Kingston, Canada to Belleville, Canada

Day 13
Travel Time: 6.5 hours
NM today: 51
NM total: 413
Locks today: 0
Locks total: 28

Our target destination today was the Bay of Quinte (Kwin-tay) on our way to the Trent-Severn Waterway (canal).  Back in NJ, before setting out on this expedition, the Captain and I swapped out our old radar unit for a new chart plotter / radar / display unit combo.  It is a Simrad unit that is very nice, but we are still learning how to set up waypoints and routes, etc.  I added numerous waypoints on the chart today and then built a route out of the waypoints.

One problem we figured out today was how to tell the system we want to navigate a set route when we have already passed some of the waypoints on that route.  This has been a real puzzle and pain. We discovered there is a magic "skip" menu item that let's you skip one waypoint for each time this item is selected, so if you have already passed 2 points on the route, press skip twice.  This was a great discovery because otherwise when telling the system to navigate the route, it would send us back to the beginning of the route which of course meant back to where we just came from when already mid-route.  It was a classic ah-ha moment for us.

We had been told the Bay of Quinte was very picturesque.  Clark said it reminded him of parts of the Hudson River and to me it seemed similar to parts of Lake Champlain.  It might have been the dreary, cloud-covered day, but we weren't overly impressed by the charm of the area.  I was, however, quite impressed with the clouds.  At one point I was trying to tell the Captain where a red buoy was on the waters ahead of us, and he just could not see it.  Finally I told him to look for the cloud that looked like a Viking helmet with horns and the buoy is below it.  He found the buoy right away with those directions.

Cloud cover on the Bay of Quinte

We arrived at Belleville for the night planning to enter the Trent-Severn waterway tomorrow.  We  found a yacht club with reasonable rates, electric, water, and showers with hot water.  Shortly after we tied up, another boat pulled up to share the floating dock with us called Whippersnapper 3.  Bonnie and Art from this boat are from Toronto, Canada and very experienced boaters.  They are a fountain of information and graciously shared their intimate knowledge of the Trent-Severn, Georgian Bay, and Lake Michigan.  We poured over charts together as they told us all the "must sees", the "don't bothers", and the "watch out for heres".  

While we were talking, we saw a couple of interesting sites.

children on the yacht club docks - swimming in 68 degree water

man standing on one of 2 floating docks being pulled behind a boat with jet ski observer

one of multiple rowing teams practicing their strokes

All told, we spent several hours with Bonnie and Art chatting from the moment we tied up until it was time to call it a night.  After our chart explorations, we all walked to a local restaurant for an all-you-can-eat fish and chips dinner.  The pieces of fish were huge, so my all-you-can-eat turned into one piece of fish.  After we walked back from dinner, we decided to sit for a while in the yacht clubhouse to continue talking.  The time flew by.  Too bad they are heading off to travel the Rideau Canal this year.  Every other year they travel the Trent-Severn - this is the "other" year.  It would have been nice to spend more time with these knowledgeable and very friendly folks.