Steve, the mechanic came to the boat on Monday afternoon and got rid of the knocking noise on Monday afternoon.  We left on Tuesday morning and crossed Lake Couchiching to the lock.  We only had about a 15 minute wait for the train bridge, along with 3 Looper boats.  We tied up at the lock and let the 3 boats go through.  There was a bit of a delay for them as there was some small branches caught up in the lock mechanism.  Once it was repaired, we waited about an hour and went down in the next locking.  We travelled as far as Swift Rapids and tied up on the power wall, as it was again very hot, and we wanted to run  the AC or fans.   In the morning, we locked down at 10:30 and went on to the Big Chute, and  locked through by ourselves.  We continued on to Port Severn and tied up at the wooden dock.  On Thursday morning I saw this heron sleeping very near to our boat.

  We went down on the 9am locking, and headed to Queen’s Cove in Victoria Harbour, while Andy was getting the fuel topped up, I walked to the nearby Foodland for a few supplies. 

We continued on to the Cedar Spring dock on Beausoleil Island, arriving at 12:15. We could smell some diesel in the boat, so Andy contacted Steven, who said he could meet us in Honey Harbour on Friday to take a look.

Later that afternoon  we helped a boat “Evalyn Jane” in from Clayton NY, with Dale and Jane.  We visited with them on their 37 foot Albin.  The next morning, we showed them some of our favourite anchorages and were joined by Mike and Candy from “Next Adventure”, who are Aussies traveling around Canada.  We met Steven around noon, and he was able to stop the small drip of fuel, and then we were off.  We learned from Dale that they were going to Monument Channel, so we met up with the two boats there. It was hot, and we both went in the water for a swim.  Jane invited us over to their boat for drinks around 5 Pm, this was the first time we had been in the dinghy this year, and Andy rowed us over.   We spent a couple hours visiting, before we returned to “On Business”. We couldn’t get our Anchor light to come on, so put a battery operated light on the boat for the night.

We planned to leave the anchorage by 9:30 and head in to Henry’s restaurant on San Souci island for lunch before continuing on.  After lunch Dale and Jane decided to head up to Parry Sound for the night, we went to Spider Bay, and Mike and Candy were going to make their way Eastward and back to the Trent.  Andy worked on tracing the anchor light wiring to determine where the connection was faulty, and repaired it.   We decided in the morning to go up to Big Sound Marina in Parry sound, we left around 9:00 and followed the south channel, we needed to make the 11:00 opening of the swing bridge in  order to get into town.  At times it was quite windy on the trip up the channel.  We went through the bridge with one other boat, and arrived at the marina by 11:30 and tied up.  I did some laundry  and then we walked 1.4 miles to the farmer’s market for some fresh produce.  On our journey back to the boat, we found a taxi to take us back.  We had drinks with Dale and Jane on our boat, and were invited to visit them next summer on our planned voyage to Halifax, they live on the St. Lawrence River on Grindstone Island.  On Monday we left Parry Sound at 10:45 and travelled a couple hours and anchored behind the Jone’s Island lighthouse.  We stayed two nights, as Tuesday had intermittent rain and wind. Andy did some maintenance, and filled up the small propane tanks.  Around 4:00, a second sailboat joined us in the anchorage,  and a little later 2  people in a dinghy stopped by: they were the couple, Liz and Graham who we had bought “On Business” from back in 2014. What a small world!

On Wednesday, we left the anchorage at 8:00 and proceeded past Snug Harbour and continued on to the Shawanaga inlet,  we passed Hopewell Bay anchorages and proceeded into the bay behind Stair Island.  We were the first boat there and by nightfall, we had been joined by 3 other boats. During the day, I changed the fender covers, to the new ones that I had sewn over the winter out of sunbrella material.  I had got this idea from Brenda, who I had met in Thunder Bay last summer.  She claims the sunbrella covers can last several years.  I was changing my knit material covers on an annual basis.  We’ll see how these last.

 On Thursday morning, we left around 8 am and proceeded through the Hang dogs, through Alexander Passage, and through the Norgate rocks.  We arrived in Britt around 11:30 and tied up.  We went for a walk to St. Amant to pick up some fruit, however our first stop was Ice Cream on the Rocks  KI-15.  I tried one of the new flavours for 2025 called “Constellation” – it is described on the website asa rich chocolate flavor swirled with caramel and speckled with cookie pieces, inspired by starry nights. It wasn’t bad, but Coconut is still my favourite. In the late afternoon, Graham Lacey, the former owner of Wright’s marina stopped by for a visit.

