July 31- August 2
We left Bobcaygeon on Sunday morning shortly after 9 and crossed Sturgeon Lake, it was a fairly busy day on the waterways, since it was Sunday of the long weekend. We were through Lock 34 at Fenlon Falls by 11:40.
We entered Cameron Lake, and continued to Fells Bay, where the Edney cottage was.
We anchored out, and used the dinghy to motor into shore. We likely hadn’t used the motor since late December and it needed a bit of a workout.
We stopped and visited for a couple of hours with Mike’s relatives.
Mike’s uncle Byron and a couple cousin’s came out to the trawler in a powerboat. When we were ready to leave, Mike joined us for a ride up to the next lock at Rosedale,
which was only a couple of miles away. Sydney and Franziska joined us at the lock and actually locked through with us.
Not too exciting it was only a 4 foot drop. We tied up at Rosedale Lock 35 at 4:30 for the evening.
On Monday, we left at about 9:15, and went through our the narrow Trent Canal into Balsam Lake. Balsam lake is reported to be 857 feet above sea level and the highest point on the TSW. This is also the highest point in the world that a boat can reach from the sea under it’s own power. From now on all our locking will be in the downward direction. We saw these cottages on Balsam Lake.
Leaving Balsam lake we again entered a very narrow rock cut through the Canadian Shield, and ended up meeting 3 boats– very tight quarters!
and came out in Mitchell Lake, another portion of the narrow Trent call took us to the second lift lock at Kirkfield Lock at 11:00.
Here’s the view of the empty red chairs from above and below.
It was a quick trip down, and only took a couple of minutes to go down 49 feet. We then entered Canal lake, which is quite shallow and weedy. We went through the Hole in the wall bridge.
Upon exiting the lake we entered the Talbot river, which took us through the Locks at Bolsover,
Talbot
and Portage.
We decided to spend the night at Portage #39, and tied up at 1:45. We were the only boat on the upper wall. Andy amused himself with fishing in the evening after he changed the oil on the two engines. We heard someone calling our names, and saw Living life, Loopers from Peterborough, go through the lock.
Here’s the view from the boat in the evening.
On Tuesday we locked through Portage at 9:20, and then Thorah at 9:35 and finally Gamebridge
at 10:00. We entered Lake Simcoe at 10:10, here’s the breakwall.
I was a relatively calm morning
and we were across the lake before noon. We then entered the narrows shortly after noon,
to get to Lake Couchiching. In places the marked channel was narrow, with many rocks encroaching .
We entered another segment of the Trent canal and were stopped for over 45 minutes waiting for a train to cross the swing bridge at mile 209.
The train took over 8 minutes to cross the bridge and then two bridge tenders appeared to be inspecting the bridge prior to opening it. We arrived a Couchiching Lock #42 at 2:10
and decided to stay on the top, to get some breeze. It is approaching 35 C outside and is unbearably hot, the captain put the generator on, so that we can run the AC. That hasn’t happened often on this trip. Check out the whirlpools, these are found just outside this lock.
We met some people in boats surrounding us, and saw a looper boat lock through. We went for a swim off the back of the boat at 6:30 to cool off. This lock has showers, so I gladly paid the $3 to get clean in the morning. We plan to stay here for 2 nights, as we want to be at the big chute marine railway Lock 44 on Friday as Mike and Franziska are going to meet us there and take pictures as we cross.
Cruising ON BUSINESS 