2019

This morning the wind was predicted to blow above 15 knots.  Our next travel day includes several miles in a narrow, shallow channel, and rather than fight winds in those conditions we decided it was time for another day on the lock wall.  Marilou is a little anxious to be moving, but this was a good choice.

I finally have a chance to write about unique Canadian foods.  Well, they aren’t all Canadian, and not necessarily unique, but it makes for a good blog post.

The first is butter tarts.  These are small pastry shells ranging in size from large bottlecaps to cupcakes filled with a sauce reminiscent of pecan pie.  The fillings we have found are plain, raisin or pecan.  I suppose they are OK, but in my opinion they are…meh.  They don’t do anything for me, and I think they originated in Britain so they can’t claim to be uniquely Canadian.

The second is ice cream.  The best known here is from Kawartha dairies.  It is good ice cream, and I think it a large step above butter tarts.  Again, however, it cannot claim to be uniquely Canadian.

Lastly there is a dish that definitely originated in Canada, and is almost unknown elsewhere.  That qualifies it as uniquely Canadian.  You guessed it, poutine.  Poutine is a serving of French fries with fresh cheese curds on top (fresh enough that they squeak when you chew them), and all that covered with brown gravy.  Now this I can attest is worth eating, and it puts butter tarts and the worthy ice cream to shame.  Just don’t forget your cholesterol pills.

Anyway, we plan to get underway in the morning.

7/14/2019

This morning we departed the lock at Lovesick Lake and moved to the town of Fenelon Falls.  It was travel through more gorgeous areas and many friendly people.  It was a Sunday, so we were concerned about finding space on a lock wall, but it worked out in the end.

There are a couple houseboat rental companies in Bobcaygeon (pronounced bob-KAY-jun) that do weekly houseboat rentals to groups.  No boating experience appears to be required judging from their demonstrated skill levels, and the houseboats are prone to windage and are underpowered.  Before departing Lovesick we saw several come into the lock, and we were thinking this could be entertaining or a disaster.  Most were in the entertaining category, but we saw one that got on the wrong side of the entrance and was nearly swept over the dam.  That wasn’t so fun.

After transiting through a couple large lakes, part of the Kawartha chain, we came to Bobcaygeon.  We intended to stay here, but after seeing the traffic we decided to press on.

Next on the list of possibilities was Fenelon Falls.  We needed to get water, and would benefit from a night on shore power to top up the batteries.  We waited until the last locking of the day thinking we would spend the night on the “blue line” (will describe in a later post), but as we were coming up in the lock a spot on the wall opened up.  There wasn’t power or water, but it was good enough.  The next morning, as boaters departed for the day, we could likely find a spot next to a water spigot and power pedestal, so we chose to spend the night.  Nice small town that depends on tourism, with many friendly people.  We will stay here at least two nights.

 

7/13/2019

We enjoyed the lock wall at Burleigh Falls last night, but our batteries are getting very low and we can’t run our generator without gassing out the people in the boat behind us. It is Saturday, and the weekend warriors will be out in force after noon, so early in the morning we decided to move to the next lock, Lovesick. This was our shortest day of the trip, two locks and two miles.

This short trip was again through many very attractive islands and narrow passages. When you think you’ve seen all the attractive areas you go around a bend and there are even more of them.

We stopped on the lock wall above the Lovesick Lake lock. This lock has an island park where we are tied, and is the smallest lock in the Canadian system. While we were tied here we saw a local tour ship come through the lock, a most impressive feat of boat handling. There wasn’t much room to spare fore and aft of the ship.

7/12/2019

We departed Nassau Mills lock this morning and continued on up the Otanabee River, through Katchanwanooka and Clear Lakes, and are tied tonight just below the Burleigh Falls lock. In doing so we passed through five locks. One of the locks had a long access canal that was only about 30 feet wide (our boat is 16 foot beam). It felt really confining, especially with the big rocks we could see underwater on both sides of the boat.

This is fully part of the Kawartha Lakes region. It is a beautiful area with many cottages on lakeshores and small to tiny islands. There is even a church on a small island accessible only by boat. There are many small fishing boats zipping all over the place.

We are tied tonight again to a lock wall just below the Burleigh Falls lock, Lock 28. This is a quiet shady spot, and we were able to buy firewood for our resident pyromaniac. It is Friday, so we were lucky to find a lock wall with space available.

