Sorry for this long post. It has been a while since I have
had any decent internet connection. I am at the time in the library of
Peterborough, ON.
Several Days In Trenton
A little note of explanation is needed about the name of
where we have been. The official name of the community that we stayed is Quinte
West (pronounced “qwin’-ty”) which is a larger city created when four smaller
communities merged back in 1998. Trenton was one of those towns and it is the
largest of the four. These four communities are now referred to as “wards”. So
technically we are in “Trenton Ward” of Quinte West. But everyone still refers
to this whole community as Trenton. So shall I.
Our stay here in Trenton has been terrific. The town itself
is very compact with all of the shore side amenities a looper needs. A grocery
store, hardware store, auto parts store, a Walgreen-ish kind of store, clothing
stores, restaurants and the like are all within a few blocks of the marina.
Very handy. Craig and Sandy who run the marina are incredibly nice and very
helpful.
Our first night here, Friday, we went to dinner at a very
good Italian restaurant with Ross and Laura of The Zone and Ken and Pat of 20$Bucks.
The conversation was lively with lots of anecdotes about our adventures.
Afterwards we went back to Why Knot and crashed. We were pooped.
Saturday it was a tad bit rainy so we stayed in for a while.
After it cleared we ventured out to the local NAPA auto parts store (still just
two blocks away) and was able to buy all the filters and oil we needed to have
in our supply to be able to do the next oil and filter changes. The last change
out I did depleted all of our oil and non-marine filters. We have plenty of
Racor fuel filters. As the day progressed more and more loopers came in to the
marina. Bob and Ivie of Karma, whom we had met in Norfolk and came back
together with in Sylvan Beach came cruising in. There were also the crews of
another four or five boats. That evening we all had a little get together at a
lovely small park adjacent to the marina.
On Sunday the first order of things was for Laura and Ross
of The Zone, Craig and Barb of Blue Heron and ourselves to take a short hike up
to Lock 1 to buy our transit passes and to check things out. The locks are
mostly manually operated with large horizontal cranks used to open and close
the gates by grabbing one of the arms and walking around in a circle, thus
closing and opening the gate. Craig and I took our turn at closing a gate so
that a boat could go down in the lock. The locks and the whole canal are
operated by Parks Canada with lovely picnic areas on the grounds of each lock.
Unlike the New York Canal System none of the Canadian lock masters use radios.
When you approach a lock you pull up to a wall painted blue and they are
suppose to notice you and get the lock ready for you to enter and be flooded up
or down. It’s all very old fashioned.
In the evening we had another little get together at the
gazebo in a park adjacent to the marina. There were new crews and new stories
and it was a lovely time.
Spending time in Trenton was very nice and it is a great
place to stop and rest, re-provision and to set up for the next leg of the
journey, The Trent Severn Waterway.
Looks Like a Lotta Locks
We departed from Trenton at 8:30am and headed under the
Trent Severn Waterway Bridge which is the official starting point of the
waterway. Lock 1 is only a bit over a mile. Our objective for the day is to
reach a wall in Campbellford, ON only 30 miles away. And it was a tough 30
miles as we had to pass through 12 locks.
The waterway itself is a mix of concrete lined channels,
rivers and lakes all connected by locks and dams, most of which are used to
power hydroelectric stations. There were quite a few homes along the water some
of them having small docks. The trees were a mix of fir, regular old leafy
trees and scruffy looking low lying trees. To be frank I was a bit underwhelmed
by the terrain as we had heard so many wonderful reports of how amazingly
beautiful it is. Well, hopefully it will get better as we go.
The locks are bunched up with the first seven happening more
or less in the first third of the route. Then there was a pause where we
cruised in some rivers and connected small lakes. The last four were then again
bunched up at the end. We travelled the route with a boat called Quest. We took
the lead the first half of the route; they took the lead the second half.
Going through a lock can be hard work and it’s a good test
of crew and boat. The Canadian system is a bit different then the US system. In
the US system all of the lockmasters have radios and as you approach a lock you
would hail them on channel 13 (in New York) and request an opening, similar to
going through a drawbridge. In Canada they do not have radios. The use what is
called the Blue Wall system. As you approach a lock and the gates are closed
you pull your boat up to a concrete side wall that is painted blue. This
indicates you want to lock through. It is the lockmasters job to keep their
eyes on that wall and either flood or empty the lock to get you in and on your
way through. During our passage yesterday we did have to pull up to the blue
wall on the first two gates. Otherwise the gates were always open. As it turns
out our six boats leaving Trenton were the only real traffic on the canal so
the lockmasters would lock us through then call the next lock to let them know
we were coming. Also unlike the American system where we could leave our
engines on, with the Canadian system you must turn your engines off while in
the lock. The result of this is that while we were cruising the waterway for 8
½ hours our engine was only running 6 ½ hours. That means that we were in locks
for two hours.
Most of the locks were very standard. You pull in, grab one
of the vertical cables spaced every 12 feet or so, wrap a line around it and
hold on while the chamber is flooded, wait for the front gate to open, start the
engine, cast off and motor out. And we are still going up along here. The last
two locks, number 11 and 12 were different. They are a flight meaning that the
locks are connected. When you exit the lower lock you go directly into the
second lock without any transit waterway in between for, in this case, a total
lift of 48 feet. At this point we were the trailing boat of our tandem and I,
being at the stern was able to look back at the bottom of the flight and see
where we came from. It was a bit unsettling.
