Day 25 - 7/11/2015
Travel Time:
~ 6 hours
NM today: 30
NM total: 625
Locks today:
2
Locks total:
68
We stayed at
the Port of Orillia marina last night.
The weeds growing in the waters of the marina including every slip were
thick and tall. The owners of Rock Me Baby said that their depth finder
said two feet but their boat hook went down seven feet under the boat when they
used it to check the depth manually. We’re not sure if any of the foliage got
tangled up in our prop.
The marina
has portable, temporary buildings for the office, washrooms, and showers. I found out that the buildings were burned
most likely by arson, so temporary quarters are required until they can rebuild
most likely in 2016. That explained a
lot about the condition of the facility – a portion was fenced off, Clark
thought he smelled something that smelled like burnt electrical wiring, and the
shower facilities were less than ideal.
Now those of
you who have met and know my husband know that he is rather on the thin
side. After his shower last night, he
came back complaining that the shower stall and dressing room provided by the
marina was smaller than just our shower on the boat. Regardless of the grumblings I took advantage
of a hot shower this morning and found Clark’s complaints to be accurate. To shave my legs I needed to stand like a
flamingo and hope that I was getting full coverage with the razor blade.
After my
shower, I found we had a mini Lake Simcoe on the washroom floor. I deduced that the reason for this was that
the shower curtain was about 1½ times bigger than it needed to be so that it
did not hang down inside the stall allowing water to run out the stall, across
the changing room, and out into the washroom area where there was no
drain. There was room for me in the
shower and about half as much shower curtain as provided. Regardless of the shower size and resultant
lake on the floor, the shower head was great, the water temp was great, and the
feel of being clean was, you guessed it, great!
After
breakfast Clark and I went our separate ways – me to the farmers’ market and
Clark to the marine store. I took my
handy-dandy, wheeled trolley with me; he took his bicycle. We figured it would take us each about an
hour to accomplish our objectives and better to do in parallel than
sequentially. I had a banner day at the
market, but first I stopped by the “Candle with Care” store for some Lavender
essential oil. I had learned from
MaryLynn the night before that lavender is a natural way to keep bugs away, so
I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. On my
way to the market I stopped into The Dollar Co. store and bought a spray bottle
to mix my lavender and water.
I love
farmers’ markets and this one was a particularly good one as it had food and
craft stalls to browse with two guys playing guitars to serenade the
shoppers. It was a special festival
farmers’ market today, so I was lucky – my wallet not so much! I first hit the vegetable stands looking for
zucchini, and I found it! Yay! It was firm
and petite, just the way I like it. I
had to control myself and only buy six so they won’t go bad before we can
consume them. I scoffed up some other
veggies as well and moved on to baked goods.
I found a
pumpkin pie – totally out of season but a favorite of Clark’s and mine so I
snatched it up as well as a loaf of whole grain bread and a container of
Canadian cherries. I was glad that I had
my trolley with me as I loaded it up so I could wheel my treasures back to the
boat. Just as I arrived back at the
marina I could see that Clark was boarding our boat with his bicycle in hand,
so timing was pretty much ideal. He was
somewhat successful in buying a new door latch for my clothes closet. It wasn’t what he was looking for but it is a
marine latch, so he bought it. Now we
need to find a 1” drill bit to cut a hole in my closet door to install it. Hmmmmm!
From the
time I got back until just before we pulled our lines in, Clark was talking to
the boater from a couple of slips over about boating in this area. The boat owner, who was about our age I would
guess, said he had been boating in these waters since he was 4 years old. He had a wealth of knowledge and more than
willing to share! He told us where to
go, what to watch out for, and where to find the best anchorages in Georgian
Bay. He probably spent at least 45
minutes filling Clark’s head with do’s and don’t and helping him mark his
charts with little anchors denoting anchorages.
As Clark says, “Local knowledge is the best!”
