August 20- 22 & we continue down the TSW

I knew I loved this country.  This morning, we got up & left the dock @ our normal 8:00 AM, cruised about 1 mile & came across a bridge that needed to open for us to pass, but guess what?  The bridge doesn't open until 9:00 AM, just like the locks so that forces us all to sleep in-yahoo! No early mornings for us as long as we are in the TSW!

The excitement for today was going through the Kirkfield lift lock.  We are now at the highest point along the waterway. There are 2 of these type locks along the canal, Kirkfield is the smaller of the two.  It was a fun one, no stress.

We drive the boat into a rectangular open box with high sides but no top, they call it a chamber.  There are two of these, positioned kinda like a scale, one higher than the other using a counter balance system.  We were locking up, so the empty chamber was up high (49 feet) & is heavier.  It runs by hydraulic water pressure & is complicated in it's explanation, so google it, if geeky.  For the chambers to move, the higher chamber must always be heavier than the lower.  The extra foot of water weighs 144 tons. Each time a transfer (higher chamber changing position with the lower) is completed and the chamber gates open, a foot of water flows out of the chamber which has just lowered.  At the same time, a foot of water flows into the chamber which is now at the top. All of this runs amazingly smooth & fast (10 mins max).  It also makes no difference how heavy the boats are in the chamber.

Kirkfield was designed & engineered in the late 1800's & construction began in 1900.  It was completed 7 years later.  It was modeled after a smaller lift lock in Belgium.

Most of the locks have walls where we can tie up for the night, some of the locks are located in small towns & some are in park like settings. Parks Canada runs the whole waterway.  We paid a one time fee to travel the entire waterway & we could have purchased a moorings pass but we weren't sure how many marinas or locks we would stay in so we decided to pay as we traveled.  The cost for staying the night @ a lock is less than a marina but the locks only have bathrooms: no showers or potable water.  We tied along the wall @ Lock #34, Fenelon Falls, which had a bustling harbor side town with bars, restaurants & shops. It was a great stop & the four of us enjoyed dining out with our new friends; Enid, Richard & Enid's brother & wife.

Passing a golf course

a historic bridge

 Our next day, we only went through 2 locks, but we cruised through a lot of narrow, shallow pretty areas.  We tied along the wall @ Lock #32, Bobcaygeon, another small town.

Only 31 more locks to go through!

August 18-19, 2014 the Trent Severn Waterway, Newbees no more!

Wow, what an experience! Every day is different, with different types of locks and shallow, narrow channels with eclectic scenery. We are still in Canada.



I left off with us going over the "Big Chute", so on we went after spending the night on the wall @ #43 of 44 locks, we were just newbee's.  We continue to meet such great interesting, super nice people from all over.  Our latest new friends are Richard & Enid from New Zealand, traveling in a beautiful 47 foot DeFever.  No, they didn't bring the boat by water all the way from New Zealand.  They were smart & bought a boat in Florida last year and have been traveling the states & Canada since then.  They are traveling the same direction as we are, the wrong way!

Our second day, was a beautiful, calm sunny day.  We cruised through more narrow, shallow channels calling Securitee on Channel #16, letting other boats know we were passing through certain areas, so we don't meet them, because there is not room for 2 boats to pass one another without one of them running aground. We passed a fuel dock that was advertising the price of $1.63 per liter for Regular gas, sounds cheap until you do the math: 1 Gallon equals 3.79 liters, so take 1.63 & multiply by 3.79 and that equals $6.18 per gallon of Reg gas-WOW. Glad we have a trawler & won't need to buy fuel here in Canada. When we pull up to a lock, if the lock is not open & ready for us, we are supposed to tie up to the wall in front of the lock to wait. Today we tied up in front of an interesting group of young people; there were 10 of them in one canoe.  I couldn't resist talking to them to hear their story plus one of them were so kind to grab our lines for us. These 10 teenagers had been out on the water for 4 days camping & paddling together.  They were all part of a Leadership Camp here in the area. They rode through the lock with us. We were very impressed!  We stopped @ Bridgeport Marina, a cute place for the night.  They only had 1 slip big enough for one of us and Waterford was in the lead, so they docked in the very tight slip & we tied to the fuel dock for the night. It was fine because they weren't real busy.  Met a nice Canadian family, who were having a mini family reunion: Sophie, her sister & brother & his family.  We shared a campfire with them in the evening & discussed Georgian Bay & groceries.  They couldn't believe our milk doesn't come in bags like their's does.

