Monthly Archives: June 2023

Moving closer to Georgian Bay

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We left Buckhorn at 7:55 and moved through Bobcaygeon, and then Fenlon Falls, we arrived at Rosedale around 12:30 and tied up.  We were the only boat on the top side on Friday night, however other boats joined us for Saturday. 

We were next to RikAnha, and visited with them and their cat Wizard.

They are headed to Georgian Bay as well sometime over the summer.On Sunday we left around 11:00 and crossed Balsam Lake arriving at the Kirkfield lock at 12:50, a lockage was just going down , so we had to wait an hour for it to come back up. 

We  were out of Kirkfield by 2:35.  We continued on through  the very weedy Canal Lake, and then on to Bolsover, Talbot, Portage and stopped at the top of Thorah, where Bill and Margie from Crustacean  were tied up.  In the evening Bill put on a wet suit and dove under our boat and theirs to remove weeds that were wrapped around the props and rudder. 

Here’s our boats on Monday morning at Thorah.  

We left together and went through Thorah, and then Gamebridge and hit Lake Simcoe at 10:00.  I saw these Turtles sunning themselves, along with a Heron.

We arrived at the Port of Orillia at 12:15, I did some laundry , the dryer was broken, so I hung our clothes on the flybridge to dry

and we walked over to Metro for provisions.  There is a huge construction project happening around the marina,  one of the staff said they are building 80 affordable condos, with a price tag of 1 Million. Yikes. In the morning before departing I went to Wilkie’s Bakery at 9 for fresh butter tarts and Chelsea buns ( they were still warm). The Kawartha Voyager was tied up at Port of Orillia, it is making trips in this area, going between the Big chute and Peterborough.

We are going to travel with Crustacean for the next week, showing them parts of Georgian Bay. After crossing Lake Couchiching, we were stopped at the CN train bridge for over an hour because of many trains on the schedule.  We anchored a fair distance from the bridge and rafted with Crustacean while we waited.

  Then it was on through the Couchiching Lock, Sparrow Lake, McDonald cut and hydro glen before arriving in Swift Rapids  at 3:05.  We tied up to the grey line where they now have 2 power pedestals.  Had a quiet night. 

In the morning we locked through just after 9:00, and then it was off to the Big Chute.  When we arrived, the staff was just leaving to do some dam work, so we waited and showed Bill and Margie the carriage and explained what would happen.  Another boat showed up, and they went through first, alone.  We were next, here we are leaving the carriage. 

Once we were through, we tied up and I got off the boat, so I could take pictures of Crustacean.  

Once through we continued on to Port Severn, again we had to lock separately as this is the smallest lock on the Trent, and it would have been a tight fit for both of us to get into it at the same time. 

Once out, we went between Green and Potato islands and headed for Beausoleil Island.  We both tied up to the docks at Cedar Springs by 3:45 , after a 27 mile run for the day. Some changes had occurred since we were last there in 2018, when these docks had been closed due to high water. 

The next morning, we led the way and showed Crustacean some of the Anchorages nearby that we had either stayed at or had explored, these included frying pan, Goblin,  Longuissa Bay,  and Hockey stick.  We then proceed along Muskoka , Musquash and Monument channels to get to Indian Harbour around 1:00, another 27 mile day. After anchoring in the bay with 5 other boats, we just relaxed.  Around 5:30, Bill came over by dinghy to take us to his boat for dock tails.  While there Andy helped him tighten the belt on his generator.  Another peaceful night.

In the morning, it was cloudy,  we weighed anchor at 10:00  and proceeded to the O’donnell point anchorages,  on 12 mile bay, as well as Big David Bay. We continued on to San Souci island, and tied up at the dock for lunch at Henry’s. 

It was a cloudy day, and our charging system was acting up, it doesn’t seem that the alternators are putting power into the house bank.  Andy called Karl and tried a few things to try and figure out what wasn’t working, with Bill assistance as well as Ted, the owner of Henry’s. 

We also plugged into shore power for a few hours to try to re charge our house batteries. Around 6:45 we left and headed up to Port Rawson, and found a place to anchor around 7:30.  Around 8:00 we tried to start our generator, and it wouldn’t run- likely a dead starter battery.  Andy called back to Henry’s to book us in there for Saturday night, so that we can charge our lithium’s fully.  Andy realized in the morning that the generator’s start button on the generator had been switched off. 