We pulled
out of the marina just after 11:00 a.m. on our way to Big Chute. Being Saturday, today was a very busy day on
the water, and we weren’t sure what we would find as far as places to
stay. We wanted to stay on a lock wall
but had Big Chute Marina in our back pocket as Plan B in case Plan A failed. As soon as we reached Lock 42: Couchiching, I
had serious doubts about meeting our goal of reaching Big Chute. There was an amazing log jam of boats all
waiting to lock through. Some were on
the blue line, some were on the non-blue line, and some (like us) were floating
in the middle with no place to tie up.
 |
| Log Jam at Lock |
We had heard
about rafting up in the locks but we had not experienced it before. We saw it and experienced it both as we had
to wait two cycles for our turn to lock down.
As soon as the lock emptied of on-coming boat traffic, the boats started
to progress into the lock as per instructions from the lockmaster. When all was said and done, they had nine
boats in the lock with one poor guy rafted in the middle. After they locked down, the lock was refilled
by those coming up, and emptied once again, it was our turn to lock through.
 |
| Packed Like Sardines in a Can |
We entered
first and tied up having just missed the last cycle. Then came the rest of the boats to fill the
lock to capacity. We beat the last fill
in that we had nine boats plus two jet skis.
One boat rafted up to us and the two jet skis each grabbed hold of a
dangling fender from each of two other boats.
 |
| Looking at the Crowd in the Lock Behind us |
Of course
after dropping down we all poured out, once again orchestrated by the
lockmaster because we had to exit in an order that made sense. The jet skiers seemed to be anxious to be on
their way and not happy to have to wait for us to exit. As soon as we got beyond the lock doors, they
zoomed by us.
I guess
being used to NJ boaters we thought nothing of being buzzed by jet skis and
speed boats as we made our way through the passageways and lakes. Rock Me
Baby, on the other hand, found it too annoying for words and finally gave
up fighting the crowd at Lock 43: Swift Rapids and decided to stay there for
the rest of the weekend. We had a chance
to chat with them as we waited for our turn to enter the lock and then after we
were in the lock waiting for the descent.
 |
| Weekend Boat Traffic in the Canal |
We found the
waters today to be especially picturesque as we navigated through first Sparrow
Lake and then the Severn River. It
seemed to me that that boat craziness settled down somewhat after Lock 43, so I’m
glad we continued on our mission to reach Big Chute today. We finally arrived at Big Chute around 5:00. We weren’t sure where to go to tie up for the
night. We saw some boats tied up on some
docks so decided to wander over their way and ask them; we weren’t sure if
where they were tied was Canada Park property or Big Chute Marina. We were happy to learn it was Canada Parks
docks and space was available. A very
nice local boater named Chris helped us with our lines and chatted with us
about the area and such.
We heard an
announcement that the Big Chute stopped running at 6:30 and that not all boats
on the blue line would be able to lock through together. It looked like they had time for two
runs. We left Chris and ran over to
check out the surrounding area, museum displays and artifacts, and of course
watch the Big Chute in operation. We
found it fascinating to watch the boats being loaded and carried over the land
to be dropped back into the water on the other side. Clark took a number of pictures including
many of the mechanical features of the operation inside and outside the
building.
 |
| Big Chute Rail Moving Boats over Land |
 |
| Two sets of rails keep the boats nearly level |
 |
| Boats are lifted using slings |
 |
| Car moved over tracks by cables |
 |
| Arrival at far side getting ready to exit the chute |
The fun
being over we strolled around. We had
heard that the marina next door sold ice cream so we went to check out their
hours of operation. Being open until
9:00 the restaurant would be serving ice cream later, so we walked back to the
boat for a home-cooked dinner of fresh zucchini and some other stuff to go with
it. Since a pumpkin pie was part of my
treasure trove from the morning, we decided on pie for dessert instead of traipsing
back over to the marina for ice cream.
The pie was delicious!
Tonight is
our last night on the Trent-Severn, as tomorrow, if all goes as planned, we
will exit the canal and enter Georgian Bay.
Many folks have told us that this upcoming portion of the trip and the
North Channel are by far the prettiest parts of the Great Loop trip. I can’t wait to see what they have to offer! Also, tomorrow we plan to buy fuel for the
first time since leaving New York state – Brewerton Marina – back in June. This slow-boat business sure pays some
dividends! We heard that there is
cheaper fuel in Midland from the crew on Coventina,
so we’re going to go looking for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment