Seventh Sun III - WELCOME to our site as we travel the Great Loop. We will be beginning the Loop f

Leg #11 — 8/23/14 to 8/30/14 — Bobcaygeon, Ontario to Midland, Ontario

Off again, we drove from home on Fri­day night, stopped in Mon­roe, MI to sleep, and arrived at boat around 12:30pm.  A lot is going on at our house but we think we have it all orga­nized so that we be gone for a week to make this leg.  We need to get the boat to Bay­port Marina in Bay Port, Michi­gan for stor­age before, of course, Win­ter which is essen­tially by late Sep­tem­ber when Lake Huron may/can/will often be kick­ing up big waves.

Ken took the rental car back while I got things in order on the boat but when he got back he dis­cov­ered that the bat­ter­ies weren’t work­ing cor­rectly.  We recently had some work done and there were a cou­ple of wires that had not been recon­nected.  A call to the elec­tri­cian and a quick stop made all things well and we took off from the marina at 4:30pm head­ing to Fenelon Falls–about 15 miles and 1 lock.  Out into the Bob­cay­geon River and into Stur­geon Lake for a short hop to Lock 34 on the Trent-Severn Water­way with a lift of about 24 feet !  Each lock has it’s own page with descrip­tion go to:  http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/on/trentsevern/visit/visit6/lock34.aspx
We tied up at the upper lock wall for the night, took a stroll around town and ate din­ner at the Lake House straight across from the SSIII.  Kawarthan ice cream was at our fin­ger tips.…and then on our lips.…on the way back to the boat.

We had a rest­ful night in Fenelon Falls.  Well, there was some music with hoot­ing and hol­ler­ing down the way at a party, but some­how we/I slept.  I walked in the morn­ing and talked to the gen­tle­man water­ing the flower bas­kets all over town. You see I use these trips as “fact find­ing” mis­sions for my job on City Coun­cil.  This gentleman’s over­all cir­cum­stances, bud­get, equip­ment, etc. make flowers/flower bas­kets more plausible.
Today included reg­u­lar locks again but also the addi­tion of the Kirk­land Lift Lock for excite­ment.  It is sim­i­lar to the Peter­bor­ough Lift Lock except this time we were going down.  Some­how, this was a lit­tle fun­nier feel­ing.  You drive into the tub, tie off to the rails that run along­side and just wait, look around and take pic­tures.  There is usu­ally some observers even early in the morn­ing.  We had one other boat along this lock-thru but no unusual occur­rences except that we floated through the air in a tub of water !
We were hav­ing a per­fectly beau­ti­ful day when we must have veered slightly out of the chan­nel and a few loud, rocky, bumpy noises hap­pened.  I took over the wheel while Ken took a look in the engine room.  No water, more loud bumpy noises while I was steer­ing, still no water but back in the exact mid­dle of the chan­nel with a lit­tle vibra­tion.  We found the speed to travel with the least amount of vibra­tion and it was slowwwww……..
We went through the next 5 locks on the Trent Canal and crossed Lake Sim­coe, about 30 miles, and up the Nar­rows (should have a cra­zier name) to Bridge Port Marina.  Ken had spo­ken to them after the hit and made arrange­ments to go there for repairs.  We were sched­uled to get hauled out in the morn­ing.  Their sched­ule must have changed.…. because when we got there around 5:00pm, they hauled us out, changed the props, took a sea trial and put us back in by 8:00pm.

We appre­ci­ated the extra­or­di­nary work of Kyle McDon­ald and Chris.  We spent the night on their fuel dock and took off the next beau­ti­ful morn­ing for down­town Oril­lia and their munic­i­pal docks.
The town of Oril­lia is really worth the stop.  We are late in the sea­son but you can tell that they have a lot going on here.  Music and art fes­ti­vals were all over this summer’s cal­en­dar and you can see rem­nants of dif­fer­ent pub­lic art events lin­ing the down­town areas….very impressive.

