We left at 5:30 on July 10^th and were in Wawa by 7:00, only stopping in Dryden and Nipigon for gas.  On Sunday morning we left Wawa at 6:45, and stopped in Sault St Marie at 9:00 for gas and at 3:15 in North Bay for gas.  Our route took us through Huntsville and then through a portion of Algonquin Park.  Algonquin Park must be full of moose, as we kept seeing this sign

—Maybe they got a deal on it only having the paint 24 KM  once and replicating it.   We arrived at Brian and Helen’s shortly after 6:00.  After supper, I got on the computer and applied for my Official Covid Immunization record of double vaccination- got the code and took a picture on my phone- – the official card will be mailed to us in Winnipeg sometime in the next month.

Early on Monday we made the trek to Buckhorn in order to unpack the car and then wait for the boat to be launched. 

The boat looked amazing, we had   couple of gouges filled and buffed out as well as some detailing done so the hull looked great. 

I had never been at the marina for launch day, as the boat was going down the ramp, watching from shore I noticed that the ropes weren’t out, nor were the fenders down- Oops!

Once we were in the water around 11:00, we had the water lines flushed out and all engines fired up.  There was an issue with the generator battery and it was taken off the boat to be charged up.  Andy also wanted a wash pump installed that used lake water, as well as an additional accumulator tank installed.  The priority was the wash pump installation, as well as the rear toilet that had been an issue in 2020. Once these two jobs were completed, we also realized and issue with the anchor light.  There seemed to be some broken wires, this job would be tackled on Tuesday morning.  We headed back to Bancroft, and after supper, did some reprovisioning.  It was a long day.

On Tuesday morning, when we got to the boat, we unpacked the car, and then move the boat to the gas dock so that we could top up our fuel.  Since I could not bring the tomato that I had started to the boat, because of lack of space on our 22 hour trek.  It could only have come if it had sat on my lap and that wasn’t going to happen.  However Helen had a cherry tomato plant in a pot that she offered me.  Here it is bungied to our boat.

We also needed to exchange a propane tank.  Around 10:30 the technician came and between him and Andy were able to re wire the anchor light, he also returned the generator battery and checked that it was working.  Once this was completed, we untied and moved to Buckhorn Lock #31 and tied up.  Late afternoon, I walked to the Foodland store for a couple of items.  Quite the adventure—they were paving the main highway coming in and I had to walk across the new HOT asphalt.  I did my grocery shopping and leaving the store it was pouring out.  I loved it – it’s been a long time since I had experienced a downpour, as we are having a drought in Winnipeg.  Being a former girl guide, I was prepared with an umbrella, but was soaked to the skin by the time I got to the boat.  We spent the rest of the day unpacking and putting stuff away.

On Wednesday morning we left Buckhorn just before 8:00 and headed for the locks of Bobcaygeon, Fenlon Falls and then on to Rosedale. 

We decided to spent the night there.  Our friends Julie and Glenn from Balsam Lake stopped by for a short visit and a drink.  We met some new people who had some questions about the great loop.  We had drinks with them as well, and they brought us a pizza that they had cooked in an outdoor propane pizza oven.  It was very tasty.  There are banners up as the TSW is celebrating it’s 101 years of operation, last year didn’t really allow for any kind of celebration so it was bumped to this year.

On Thursday we left Rosedale around 8 30, we had been told that there were issues with the Kirk field lift lock, and that locking would be about every hour and a half.   We arrived there at 10:15 and went into the lock

but were not locked up until the other two boats that we had met at Rosedale arrived.  We were through the lock by 11:30.   We then went on to Bolsover, Talbot, and Portage.  We knew that a storm was brewing and that Lake Simcoe was going to be ugly- so we wanted to be tied up securely, we ended up doing one more lock and were through Thorah by 14:20.  We wanted to be on the bottom of the dam for some protection from the winds.

We were just tied up when the first drops of rain fell, shortly after that at about 10-minute intervals we had severe weather alerts coming over our phones telling us to seek shelter, as high winds, thunder, and rain along with funnel clouds were anticipated.  So, we put some extra ropes on the boat, we had winds and it poured for a couple hours.  At some point there was a tornado in Barrie which was about 18 miles from our location.  The worst of the storm was to the north of us.  We spent the evening playing Five crowns, a parting gift from our neighbours Dave and April in Winnipeg.

On Friday morning we left Thorah at 8:50 and travelled one mile to the next lock- Game bridge.  We went through it and then were out in Lake Simcoe for the 20-mile crossing to Orillia.  We were having some electrical charging issues, — Have I ever said these words before in this blog?  Of course, I have for almost 7 years- this issue never seems to get resolved.  We were in touch with the electrical technician in Penetang, and he gave us some things to try.  Once we were off Simcoe and on to Lake Couchiching, we decided to go to the port of Orillia marina and arrived before noon. We wanted to have shore power for the night to ensure all our batteries were charged up.  But our troubles did not end in Orillia as we anticipated, we were assigned a bad power pedestal, which only worked intermittently, but we didn’t clue into this for a couple of hours.  We didn’t know what was happening our AC current needle was fluctuating, the inverter was putting out 50 Amps and our battery charge was continuing to go down.  This shouldn’t have been happening- typically with shore power the battery charge goes up. Finally, we asked the marina to check the pedestal, and was told that indeed it was not working.  Great—we are not going mad!  We still have some charging issues, but after switching to another pedestal the battery power went up to 100% in a couple of hours.   Around noon I saw a rainbow type ring around the sun- maybe this phenomenon was the cause of our issues. Definitely weird, there was a second rainbow ring, but I didn’t capture it in this picture.

 I took a walk to Metro and picked up some groceries—I also stopped at Wilkie’s bakery for some Chelsea buns. The street was decorated with Peace sign, just like this one.

   We had a short visit with our friends from the Rosedale lock, as they are at this marina farther down the dock from us.

We will leave Orillia in the next hour or two and head closer to Georgian Bay, so that we are in Penatanguishene for Tuesday.