The group giving me a cheer!

The lock master manually closing the doors

Our third day in the TSW as the locals call it, was physically exhausting.  We are locking upstream, meaning we go into a lock where the walls are very high & the water is low and after they close the big heavy doors, we hold on tight as the water is pumped into the lock causing us to rise many feet, the amount varying according to the geography of the land.  Our routine is that I handle the stern of the boat & Doug takes care of the bow, because he drives the boat into the lock & up to the wall so he is closer to the bow after he shuts the engine off.  Well, yesterday I was very smug because it was pretty easy for me to hold onto the line that is placed around the cable going up the slimy concrete walls and manage the boat.  Today was a different story.  Today, our rises were much higher & the water came in much faster, causing turbulence and pushing Day Dreams around.  It took all my strength to hold her & even then on the 3rd lock it got away from me momentarily.  After I got back in control, as we were rising up to the wall with the lock master waiting, he says to me: you will never be able to hold this boat in Lock #37, I will tell you what you need to do.  He then proceeded to tell me what Doug had told me to do earlier that day; cleat the line off.  I had told Doug I couldn't do that because the books say you can't, well after a lock master tells me to do it, I certainly will take both their advice.  From then on, locking went smoothly & I didn't pull my arms out of socket or get any more bruises on my thighs.  Thank you very much!

Tonight, we decided to stay @ Sunset Cove Marina.  Just a small bare bones kinda place. It was very quiet.

I have to make a comment here: see this island

See it up closer; another island devastated by the Cormorant
something has to be done about these birds!

Trent Severn Waterway (TSW) August 17, 2014

Hey, It finally stopped raining, so we took off on Sunday morning from Midland.  We ended up spending 6 nights in that city; in two different Marina's & we were able to catch a deal @ each one.  Stay 2 nights & get the 3rd night free!  Wahoo, we haven't found too many deals on this trip so we were pleased.

The Trent Severn Waterway in Ontario Canada; a series of 44 locks, although they are numbered 1-45, but somewhere along the way they renovated 2 of the locks & made them into one & they weren't about to re-number everything.  This waterway connects Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. We have talked to everyone who would as much as smile at us, attempting to get as much info as possible for our trek through this canal system.  Construction of this waterway began in 1833 & continues today.  There are many areas that were blasted out of solid rock, man made shallow lakes, flooded meadows and 44 interesting locks, of many varieties.  The first locks were dug by hand & did not hold water on the first attempt.

Our first challenge of this waterway, was to maneuver through the slalom course on our way to the first lock.  The buoyed channel was narrow and @ times only wide enough for one boat and shallow.  We soon found out that this first part is not much shallower or narrow than most of the rest of this waterway.  It is amazing how soon you become comfortable with your depth finder reading 2.0 & sometimes 0.0. Hopefully some of those 0's were due to weeds.

I have mentioned prior that we are cruising in reverse of most of the Loopers & also according to these locks, so our first lock is #45 and our last lock will be the No. 1 lock. We conquered the first lock, pretty easily.

Now onto "The Big Chute" one of the most unique.  First we drove the boat into a big open wood crate that was submerged in the water, then the Lock master & staff placed large heavy slings under our boat, missing our stabilizers & then the platform rose out of the water with Day Dreams (we were on the boat).  The wooden crate was secured to a railcar that traveled out of the water across a road & placed us back into a lake.  Our stern was hanging out over the edge-scarey!! Day Dreams & Waterford could not fit in the same lock, so we were able to tie up & walk back & take pics of Waterford locking though.  So some of these pics are Waterford (they have tan canvas & we have navy blue). What an amazing way to get from one place to another.  Who thinks of these things, especially since it was built mid to late 1800's.  The lock guys did walk around our bottom & checked it out, declaring all was good!

Our view of where we will be pulled
on the railcar

I am going to allow the pictures to tell the story:

placing the yellow slings under our bottom

What the bottom of the platform looks like,
the bottom of Day Dreams is resting on it

the view of where we've been

We have other smaller boats riding with us

At the peak, looking back @ Waterford waiting their turn

Doug is on bridge while we are moving &
that's me looking out

notice the end of the platform & that our boat is hanging
over the edge? YIKES

Day Dreams traveling over the road!

Just another day on the Trent Severn

Waterford heading into the Chu

Waterford's Ass end hanging over just like ours was!

Dumping us into the lake

We survived & have told the tale.  On to one more lock for the day-whew! And people ask us what we do all day!