August 3-6
We remained at Couchiching on Wednesday, and just relaxed. Saw a boat name that I liked.
On Thursday morning we locked through by 9:45 and then traveled 14 miles through Sparrow Lake
and then the Severn River to the Swift Rapids lock. It was a blistering hot day and we decided to stay on top in order to get a little bit of breeze. We tied up on the dam side of the lock but moved to the front of the blue line after 5:00, so we would be the first ones through on Friday. We were joined by Dave and Claudia on Stillwaters II several hours later, as they had come from Orillia.
On Friday, we locked though by 9:17. This lock is referred to as the giant, with a 47 foot drop.
Even though this place was called Swift Rapids, there was very little water flowing over the dam, likely because of the drought that has been affecting this part of Ontario.
The admiral had a bit of a mishap when she pushed the boat away from the lock wall, she put the boat hook handle into the window and it cracked.
This was the same window pane that was broken back in April, so it’s going to get replaced again. We once again followed the Severn River until we arrived at the Big chute.
We tied up at the dock, so that we could watch other boats go through before we moved to the Blue line. We also wanted to connect up with Mike and Franziska, as they were driving from Owen Sound so they could watch us do the chute. The way the big chute railway works is that you pilot your boat onto a specially designed railway car, that has several slings and straps in order to carry a number of boats across land and deposit them in the lower basin.
The railway lift can carry up to 110 tons and boats as long as 100 feet, they tend to load the big boats and have the props hanging out over the car. David and Claudia on Stillwater II, went through first with another boat and we watched from the blue line.
Then it was our turn, here’s the view from the blue line of where we were going to join up with the carriage,
and the view down the hill to the lower basin
a smaller boat went onto the carriage first and we followed behind on the left, the sling came up and we were rocking above the carriage.Here’s a series of pictures taken by Mike and Franziska from the ground.
Here’s my view from the boat.
The ride across the road and down the rocky ridge only took about 10 minutes and then the carriage and slings were released and we floated off the carriage. Truly amazing and a highlight of the loop and the TSW. Claudia had videotaped it but the files are too big for posting on the blog– will be great memories of this day.
After tying up ,we went for lunch with Mike and Franziska,
we also had ice cream, it was Chapman’s which we all agreed wasn’t as good as Kawartha Dairies.
Since a thunderstorm was predicted for the afternoon, we opted to stay on the lock docks for the night. It did rain, for a total of about 15 minutes not the downpour that the area needed.
On Saturday morning, we left the dock shortly after 9 and headed towards lock 45 at Port Severn the last lock on the Trent Severn Waterway. We passed through Gloucester pool and by some very nice cottages/homes.
We had to go through another narrow channel,
where we would have had to meet another large power boat, but Andy stayed back in a wider area and waited for him. We arrived at the Port Severn lock 45 and went in right away with another boat. The lock was extremely busy and was much smaller than the other locks so it could only take 2 large boats at a time. Once we were through at 10:35, we pulled into Georgian Bay and dropped anchor, in order to wait for Still Waters II. They had to wait for several lock downs before it became their turn. We crossed Severn Bay
and pulled into Queen’s Cove marina in Victoria Harbour at 1 pm.
Not too exciting it was only a 4 foot drop. We tied up at Rosedale Lock 35 at 4:30 for the evening.
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.
at 10:00. We entered Lake Simcoe at 10:10, here’s the breakwall.
I was a relatively calm morning
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.
Cruising ON BUSINESS 