Once he put it in the correct position the gennie fired up and pumped power into the batteries.  Yipee.  He then had a call with Karl, to discuss the dc to dc charger.  We left the anchorage around 11:00 the 8 mile run to Henry’s to re-charge the batteries.  Just before we left a fishing boat stopped and asked us for directions to Pennsylvania Island—they had a fully stocked boat with about a dozen rods, however, they had a 1 page map of the area, and no bait.  They ended up following us out of Port Rawson all the way to the bait store on Pennsylvania Island.  We arrive at Henry’s around noon and tied up.  Andy went back into the engine room and spoke to Karl on the phone.  The DC-DC charger still does not appear to be working, ie) supplying power from the engines to the batteries while we are running. Karl thinks that we need some  larger breakers added to either side of the DC charger.  We have decided to go back to Victoria Harbour for Monday, and will see if we can buy them there and have them installed.  We went up to the restaurant for a drink and some lunch.  Karl will also order us another external regulator, as one of them doesn’t seem to be working well. We spent the afternoon relaxing, relieved that we can continue our vacation in Georgian Bay.

On Sunday we left Henry’s around 8 am

and retraced our route to Longuissa Bay,  there was smoke in the air for the entire trip.  We  arrived at Longuissa at 11:30, sharing the anchorage with about 5 other boats.  Crustacean joined us there later in the afternoon.  I spent some time cleaning the boat.  We had docktails with Margie and Bill on our boat. 

I also went for a swim off the back of the boat to cool off. 

We had a couple short showers throughout the night.  In the morning we left the anchorage around 8:30, and headed the 18.7 miles to Victoria Harbour.  We experience a  little rain when we were near the northern shores of Beausoleil Island, but Andy continued to drive from the flybridge.  About 20 minutes from Queen’s Cove, there was a warning on the VHF radio that a squall was approaching southern Georgian Bay.  Unfortunately, we were not get at the marina when the skies opened, we were completely drenched.  Andy tied up to an outside dock in the marina, to wait out the storm, so that we could move to our assigned slip.  After we moved, Andy went up to check-in and order the required circuit breakers for the dc charger.   There was a break in the weather in the afternoon, so we walked into town to reprovision. We then spent some time catching up on Coronation Street, and I watched the video of the grad ceremonies for my great-niece Neva in Swan River.   The rain started again around 4:00 and it continued to rain until dark and through the night. Here’s a view of my boat garden, it seems to like the amount of rain and sunshine it has been getting, I have a dozen tomatoes, and some radishes that should be ready in the next week or two.

This garden is easy to weed, unlike back home, where our neighbor has sprayed the weeds with Roundup!

The modifications to the canopy also seems to be a success, as there was very little pooling of water after yesterday’s rains.

Early this morning, we learned that our friend Muriel had passed away in Bancroft, so that put a damper on the day.  I’m very glad I visited her 3 weeks ago, when we were there. I spent the morning doing some cleaning on the outside decks with a scrub brush and soap.  Around 11, I walked up to the laundromat—I missed a huge rain shower by mere minutes.  Once the laundry was completed, I met Andy at the Village mercantile for lunch and Kawartha Ice cream.   

We returned to the boat, and Andy checked if the circuit breakers had arrived.  They were in, but a mistake was made- they had sent two identical breakers, which wasn’t what had been ordered.  So, one more day of waiting.  Andy added the one breaker that he received.  We also put a call and email into Sensata- the maker of our inverter and monitor, to get assistance on setting it up for the lithiums—as it doesn’t seem to be fully charging them.  We had a call back later and were told that are equipment (bought in 2020) was too old to communicate with Lithium, but a circuit board could be changed in the inverter to upgrade it. This incompatability will explain why our system is wonky on days we don’t have sun to charge the batteries. After some discussions with Karl, we may be replacing the inverter and monitor  so that we can get the system running as it was designed.  We want reliability and redundancy to operate this boat worry-free, especially if we spend next summer on Lake Superior.  Karl will come up with some suggestions, and hopefully we will meet up with him in about 3 weeks to replace and make corrections.

We awoke this morning, to wind, smoke, cooler temps and may flies.  Will likely stay here one more night. I continued to scrub the deck and gunnels, while we waited for delivery of the other circuit breaker.  I saw this sign near someone else’s boat on A dock.

 It is very true even if boats can be a money pit- we keep thinking that the next upgrade will solve the electrical issues that have plagued us since 2015. Hopefully if we get it functioning properly it will bring happiness and smooth sailing!!

