July 18-24

Jim and Wendy, Loopers, who we had met in Delaware City stopped by after lunch.  In the afternoon   we went for a walk by the Canoe museum but it was getting ready to close so we didn’t go in.  We ended up at  Landsdowne mall  and only bought  a lemonade in the food court and then walked back.  We had previously had our Kawartha Ice cream fix for the day, so no more of that.We decided to stay an additional night at Peterborough Marina,

On Tuesday we walked up to Lock 20,  checked it out and then walked on to Lock 21- the lift lock.

We watched a boat get ready to go throughand then ran up the stairs and saw them arrive on top.We saw more red chairs, so another photo-op.We then went to the  visitor centre  and looked at the displays and the video on the making of the canal and another one on how the lift lock works.   On our return trip to the boat we stopped for lunch downtown and at the Boaters store.

On Wednesday we were at Lock 20 for the first lock through—we were in the lock with 3 other boats, one of which was a 52 foot Looper boat called Miss Ly.    We then went a ½ mile to the lift lock, where only 3 of us went up.  I timed the lift it took just 2 minutes and 17 seconds to rise 65 feet.   Here’s the Captain tied off and watching us go up. The lift lock works using only gravity and water and is like a see-saw. Once the boats go  into the lower chamber  it displaces it’s weight in water and therefore considered weightless.  The upper chamber has an additional 30 cm or 144 tons of water added to it and it causes the chamber to descend, because of gravity.  Thus the lower chamber rises up.  Amazing.

Following the lift lock our group of 3 followed  the waterway through the  countryside, passing Trent University and  through an   additional 4 locks- Nassau Mills, Otonabee, Douro, and Sawer Creek.  We reached Lakefield Lock #26, and went through it at 2:00.  Making our lock count 7 for the day.  We decided to stay and the other boats went on further.  We walked into town and checked out the Canoe bar, and the adjacent bakery Stuff’d that sold ice cream. We then walked to the downtown and checked out the stores,   Does this suit me?Saw this store a few blocks away- not sure if it is associated with the Bakery- but similar names.We  stopped at Foodland for a few supplies.    After supper, Andy returned to the Canoe pub for the Quiz night.  He joined up with the fellow transients at Lock 26, 2 canoeists that were in pup tents and a couple in a runabout that were also tenting.  Their quiz team name was the hillbillies, hobos and the rich guy.   They had a respectable showing, but weren’t the winners.

On Thursday morning, Andy cooked Pancakes and Bacon for the Quiz team, before we all set off for different destinations.    We left the lock wall at 9:30, as we were only going about 7 miles up to Lock 27 Young’s Point.   We were through and tied up by 10:30.   We checked out the Lockside Trading Company store- amazing store with furniture, clothes & gift ware, can you guess what we bought here?  It was a hot day, close to 30.  For supper we opted to go to the Old bridge Inn for supper.  It looked like we may get a rain storm, but only amounted to 15 drops of rain not enough to cool off.

On Friday morning we left the lock around 10, and went about  5 miles to Clear Lake.  We had been offered the use of Jim and Wendy’s dock  (Clear Lake Habour Hosts) for the night.  They have a lovely place called Cougar Landing. It was a windy day with some whitecaps, so it likely wouldn’t have been a good day for anchoring in Stoney Lake.    Wendy and I went to Lakefield, which was about a 10 minute drive to pick up groceries in the afternoon.  We had a lovely BBQ in the evening,and Andy brought out his inland river charts to show Jim, as they have not done that part of the loop as yet.  I tried to make friends with the cats, Martini and Daiquiri On Saturday, we decided to stay another day.  Jim and Wendy were hosting  a BBQ for the area home owners association – we helped with setting up and clean up and  lots of people from the area.  I think there were over 60 people in attendance.  It was another hot day, with a  little bit of a breeze.  Later in the afternoon the wind picked up and there was some chop on the lake.

Here’s the Lake early Sunday morning,  Here’s Jim and Wendy’s Looper Boat  Triple Threat , with 3 – 300 HP Mercury outboards.Andy went for a  swim  at 7 am  to check the props for weeds and nicks.   We are in less than 5 feet of water here at Jim’s dock and the water is so clear, it shouldn’t take long to do an assessment.  The water is also quite warm, as it’s been hot the last few days.  All is good.  We had planned to go to Buckhorn to have the boat pulled and the props checked, but we are likely going to cancel our booking.I think the tentative plan is to move to an anchorage on Stoney Lake today.  We are going out for supper with Jim and Wendy, somewhere across the lake, so they would pick us up at our boat.