7/11/2019

We are still in Peterborough today, but we have moved to the north side of the city. Today we transited through the Peterborough Lift Lock, an iconic lock that is the best known in the Canadian canal systems. The lock tender told us they had the 115th anniversary of the lock opening a couple days ago. It is the highest lift lock in the world, and is also the largest unreinforced concrete structure in the world. The lock is pictured below before we entered. The pan on the left is up, and the pan on the right is the one we went into, and it still has the gate up before we entered.

The lock consists of two pans, each weighing 130 tons. The weight of the boats in the pans is immaterial because they displace their own weight in water. At the beginning of a lock cycle the entry gate is folded down, and the boats enter and tie up to the pan sides. The gate is then closed. The photos below show our locking today after we were tied up in the pan, and views out of the lock and up to the other pan.

The lock pans are supported by a large hydraulic ram using water as the working fluid. Because water is incompressible a movement down in one pan causes an equal movement up to the other pan. This is controlled with a valve in the center crossover. Thus, if one pan weighs slightly more than the other it will go down, pushing the other pan up. More on this weight difference in a minute.

After the boats were all in the pans, and the gates were closed, the valves were opened. One pan weighed slightly more than the other and so it went down. We were in the slightly lighter pan, so we were lifted up. The photos below were taken during our ascent. It took about a minute for us and our boat to be lifted about 60 feet up.

After the lift was complete the pans were stopped just slightly short of level with the water we were to go into. A small valve was then opened adding about a foot of water to the upper pan. This made the upper pan slightly heavier, and in the next lock cycle it will be forced down by the difference in weight. The photos below show the view out of the lock pan after the lift, and before the final foot of water is added.

After all this excitement we moved on only a short way to the next lock, Lock 22. We are spending the night here. A small nuisance thunderstorm was coming, and the wind was making navigation difficult in the confined spaces of the locks. Thus, we elected to spend the night.

This morning we departed Hastings and continued first up there Trent River  After crossing Rice Lake we turned into the Otanabee River, and made a slow passage up to the southern end of Peterborough. This a larger town or small city that is the largest in the region. We are moored tonight at the lock wall at Lock 19.

This area begins the Kawartha Lakes region Midwest, known for cottages . The feel is very similar to our cabins in the Midwest. Many are weekend places for people from Toronto. The shores are lined with cottages as you can see in the photos.

Aftera long transit through Rice Lake we turned up the Otanabee River. This was a slow passage, and as the day wore on it became increasingly hot. By the time we stopped we were thoroughly overheated.

We are moored tonight on a lock wall at Lock 19. This lock has not been updated since the original 1837-1845 construction period, and the original limestone blocks are still in place. These were finished by stonemasons over 150 years ago, a testament to their skill in fitting the stones.

July 8, 2019

We departed the lock wall at Campbellford this morning, transited another six locks including another stairstep lock, and are on another free lock wall in Hastings. We didn’t intend to go this far today, but there was ongoing construction at the lock wall where we planned to stop. Being in the small town of Hastings is good too.

Almost every Canadian lock has a long concrete wall either above, below, or on both sides of the lock with cleats to tie to. The gray wall (really unpainted concrete) is available for up to five nights (with a mooring pass, so really not free), and a section of the wall is painted blue. The blue line is where you can tie while waiting for the lock to open. The locks don’t have radios, so they have to shout at us for any necessary directions. We went through these locks with four boats in each locking. The lock is long enough for two boats nose to tail, and then two other boats raft off the bigger boats. Since we are bigger than most we tied to the wall and then another smaller boat came alongside and tied to us. It is a little intimidating to move the boat into the lock under such restrictive maneuvering conditions. The photo below shows the other boat coming alongside us after we were in the locks.

The locks today included a pair of stairstep locks. These are two locks that share an intermediate gate, so you rise up in the first lock, they open the gate and we move forward into the second lock, they close the intermediate gate, and you rise again. These locks rise about 50 feet total with equal rise in each lock. The photos below show the approach into the first lock, the view aft as the intermediate gates are closing, and the view aft just before departing the second lock. The photo above was also taken inside three first chance of the stairstep lock.

We are on a lock wall tonight with eight other looper boats. One boat had to raft off another as the wall wasn’t quite long enough, and the boats rearranged their positions to make room for us to get on the wall. We will spend two nights here to have a break.