We vis­ited to “must see” Mari­posa Mar­ket after a nice lunch at Big­Bay Brew­ery.  I vis­ited a few of the gal­leries and bought a cou­ple of things to take back home.  A very rest­ful after­noon and a din­ner at a restau­rant near the marina ended the day.
We waited for a small storm to pass through to head out the next morn­ing.  We were now on Couch­ich­ing (Koo-chi-chin) Lake… Lake of Many Winds… head­ing north­west on the Trent-Severn Waterway.
We had to blow a whistle.…well, we really used a blow horn since our boat horn is not work­ing, for an open­ing at the CNR Swing Bridge.  This was, by far, the nois­i­est bridge that we have encoun­tered on the Loop.
We entered the Cou­ch­in­ing Lock and departed at 10:16am.  The 15 miles to Swift Rapids is all at the 10mph/6kph speed.  This stuff should make us more patient…….
Swift Rapids was a beau­ti­ful park area around the lock walls.

Then we stopped and had lunch at Waubic Inn Restau­rant along the Sev­ern River and only acces­si­ble by water.
It was a great weather day and after some good fish (had­dock) and chips, we headed on down the water.
We stopped early in the day at the next lock, The Big Chute Marine Rail­way.  This is a high­light on this sys­tem because it’s the only lock of its kind.  The rail­way, or boat lift, car­ries the boats across land on from one body of water to the other.  It works on an inclined plane to carry boats in indi­vid­ual cra­dles over a change of height of about 60 feet (18 m). It is the only marine rail­way of its kind in North Amer­ica still in use.  The cur­rent car­riage was opened to the pub­lic in 1978, and can carry a boat up to 100 feet (30 m) long and 24 feet (7.3 m) beam.  It cost $3 mil­lion to build .….and it’s pretty excit­ing. We watched a few boats “take the trip” and calmed down about the idea.  We had been told that it was scary and so we thought that the boat tipped for­ward on the decline. The fact that the boat stays level while in the sling makes it a com­fort­able, though shaky sound­ing, ride down the hill.

00:00

00:05

We met up with a cou­ple, Al and Terry from Dream Stage, that we had met and talked to at Bay Port Marina in Oril­lia. They joined us for drinks after din­ner at the Big Chute Marina and we were given a fried but­ter tart from the chef to try.  OMG, it was absolutely wild…a but­ter tart, deep fried, with ice cream, whipped cream and choco­late sauce.  It’s his new menu item niche.  We walked back to the boat in the absolute pitch dark feel­ing our way around the pic­nic tables that took up most of the width of the dock.
Now we were off to Lock 45, Sev­ern Lock and the last lock of the Trent-Severn.  We tied up for the night on the upper lock wall.  We walked the area, saw a cou­ple of restau­rants, the water­fall and had lunch at This Damn Grill.  While eat­ing, I saw a woman try­ing to tie up to the lock wall from an express cruiser and fall into the water.  Since we were across the water, by the time that I got out­side to yell to the lock staff, the cap­tain was pulling her onto the swim­step.  Makes you remem­ber to always be care­ful, not hurry and don’t lean out over the water.  She could have really got­ten hurt between the boat and the wall.  Reports from staff said that she was okay but a lit­tle cold and wet.

Three beau­ti­ful objects…Ken, SSIII and flowers !

We had a very nice din­ner at the Inn at Christie Mill with another beau­ti­ful view over the water.  Tonight we man­aged to walk back and get ice cream with enough light to see our way back to the boat.
We made the first lock-thru, Lock 45, in the morn­ing and headed out through the nar­row and sharp angled Potato Chan­nel into Sev­ern Sound.

We were some­what sad know­ing that we were through with this sec­tion of the Loop.  It was a lot of work but extremely inter­est­ing and won­der­ful.  We met lots of inter­est­ing peo­ple and the Parks Canada lock staff were great ambas­sadors for Canada.  This was some of the more beau­ti­ful scenery.… more remote with fewer houses and the rock for­ma­tions were spectacular.

We arrived at Bay Port Yacht­ing Cen­ter early in the day.  This is a nice marina close to the town of Mid­land.  Ken got a ride from one of the own­ers, Mrs. McDon­ald, back to Oril­lia to pick up the rental car that would take us home the next day.  I walked into town to check it out and found a town full of his­toric murals and small shops.  We met up with Al and Terry from Dream Stage and all went to din­ner at Henry’s Fish House…great fish and chips again with a lot great con­ver­sa­tion on all of our com­mon inter­ests.  We went back to their boat for a drink, then home to get to bed early so that we could take off in the morn­ing.  (We did stop in Port Huron on the way home to check it out.….okay.)

This entry was posted in Journal on September 12, 2014. Edit