We left on Friday and took the outside small craft channel up to the French River Main outlet; we proceeded up the outlet to the north end and MacDougal Bay.  Here, we met Jamie and Sheri who were on Jaime’s 36 Monk called the 3 J’s.  We anchored, and it seemed to hold, but then we started dragging and moved to a new spot.  The wind was coming up the channel from the south and between the wind and waves we were not very comfortable with this anchorage.  Around 4 pm we decided to move to Obstacle island, which had more shelter from the winds, it was a place we had been at in the past.

We spent a pleasant night there, we did encounter a few fishing boats going  near us in the anchorage, but their wake was relatively small.  On Saturday we decided to stay put, and Jamie and Sheri dinghied over and we had a visit along with beef barley soup that I made, and planned our next day.    They also dinghy’d to the Parting Channel which was about a ¼ mile from our anchorage—it is very narrow and involves a sharp turn.  They guys checked the depth and it was well over 6 feet, so sufficient for both of us to pass through.

On Sunday we moved  went thru the Parting channel to the north end of Fox Island Bay-  we had sufficient depth, but again there was a fair bit of wind from the south coming up the channel, we were rocking a little.  Around 5 pm the winds died down and we had a restful night. On Monday, it was still calm in the bay, but we knew the wind was howling in Georgian Bay.  We did experience some of the wind in the open areas. We arrived at Wrights marina around 11:30 and tied up.  Jamie and Sheri went to the St Amant marina farther up the river, but did come by in the afternoon for a visit. 

We met David and Robin on Daisy Jane 2, which were located on our dock, they had been waiting since Saturday for a weather window to cross over the Bay to Alexander Passage.   The guys agreed to buddy boat if the weather was favourable.  Robin gave me some tips on how Wind finder works and well as some tips for my iPad.  They are very interested in going around Lake Superior, so we told them some of our tales.  On Tuesday, the weather did not look something we wanted to tackle- so David and Robin crossed alone.  Robin emailed and said they waves were 3 foot plus.  We will try to cross early tomorrow with the 3 J’s , and go as far as we can.  Andy worked on some of his woodworking projects today.

We left Britt shortly after 7 am in the fog, once we got out to the open bay near the lighthouse, the fog had dissipated.  The 3 J’s followed us through the Norgate rocks and on to Alexander passage, we then went through the hangdogs and Shawnaga inlet and on to Port au Barril.  We turned up into Parry Sound and arrived at the marina around  2:00.  About an hour later, we took a taxi to Walmart to buy some groceries.   Around 5:00 I walked to the Bearly used bookstore—what a place—books everywhere- there is some order, but very overwhelming.  I came home with a couple books.

For dinner we walked to the nearby Boston Pizza.  It rained throughout the night, and there was some high winds as well—we were in an inside slip, with boats all around, but the boat rocked a fair bit overnight.  When we got up we talked about taking the 11 am bridge opening- but the rain stopped just before 8—so we rushed and got through at the 9 am opening.  We went down the South channel and arrived at  the Sucker Creek anchorage, where the 3 J’s were.  This was our first time in this Massassauga Park anchorage.  We went to the far end of the bay, and anchored in about 10 feet of water.  In the afternoon Jamie and Sherri came over.  Jamie helped Andy to get the Lehr propane motor going, however they were not successful- we hadn’t used it for several years- so they suspect that something has likely rusted inside, as it wouldn’t fire up even when the spark plug was changed.  Jamie and Sherri stayed for supper and more visiting.

On Friday morning, we followed the 3 J’s out of the anchorage—they were going back to Queen’s Cove in Victoria Harbour, and we were moving to another anchorage called Shot Gun cove, close to Port Rawson.

We arrived and there were 3 boats rafted in one bay, a main ship and a sailboat.  We proceeded to the far end of the bay and anchored in 10 feet.  Andy worked on sanding and adding a coat of Cetol to the oars for the dinghy, and I did a little cleaning and then started reading a book. We stayed put for Saturday and Sunday, doing a few jobs on the boat, and I continued reading. We plan on leaving this anchorage on Monday September 1st and start heading towards Beausoleil island, and eventually the Trent Severn Waterway.