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.
At about 8, we decided to leave and make our way to Bobcaygeon, a 17 mile trip, through Buckhorn and Pigeon Lakes. Here’s a few of the lakefront homes.
Tonight is midnight madness in Bobcaygeon with shopping until Midnight in the stores, but it was also Lock madness during the day here, boats were moving steadily in both directions from the time the locks opened until they closed at 7pm. Lots of jockeying for spots on the wall- we’re glad we came yesterday. Our friends Dave and Claudia did get back into the water today, one week after the incident with the house boat, however when they passed through Bobcaygeon, there was no room on the wall so they continued onward.
– there are some amazing homes/cottages,
In one place on the lake, instead of rafting together, everyone just parks on the sandbar and goes swimming.
We plugged back into power, as it seemed the Port starting battery wouldn’t turn over. The Captain put on his swim trunks and dived under the boat multiple times, attempting to cut off the mat.
we were through this lock by 10:10, and continued another 6 miles to Buckhorn lock 31, we were through by 11:45
I’ll have to try it again at our next IC stop.
we also found this memorial to members of the military who had lost their lives in Afghanistan.
We then went to the visitor centre
and looked at the displays and the video on the making of the canal and another one on how the lift lock works.
We then went a ½ mile to the lift lock, where only 3 of us went up. I timed the lift it took just 2 minutes and 17 seconds to rise 65 feet. Here’s the Captain tied off and watching us go up.
We stopped at Foodland for a few supplies. After supper, Andy returned to the Canoe pub for the Quiz night. He joined up with the fellow transients at Lock 26, 2 canoeists that were in pup tents and a couple in a runabout that were also tenting. Their quiz team name was the hillbillies, hobos and the rich guy. They had a respectable showing, but weren’t the winners.
It was a hot day, close to 30. For supper we opted to go to the Old bridge Inn for supper. It looked like we may get a rain storm, but only amounted to 15 drops of rain not enough to cool off.
I think the tentative plan is to move to an anchorage on Stoney Lake today. We are going out for supper with Jim and Wendy, somewhere across the lake, so they would pick us up at our boat.
This was followed by the Healey Falls combo lock 16/17.
We had planned to stop after the lock, and take pictures of the falls, however today there was no water going over the falls, as it was being diverted into the generator plant. So we continued on down the Trent River and went about 15 miles, there wasn’t much traffic in the locks, and we locked by ourselves, until we reached Lock 18 in Hastings, where we shared the lock with two pontoon boats.
The closest store is the LCBO, it probably only about 100 steps away – make me feel just like home where the MLCC is one of the closest stores to our house.
We turned off into the Otonabee River at 11:00 and followed it as it snaked along for about 20 miles leading us towards Peterborough. There was lots of boat traffic, and fields of gold
We reached lock 19 Scott Mills at 1:50 and locked right through as they were taking in boats as we approached.
We left at 11:00. Today was a very short travel day, as we only had to go about ½ mile to the Peterborough Marina, located in Little lake.
We tied up on the upper wall at 1:25. It’s been a hot day in the mid 30’s, lucky for us there is a convenience store nearby that sells double scoops of ice cream for $2.50. The owners of the store are originally from Transcona- small world.
this pub was next door, which we thought Dave, our neighbor would like.
We next went to the Suspension Bridge which is over the river. Here’s the view from the boat yesterday, and here we are on it today.
Margaret gave me a colouring book of flowers- I’ve already started colouring and it is calming! 
We were in about 8 feet of water and near a weed bed. Andy was able to find several Bass and Pickerel hiding in the weeds on Sunday night and he fished a little more on Monday morning before we left.
It was a great day
we passed by Belleville ended up stopping at 2:30 at Trent Port Marina for the night. 
The downtown is only a few blocks away I can see the Metro grocery store from the boat. We had fresh fish and asparagus cooked on the BBQ for supper tonight cooked by the Captain.
and were replaced by Brian and Muriel.
here’s the view from the 4th floor,
On Tuesday, we had planned to go to Westport in Upper Rideau Lake, however they did not have space available. It was another really hot day, so we anchored in a bay and 3 of us went for a swim. The swim was quite refreshing, however when I climbed back up onto the boat, my left knee was “clicking” and I could hardly put weight on it. Not good. I kept it up and put on a knee brace to stabilize it. We continued on to Newboro and went through the lock and tied up on the dock. Brian and Muriel trekked to town to see Kilborne’s country store, I wasn’t up for a walk. That night we had another great BBQ’d ribs supper, and played cards in the evening. I didn’t sleep that well as I couldn’t get comfortable because of my knee.
we then went on to Upper Brewers and made it there by 3:15. We were lucky enough to get a docking spot with power- which was a good thing as the temperature had climbed to 32 with humidity in upper 80’s. We turned on the AC to cool us down. This is the only lock with showers, and it was nice to feel clean again. My knee is still painful, but seems to be improving a little. Thank goodness for Brian and Muriel, they took over some of my duties, as I’m moving a little slow! In the evening we played cards.
