We left the lock before 8:00 and tied up at BYH gas dock just after 8:00.  Ralph came onto the boat and took a look at the new leak on the port engine.  After consulting with the manual and looking on-line, it was determined that we needed a damper.  Andy sent pictures and contacted Rovan, who had sent us the washers for our leak on the Starboard engine.  They didn’t respond until the following day with what we needed and a cost. While we waited at the gas dock for this, Andy spent multiple hours, working on stripping and re-staining the teak railing. He was able to strip and stain almost ¾ of it. 

Around 4:00 Friday, we moved into Peter’s slip at BYH, as he was away on his boat.  Once there I did a thorough washing of the decks to try to remove the sanding dust.  We didn’t do any more sanding and staining here, as we were in close proximity to other fiberglass boats.  We will finish the teak work, once we are back at a lock wall.

On Saturday morning, I went into Lakefield to do laundry.  I was curious to find out where the laundry, in case I ever need to go there from the lock.  It would be a fair hike, but likely not as far as going to the laundry in Frankford—so it is doable.  On my return I stopped at Foodland for a few things.  Shortly after noon, David arrived at the boat, he was coming to do a few more updates to our Garmin electronics.

  Around 3:00, we decided to take the boat out for a test drive, so he could see some of our issues while it was running.  Since he had never been through a lock, we proceeded to go down through lock 31, and once we were at the bottom we turned around and came right back up, as the new fall hours are in effect and the locks close at 4:30.  People watching, must have though we were crazy—who would go through the lock twice.  Only us—I guess I needed more practice.  After cruising in upper buckhorn lake, with David driving, we returned to the marina.

   David then installed the JVC radio/CD player to replace the one on the boat that was no longer functioning.  It took him less than 10 minutes to complete this task, Andy and I had looked at the instructions about a week ago—and it was all Greek to us.  It’s great to be able to play CD’s again and hopefully have better radio reception.  For supper we ordered pizza, and David was on his way back to Hamilton.

On Sunday we got up and did a little cleaning, we then left the slip and moved to the blue line at the Buckhorn lock.  We were through and travelled to Lovesick lock and were through it by noon.  We tied up at the wall below the lock.  We were joined by a number of other boats.  One was a looper boat called Wild willy with Casey and Kerry, who I immediately recognized.  

We had previously met them on A dock at Victoria Harbour marina, however at the marina they had a different boat.  We had a long visit with them talking about their looping experience.   I had noticed that the Canadian flags at all the locks are at half-mast as a tribute to Queen Elizabeth.

On Monday morning, rain was in the forecast so we left Lovesick around 10:30 and travelled to Burleigh Falls, and were through the lock by 11:10, we then moved on to Young’s Point, and were through by 12:20.  We decided to tie up at the bottom, and the rains started shortly thereafter.  In the afternoon, we went to Lock side Trading to shop and get ice cream. We were disappointed regarding the ice cream as they no longer had staff in the café- so no ice cream for us.  We then walked over to the general store, but there was no ice cream or baking there, so we went home empty handed.  It rained most of the evening and overnight.

On Tuesday we left Young’s point at 9:15 and slowly moved to Lakefield and were tied up there by 10:15. There was rain in the forecast for the afternoon, but we decided to finish sanding the teak railing on the starboard front quarter.  Our thoughts were that if it was to rain, we could always cover the raw wood with saran wrap to keep it dry.  It took Andy and I almost 3 hours to complete this task, but all the old stain was off by 2:00.  I then swept up the sanding dust, followed by washing the deck using by anchor wash hose.  I covered the wood with saran, and we waited for the rain.  When it didn’t materialize, we decided to put on the stain.  Andy gave the raw wood a good coat, and did the remainder of the railing with a light coat.   We spent some time reading on the back sundeck in the sun, and there was no rain in sight. The rain didn’t materialize in the night either, so the railing will get a second coat of stain today.

 On Wednesday morning we walked into Lakefield and bought a couple things at Foodland, on our way back we stopped at the café for coffee, a muffin and Central Smith ice cream- definitely not as good as Kawartha.  We went back to the boat, and in the afternoon, the railing got another coat.  It was very breezy, and quite overcast.

On Thursday, we left at about 9:30, and crossed the two lakes before arriving at Burleigh Falls.  We encountered a triple threat here—we locked through with 3 houseboats, but since we were the last boat in and out, no mishaps.  We followed the three boats to Lovesick and we decided to tie up on the bottom.  We visited with the other boaters there, and Andy gave the teak a few touch ups.  He put the dinghy down later in the afternoon and cruised around the area feeding his remaining worms to the fish.

 While he was gone, I watched the neighboring boats play bean bag toss.

  When he returned to the boat, he still had a few worms left and caught a few “blue gills”.   He filleted them and we had them for breakfast on Friday. 

Friday morning was cool, and it was raining.  We locked through on the second lockup with 2 other cruisers around 10:30. We arrived at Buckhorn lock about an hour later and locked through, earlier in the week we had worried about staying at the lock, but there were only 3 boats tied up on that dreary day.  We continued on to BYH, and tied up near the gas dock.  Andy checked in with the service department, as well as Cindy in the canvas shop.  Our part for the fuel leak had arrived and will be installed likely on Monday.  Cindy agreed to meet with us in the afternoon to go over our requirement for a solar canopy over our sundeck.  We met with her for about an hour in the afternoon, looking at Andy’s sketches, pictures from another PT 35 that we had seen a canopy on

and the materials that were available.  It is possible that she may be able to make the frame the following week. 

We returned to the boat, and packed a bag or two, as we were going up to Bancroft to spend the weekend with Brian and Helen, as Saturday was Brian’s 70^th birthday.  We stopped at the Bancroft Kawartha store for ice cream. We had a lovely dinner of bbq roast beef, potatoes, cabbage rolls and cake for dessert.

Saturday morning, Andy and Brian went golfing, only 9 holes as it was Andy’s first golf game for 2022.  Here’s the pair of them in the afternoon after their outing, the 70+ year old needed afternoon naps. 

While they were out Helen and I went to downtown Bancroft and did some shopping as well as stopping at the farmer’s market.  For dinner, we went to the Bird’s Creek café, and then returned to the house for wine, cupcakes and ice cream. 

We saw this wild turkey family return to the bush near their house, they have a daily routine of walking out of the bush each morning and returning before nightfall.

Sunday morning, we woke up to heavy rain.   We left Brian and Helen’s around 9:30 and headed to Buckhorn and the boat.  It continued to rain, we caught up on some missed episodes of Coronation Street and started packing up the boat. 

On Monday morning, Andy went and checked with the service staff, regarding our leak.    Mark came around 10:30 and installed the damper fitting on the port engine.   We were told that we would be pulled out on Tuesday, so the packing continued, and I defrosted the freezer.  Cindy and Amanda from the canvas shop came around noon, and took some measurements for the solar canopy.    In the afternoon, Andy decided to change the oil in the two engines are we had put on about 125 hours over the summer.  After he warmed up the two engines, it took about an hour to complete this task.

  He also topped up the water in the batteries.   By running the engines, Andy noticed a slight leak in the starboard engines, so went back to the service staff, and asked to have the spare damper fitting installed on that engine as well.

We waited until 4:30, and since no one came to do the repair, we decided to go to Lakefield.  I wanted to do laundry including our bedding, so that I wouldn’t have to take it home.    We returned to the boat by 6:30 and had a late supper.  We continued to sort through and pack up things that needed to be stored, as well as stuff that we wanted to take home.

On Tuesday morning, Andy moved the car and we started loading it up.    We completed packing shortly after 9:00.  Andy also got confirmation from Renogy that the additional solar panels and clips were shipped.  We drove back to Bancroft to stay at Brian and Helen’s.  

  After lunch, Helen and I went downtown to do some shopping, and I bought some yarn for an upcoming project.  We will be returning to the boat on Thursday to check on the progress of the boat top.

Our plan is to leave Bancroft Friday morning and go to the Sault.  We originally had hoped to go via Owen Sound and the Chi cheemaun on ferry, but couldn’t get a reservation until Sunday, so that side trip won’t happen again this year. We were told that there are lots of people, likely seniors, doing the fall colours tours

so bookings are hard to get at this time of year.  We also found that hotel rooms in Sault St. Marie on Friday night were very limited. On Saturday we hope to make it as far as Thunder Bay.  No more two-day driving marathons to Winnipeg—we’re too old for that!

Wednesday, we did our own tour of the area, going to Haliburton, as Brian was getting his 5^th covid shot.  We went up into the Haliburton highlands one way and returned on a different route.  Lots of leaves are changing to yellow and red.

While in Haliburton we did some shopping and went for lunch.   Once we were back, I pulled out knitting needles and started playing with tension and the new wool.  In the evening we watched a little TV, and I read a book.

On Thursday morning- the first day of fall

I got some sad news from my friend Veronique she told me a recently retired colleague, Bert Siemens had passed away suddenly last weekend, and his funeral would be on Saturday. This was a bit of a shock, Bert and I had worked together for years on the Harvest survey.  Later in the morning, Andy and I drove back to the boat to check on the progress of the deck cover and winterizing.   We were disappointed to learn that our boat was exactly where we had left it on Tuesday,

we were told it was too tall for the canvas shop space.  Some progress had occurred with respect to the new top.  When I got to the boat, Amanda was adding some clips to the radar arch.  Cindy and Andy had some final discussions about the top and the attachments.  We then went to the canvas shop to see the assembled stainless-steel structure, as well as the canvas material that will be covering it. 

Upon leaving BYH, we picked up pizza for lunch and then some fruit for the road and filled up with gas at Curve Lake.  Enroute to Bancroft, we stopped at Kawartha for the final taste of ice cream, I had a scoop of coconut and pumpkin pie.  The pumpkin pie ice cream actually had some pellets of pastry dough in it- this will not be a favourite! There are frost warnings out for this evening– so it is time to go…..

We plan to leave tomorrow morning and should be home by Sunday night. Another year of boating in Ontario has ended, we were here for almost 4 months. I think we used our mooring pass 72 times and travelled through 145 locks as well as spending a week in the thousand islands. Remarkable value for spending $650 on our Parks Canada mooring and locking passes! What a great country we live in, the boating here is amazing, as well as the ice cream!