More bad news the circuit breaker didn’t arrive yesterday, so we will have to wait here yet another day. We hope to leave later this afternoon, to find somewhere close by to anchor, as it is the start of the July long weekend and it will be busy. Our plan is to stay out on Georgian Bay until about July 7th and then start heading back into the TSW, so we can rendez-vous with Karl after he returns from Scotland.

Circuit breaker did not come in Thursday’s shipment, so we are still in Vic. Harbour, we are hoping that it comes today (Friday), so we can leave and spend some time at anchor. It is raining and smoky here again today. Hope everyone has a great Canada Day tomorrow!

Circuit breaker arrived Friday afternoon and was installed by my favourite electrician-in- training. We plan to leave here Sunday morning and head north-west back towards Port Rawson.

We’ve done a mini loop and returned to BYH

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We left BYH on Thursday  morning and moved to Buckhorn lock wall.  We didn’t plug into power until about 3:00, as we wanted to see if the solar panels would charge up the batteries.  To keep busy, I stenciled “On Business” onto our life ring, and then painted the inside of the letters blue.  I also  did some weeding around the lock building, in the late afternoon, I played photographer, as Parks was  having a bench dedication for a long-term lockmaster—Pat, who had passed away in 2019.

  That evening we went to the Cody Inn for supper.

On Friday, we locked through with another boat, when the lock opened around 9:00, we followed them through  Lovesick, Burleigh Falls, Youngs Point, and finally tied up at Lakefield lock 26 around 1:15.  We stayed there for 2 days.

On Saturday, afternoon we walked into Lakefield to pickup a few things.  We also stopped for ice cream- our first since coming to Ontario—it was not Kawartha but Central smith.  I tried a new flavour Lemonade lavender—very refreshing. When we returned to the lock,  we met loopers Bill and Margie from Florida,  we spent several hours showing them potential anchorages and places we had stayed in Georgian Bay and the north channel. On Sunday morning we toured the Crustacean, 42 foot Grand Banks, and Margie and Bill came aboard and looked at our boat as well. I walked around the lock station in the morning and took pictures of the garden as well as these purple irises, and the boats at the lock.

My neighbor from home had sent me some pics of my irises and roses.

  When we left on June 1st, there wasn’t even a bud on the rose bush- it must really like the heat and rain that Winnipeg has been experiencing.

 Just before 11:00 we untied and followed Crustacean  to Young’s Point lock, it was raining off and on all afternoon.  Once we were through Hell’s gate, they turned and went to explore Stoney Lake.  We continued on  through Burleigh Falls and Lovesick locks, arriving at Buckhorn at 2:15, once through the lock we tied up in front of “Just Wright”.  We hadn’t seen Roy and Dalaina since last September, when the pulled their boat and drove back to B.C.  We had happy hour and caught up on what we had been doing over the winter.  After supper, we invited another couple, Andy and Stephanie from Colorado, who were on a houseboat rental to take a look at the inside of our boat.  Sometime in the future, they would like to do the Great Loop.  Andy gave them some advice on boating and what to look for in a live-aboard boat.  After they left, we played cards, like we do most nights—I have not won a game yet.  It started to rain again once it got dark and rained through the night and was still raining in the morning, as well as a bit breezy.

On Monday it rained most of the day, in the afternoon we had a crib tournament with Dalania and Roy. We learned from all the rain, that the design of our canopy needed some alterations, as water just pooled on the canvas around the solar panels. But the rain didn’t stop the Canada geese from being around, there were 4 adults and 40 small ones hanging around the lock.

 On Tuesday morning, Just Wright left through the lock, they are headed east to Montreal.  After a walk to the grocery store and liquor store, we headed over to BYH to fill up our fuel tanks.  We showed them the problem with the canopy.  We went into an empty slip and several people came to take a look.  It was eventually decided that we needed three more bars that were slightly hooped to make the water flow to the end of the canopy.  Tuesday night after taking the crew from Crustacean grocery shopping, we drove to Lakefield to do a load of laundry.

On Wednesday, Cindy and Amanda came and added the 3 new bars,

Later in the afternoon  Todd came and tie-wrapped the solar panels to the canvas. We are still waiting for the final part for the solar setup- hopefully it comes on Thursday. We went out to Home hardware to pick up pipe insulation to put around all the exposed support braces.

In the evening we drove to Bobcaygeon for our first Kawartha ice cream, right from main location.  I had coconut and Andy had salty caramel truffle. 