We locked through Upper Brewers flight with 4 other boats- a houseboat and 3 smaller power boats and were through by 9:45. We continued on to Lower Brewers and were through by 10:30. Enroute to the Kingston Mills flight, 2 of the smaller boats that we had locked with passed us and the houseboat at full speed creating a huge wake which almost swamped us. Not very respectful of the safety of fellow boaters!! We made it through the flight by 1:30, there was some military exercises going on by the locks.
We made the 2:00 opening of the Kingston Lasalle Causeway and continued on to the Trident Yacht club. After tying up at 3:30 we had a goodbye drink with our crew mates Brian and Muriel, as they were leaving to go back to Bancroft. 
this was the first time that I had met Brian’s sister. I learned the difference between Pink and Blue roles from her, while Mike BBQ’d. We had a great evening up in the clubhouse and Brenda and Rob, who we had previously met at Trident joined us for dessert.
We left the wall around 9 am and continued down the canal towards Merrickville, we arrived there at about 10 and tied up on the blue wall. Andy talked to the lock master and told him that we wanted to walk around town
So once again we did 7 locks and traveled a total of 14.1 miles. We are now just 39.8 miles from Ottawa.
We arrived at the Hartwell lock, and stayed near the top, until about 4:00, as we wanted to stay on the blue dock at the bottom for the night, and this was only possible if we were there last. Across the canal was this weed wacker.
So a day with 7 locks and 26 miles. We are now only 4.2 miles from downtown Ottawa.
Saw this sign and had to add it to the blog. My husband wants to move to Ottawa now, because of the boating opportunities here.
Here’s the view of the boat from the Laurier bridge.
On Thursday morning, we left to do more exploring we went another 12 miles through the inside channel to the Thousand Islands bridge at stopped at Georgina Island for lunch.
We visited with Brian and Anne, who were tied up there. Andy gave them some advice on places to see in the North Channel. We also saw this island for sale- call if you are interested.
We were then on the move again, we were told either Camelot of Endymion had good docks to tie up to , so we proceeded west in search of Camelot. Bur there was no room in Camelot- as one dock had a couple of house boats and the large dock was being repaired, so we went on to Endymion, which is ¼ miles from the Canada-US border. We had a choice of mooring balls or fixed docks. We decided on the fixed docks and Larry and Diane helped us tie up.
We then proceeded up 4 miles to the first set of locks at Kingston Mills, this was a flight of four locks and we were through by 16:40. Some of the equipment used at the locks used to open the gates and the doors is original, and creates Parks jobs for students.
We had to go another 10 miles to our next lock at Lower Brewers and were through it by 18:05. At times the water was around 5 feet, lots of trees and we came upon this farm with cows.
Andy made pancakes Saturday morning, and we left by 9. The locking hours are 9-7 on weekends, We went through 7 locks Friday and up about 80 feet in 15 miles. We arrived at the Swing bridge at 9:36 and the Jones Falls flight of 3 at 11:15, we were through the last Jones Fall lock by 12:20. We continued on and went through the Davis Lock and Sand Lake followed by Chaffeys Lock and Opinicon Lake. We then went through Newboro Lake and arrived at the lock. There was no space on the upper side so we stayed below the lock. For the day we went through 6 locks and rose 79 feet. We walked into town and checked out Kilborne’s Country store- amazing it had food, nice clothing, shoes, furniture, kitchen ware and furniture, It likely had other stuff too- I don’t think I went into all the rooms. We then stopped outside and had ice cream.
Our next stop was the Stirling Lodge where we had supper. Three of us had fish and chips, and Andy must have caught a bug—because all he wanted to do when he got back to the boat was fish. Here he is with one of his new friends.
On Sunday, we were awoken to the sound of boats- as there was a Bass tournament on the lake starting at 7am.
We went through the Newboro lock at 9 with 4 other boats,
we then passed through upper Rideau lake,
after crossing it we went through the narrows lock, which was our first lock on our downhill journey to Ottawa. After the lock we entered Big Rideau Lake, which is the largest lake on the canal. There were some very nice cottages/ houses on this lake,
Our last lock was Kilmarnock at mileage 53.9,
and we decided to call it quits for the day. We had a little rope mishap, that made this a requirement. I had been complaining for days that it was too hot, so once we were pulled through this lock, I got to go swimming under the boat to untangle a rope which was twisted around the prop. Quite refreshing, except that I was in swamp water rather than a lake.
We are the only ones at this lock for the night, and it’s a nice rural setting
with a couple of bull frogs providing some noise. Today’s total 9 locks and 33 .2 miles, we only have 53 miles until Ottawa.
Cruising ON BUSINESS 