If you've been following along on our travels you'll know that the last couple of years have been about traveling in Canada. This year is one last taste of this fantastic country before heading south to the Tennessee River. We've really enjoyed the people we've met and places that we've seen during our extended northern tour.
We started again in Brewerton, NY and Winter Harbor marina which has been our storage port for 3 winters. We arrived as they were preparing to launch Chasing 80 for the season.
There always seems to be some issue when bringing the boat back to life after hibernation. This year was no exception. I won't say that the marina didn't shut everything down properly but after launch the battery bank was completely drained. Several attempts to get it to accept a charge were tried with no luck. Even if we had gotten things charging I'm not sure that I would have trusted the bank for this season. A phone call to the local, helpful O'Reilly's got 12-6v batteries ordered and delivered in a few days. After a morning installing everything we were back in business!
This year as in the past 2 our friends Paul and Melissa were traveling with us for the start of our trip. The big difference this year is that they are traveling on their new boat! After leaving us last year they were shopping for their "retirement" boat and found one that happened to be in upstate New York also. After all the formalities that come with buying a larger boat they stored at Winter Harbor also and we had a buddy boat for the first time in years!
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| Blue Barnacle/GH 37 |
We began our trip on Memorial Day and traveled from Brewerton to Oswego just in time. They closed the entire Oswego canal due to high water shortly after we arrived and it remained closed for almost a week! The next day conditions were perfect for crossing Lake Ontario and we headed to Kingston for our check-in which went smoothly for both boats. We could now take down the Quarantine flag and fly our Canadian courtesy flag. (the brown moustache will be addressed in the fall!)
Next up was an order of Poutine so our arrival was official!
After Kingston we made our way over to Trenton and the beginning of the Trent Severn waterway that would take us to Georgian Bay. We haven't been this way since our first loop in 2016 so we were looking forward to seeing everything again.
The first 20 miles or so have several locks to begin the trip up and over the Canadian Shield. This gave us plenty of practice on small locks and we found a nice rhythm with Blue Barnacle.
We spent a couple of days in Campbellford where we got the obligatory picture with the big Tooney.
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| The boats are behind us. |
In Peterborough we found a small farmers market (it's early in the growing season) where we found a nice collection of a favorite of mine...
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| Butter Tarts |
After Peterborough we fell in with a couple of rental houseboats for a couple of days. This is sometimes a problem based on the experience level of the renters but we were lucky. Both boats had Gold Loopers at the helm who just wanted to see the area again! We were able to squeeze 4 larger boats into the locks without any drama.
As we progressed further up the waterway it becomes much more scenic through the Kawartha lakes region. On our way to Buckhorn Blue Barnacle had an issue where she lost propulsion in one engine but we were able to continue and there is a well respected marina there to get them fixed up. We stayed at the lock wall while they went on to the marina.
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| Buckhorn |
After a nice weekend in Buckhorn we continued our travels and after a few days in a great marina off Lake Simcoe we came to the northern section of the waterway where we start going down. One popular "lock" is the Big Chute where you ride on a platform that carries your boat up and over the hillside. Below is a short video of the process.
We waited at the bottom as Blue Barnacle came over the hill...
A short time later we cleared the last lock on the waterway and were now in Georgian Bay. It was a sad moment as our buddy boat had to leave us and get back to the US for a crew change so Melissa could go back to work. We felt like our little ducklings were leaving the fold...
We continued up the small craft channel to the town of Parry Sound. It's a bit of a challenge with some twists and turns but not hard to follow on a calm day.
In Parry sound we took a few days off to check out the town. They have a nice craft brewery called Trestle in honor of one of the town's landmarks.
A front came through bringing a day of rain so we extended our stay some. The rainy day gave us a chance to get some work done and rest up a bit. It happened to be a day where a small cruise ship comes to town so we avoided the crowds.
After a nice break we continued making our way north. While crossing the bay we were surprised to see the amount of pollen on the water. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised since the boat has been yellow for 2 weeks...I'm guessing pine pollen?
One of the nice things about going around a second time (or more) is the ability to take different routes and stop in different towns than before. As we got to the top of the bay we traveled through Collins Inlet and enjoyed some spectacular scenery as well as challenging navigation.
We spent a couple of days a the Killarney Mountain Lodge which is an iconic resort. People come from all over and year round to enjoy the outdoors while being pampered a bit. The float plane we saw back in Perry Sound apparently swings by on his sightseeing tour.
We really enjoyed our stay at one of the loops "must see" stops. (I'm not a fan of that saying but it really is a nice stop).
In the North Channel we visited some towns less traveled along the route including Gore Bay and Blind River. Both are very small but worth a stop. We scootered in to Blind River to check out their one block of "Main Street".
Our first stop was Rogers City, MI. Here we experienced a strange weather event (at least to us). It was a very hot day with highs in the upper 80's but mid afternoon a cold fog began rolling in off the lake and temps in the marina dropped 15 degrees almost immediately! I assume it was being drawn in by the warm instable are over land. A few hours later storms developed and everything moved back out to the lake...odd weather indeed.
Next stop was Alpena which is another place not on the traditional Loop route. We were looking for someplace less crowded for the weekend of the 4th. It's been a great stop with some fun times had over the weekend. We even got to decorate a bit for the big fireworks show and take in their parade. Small town Americana at it's best!
The "Locate Us" link and NEBO app are always live as we travel but I haven't updated the "Where we've been" section yet. It's been a challenge to find reliable Wi-Fi and I don't want to blow through our hotspot data for a posting...sorry!