When we got back to the boat, we invited Jo and Ken  over for a drink.  We had been parked next to them at the marina last year for several days.

In the morning, Cindy and Amanda returned to the boat and moved some of the snaps on the canvas, as now with the extra support bars, they didn’t meet up.  In the afternoon, Andy and I put the pipe insulation around the support bars, where the weight of the solar panels could damage the canvas.    Andy was having issues with the Renogy M1 monitor and after conferring with Karl several times, he has decided to turn it off, and only use his phone for monitoring the batteries and electrical system. Our Blue-tooth solar monitor accessory was not in today’s mail. We have made the decision to leave in the morning and head to Bobcaygeon and beyond, likely will stop in Rosedale. It has now been 15 days since we left home, and Georgian Bay is calling. We checked in with the Port of Orillia about getting dockage next weekend, but because of Christmas in June festivities, they are completely booked up. Will have to pass Orillia, and the great chelsea buns at Wilks bakery for now. Andy also called to Henry’s fish restaurant, and they will be opening as of June 27, so we will get the opportunity to spend a night there. We just found out that the Solar monitor accessory is out of stock until July 9- so I’m glad we decided not to wait any longer for it.

The 2023 Boating Season will begin soon..

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A lot has happened since my last blog.  We did spend Thanksgiving with my family in Swan River, the highlight on the Sunday was a drive up to Thunder Hill, where the  nieces and nephews walked to the club house from the top of the ski hill—too steep for these senior citizens.

  We got to meet our new doctor in mid October, and he agreed to take on the two of us as patients.  Later in October, I transformed my grandmother’s  china cabinet from a dark brown to a light green, with a couple coats of paint.

  I had contemplated selling the china cabinet, but once I changed the colour, I decided it would be  great in our new place.

 

At Christmas, we hosted the McMorland family gathering on December 18th for the last time in our house, there were about 30 people in attendance. We spent Christmas in Fort Frances with Andy’s sister and brother-in-law, which was much better than being just the two of us. In the new year, Jack spent part of a week with us, while Erin and Jason took a trip to Vegas. We had a fair bit of snow over the winter, and I kept busy  shoveling. We also had a couple really cold weeks in January and again in February.

In late January, Andy went into hospital for a hip replacement,  we expected he would be in hospital for 2 or 3 days, but he liked it so much- he stayed there for 9 days.  The extended stay was because his knees were swollen and couldn’t support him , so  he didn’t get out of bed for 5 days. 

 He came home on February 3rd, and spent about a week in his easy chair, using a walker or cane to get around  before climbing the stairs to our 2nd floor bedroom. He will need the other hip and knees replaced in the future.

As of December 31st, I became a member of the Facebook crowd.  My real reason for taking the plunge was because I wanted to sell excess furniture and household items, and I had heard that Marketplace was better then Kijiji.  Over the next few months, I sold a desk, coffee tables, tire rims, table saws, bed, rocker, dresser, couch, loveseat,  paintings and  many, many more tools.  In mid-May I advertised a garage sale  only on Marketplace, and had quite a few people stop buy.  

We sold our patio set and dinghy as part of this sale. The first person arrived one hour before the start time, and he wanted to see the LP records we had for sale.  I was shocked, by the end of the afternoon- all our records and CDs were gone.  Some of our excess clothing, appliances and tools that didn’t sell were given to a woman working with Ukrainian refugees, and the items will be distributed amongst that community. One of my former work colleagues stopped  by in late April and cleaned out my shed  buying  the lawn mower, snowblower, a band saw, bench, and rototiller, as well as some gardening tools. So, a lot of our excess belongings have been purged!

In early May I also met with some retired colleagues from the CGC, it was great catching up with them.

Finally on May  2nd we put our house up for sale.

  An open house was scheduled for May 6th and 7th, so we decided to go up to Swan to visit with my family, so we wouldn’t be in the way.  On our return we brought back 5- 5Kg boxes of breakfast sausages, locally made in Swan River.  Why so many?  Well one box for us, one for Andy’s sister, Elaine, and the other 3 for the  upcoming family reunion.

The last family reunion had been held in 2018 in BC, and it was time for the McMorland clan to meet again in Manitoba.  Andy had sent a letter to MB Parks in May of 2022, requesting the booking for Camp Morton (north of Gimli) for 4 days  following the August long weekend.  We found out in early March that we had the park from August 7-11th,  but we needed to know how many cabins and yurts would be required before the end of March.  The family responded and we had commitments for all 14 of the cabins ,the family camping area and one yurt.  There will be about 65 people coming for the reunion.  A highlight will be the  family golf tournament on August 9th at Marvellous Meadows in Arnes, which Andy is taking care of.   We had a planning meeting in late April at our place for the event, for menu planning and figuring out what would be needed to feed 65 people.  One of the meals will be a fish fry, and we have already ordered 60 pounds of Lake Winnipeg pickerel for this dinner.  I found these MB cookie cutters,

and have made about 8 dozen gingerbread cookies to share with family.

Back to the house,  we had about 35 people go through the house during the open house weekend, and viewing seemed to be scheduled every day or two after that.   It was really tough to live in a house and keep it clean for all these showings—I vacuumed more in the past month than I had in the past 10 years. We received one offer around May 15th, but countered, and didn’t end up accepting it.  Our second offer came on May 23rd, and once financing was in place, and an appraisal  was done, the sold sign went up on June 3rd.

 I was busy  the last week of May, with the Eastern Star Grand Session Tuesday May 30th as well as completing some yard work  and getting stuff packed up for the boat. Knowing that there was nothing more for us to do except wait for the house to sell, we left Winnipeg  on June 1st headed for  Ontario and the boat.  Our plan is to spend June and July on the boat, and explore more of Georgian Bay. The reunion in early August and our scheduled move to the apartment August 22nd, doesn’t gives us enough time to explore all of Lake Superior. That trip will have to wait until 2024. Here’s a view of what our apartment building should look like-our suite is in the left hand corner on the 3rd floor.

We spent our first night in Wawa, long day, we had left the house shortly after 5:00, and with the exception of stopping for gas, Andy drove 13 hours arriving at the motel just before 7:00 p.m.  The next morning, we left around 7:30 and stopped in the Sault for breakfast and gas.  Then it was on to Parry Sound for more gas, and then across country to Brian and Helen’s in Bancroft.  Andy had heard from the marina on Thursday, and we knew our boat was in the water, however none of the upgrades ( Lithium batteries, more solar, and monitors ) was complete.  We drove up to the boat on Saturday and saw that the canopy over the sundeck was done.  It looked really good;  this canopy will be the support system for our four solar panels. We unloaded the car,  our one issue on Saturday was that the boat  fridge didn’t seem to be working even though we were plugged in to shore power.  We came back to Bancroft to spend another night.  We returned to the boat, and by hooking up the batteries, the fridge would run on D/C power so  that was great, as fixing the fridge would likely take weeks, and a replacement could be months.

On Monday morning, Andy went to the boat, to supervise the upgrades, it was determined that the new canopy was not going to be strong enough to hold up the solar panels, so the canvas was removed and additional support poles were added. Instead of going to the boat with Andy, Helen and I went in to Peterborough for lunch and to do some shopping, and pick out some perennials to plant in one of Helen’s shadier flowerbeds, we/she selected a couple daylillies, lamium and a cranesbill. Here we are planting them in the front flowerbed, the air was very smokey from the fires burning in Ontario and Quebec, thus the mask that Helen has on.

On Tuesday, Andy returned to the boat, but I stayed in Bancroft again as I would have just been in the way. In the afternoon, we did some shopping, and then went to visit our friend Muriel. The electrical engineer, Karl, from Ottawa arrived at the marina around 3 pm, he was overseeing and troubleshooting the installation of our new electrical system. Here’s a pic of the 3 Lithium batteries that will be our new “house” bank, powered by our alternators while running, as well as the 4 solar panels.

In the afternoon Cindy from the canvas shop, added more support braces on the canopy for the solar panels. Andy, Todd from the marina and Karl worked on the boat until after 9pm, had a few issues with fuses blowing but seemed to get the systems working and communicating. Karl installed software on Andy’s phone for monitoring the system. Next week, a monitor will be installed on the boat, for easy viewing by both of us. On Wednesday morning, after a little more grocery shopping in Bancroft, we departed for the boat with all our stuff. After unloading the car, I cleaned up after the last two days of renovations in the boat. I then washed the deck and flybridge. I then planted my garden, two tomatoes plants that I had started back in Winnipeg at the end of February. They both have flowers on them already, so hopefully we will have tomatoes before to long. I also planted some radish and cucumber seeds.

Our plan is to stay around the area for the few days , testing out the system, while we wait for the last piece to arrive and be added. Tonight will be the first night on the boat, tomorrow morning we will leave the marina and go to the Buckhorn lock wall or one of the other locks.