After getting through locks 11 and 12 we cruised a short
distance into Campbellford, ON, to a long wall operated by the city. We tied
up, plugged in with the help of Craig and Barb of Blue Heron and waited for the
others to arrive. After we got them all tied up we all met at one of the picnic
tables in the adjacent park for some cocktails and snacks.
As I have already said, locking through is hard work and all
in all it was a tough day. But we all made it. There is a saying with boaters
that 9:00 pm is a boater’s midnight. If that is true than we went to sleep at
10:30, meaning we were asleep at 7:30 pm. Like I said, it was a tough day.
Campbellford, ON
Campbellford is a moderate size town that spans the Trenton
River. There are two marina walls on both sides of the river just south of a
bridge connecting the two sides. We stayed on the west wall. Most of the others
were on the east side to take advantage of 50 amp power available over there.
Why Knot can operate on either 30 amp, which is available on the west side, or
50 amp, so we stayed on the west side where the washroom facilities are nearby as
well as a lovely park where the giant toonie is. We were only going to stay one
night but as mentioned earlier we were pretty spent after coming up from
Trenton so we decided to stay a second night so we could rest up. Then we found
out that if you pay for two nights you get a third night free so we again
changed our float plan again to stay a third night. And as luck would have it
there is a concert tonight in the small park adjoining our wall.
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Motoring into Campbellford, ON |
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On the Mill Creek wall in Campbellford. Why Knot is at the far end of the line of vessels. |
Now for something completely different: Look at this
picture.
It is a giant statue of the Canadian $2 coin commonly called
a “toonie”. (Canada does not have a paper one or two dollar bill, only coins)
The reason it is called this is because the $1 coin has an image of a loon (the
waterfowl) on it. Therefore it is called a “loonie”. The two dollar coin just
by natural extension is called a “toonie”, as in “two-nie”. Get it? Well, the
reason Campbellford has this monstrous toonie statue in their waterside park is
because the artist that designed the image of the bear for the coin is from
Campbellford. This is a point of great pride for the town and they built this
very large work of art to commemorate the toonie and its artist.
You gotta see it to believe it.
On our day off yesterday we had to do a few errands. Most
important of which was to get our fender situation better situated. Going
through a lock is fender-intensive. While there are no marine stores in town
they do have a Canadian Tire location just a few minutes from our wall. The
best way to describe a Canadian Tire store is to say it’s like a mini Walmart
and Home Depot rolled into one. They had everything! We were able to find a lot
of things that we needed including fenders, lines as well as a bunch of kitchen
/ galley / salon stuff that had been on our shopping radar for some time.
Things like a decent non-glass pepper grinder, kitchen containers that have a
tight seal and other things like that. We had a Christmas shopping spree and we
ended up having to walk the cart back to the marina, unload all of our stuff
and walk the cart back to the store. It was fun.
The afternoon was a designated rest period. Lisa went back
to the cabin and fell asleep for several hours. I spent much of the afternoon
lazying in the park on my new foldable recliner chair and gaining a little more
ground reading a biography of President Chester Arthur. Ross and Laura rode
their bikes over to our side to go sightseeing and invited us to come over to
the east side at 5:30 for cocktails and munchies. During the afternoon several
other loopers showed up including Bob and Ivie of Karma. At around 4:00 we
walked over the bridge to that side of town to go to the post office and a grocery
store to pick up a few things, walked back to our boat to drop the groceries
off, then back over the bridge yet again to the happy hour. Ross had some
amazing stories about his international travels. It was all very entertaining.
The party broke up about 7:30 so we once again trudged back over to the west
side watched a little TV and went to sleep.
On our last evening in Campbellford Ross and Laura joined us
at our adjacent park for a rip-roaring outdoor dance music performance. Well,
when I say rip-roaring what I really mean is quite-boring. Sorry. The event was
sponsored by the local Lions Club and Lionesses (that’s the ladies auxiliary)
and it featured what I’m sure is a popular Ontario country western band whose
line up are all very elderly gentlemen.
Let me set the scene. Quite a few people had gathered in the
park all with their folding outdoor chairs all very strategically placed in the
shadows of some large trees. There was not a single chair or occupant of said
chairs in the sunlight. The band and the vast majority of the crowd were much
older than we. The only other younger people were a few grandkids that I’m sure
were dragged kicking and screaming to the event who would certainly have
preferred to be left at home to play video games. The band started their
concert playing a lot of standards, all at a greatly reduced tempo. (read:
SLOW) A few people got up to dance on a concrete sidewalk that went across the
grass in front of the bandstand. I think the perfect word to describe the scene
would be “subdued”. But everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. And the four
of us so much that we stayed for one set of their music, kind of looked at each
other and as if by telepathy signaled that it was time to go back to our boats
and hit the sack. And so we did.
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Yee Haw!!!! |
Our entire visit to Campbellford was a very pleasant stay.
It’s a nice town with conveniences and the people were lovely. The riverfront
where we were all moored was a terrific facility. And the weather was
spectacular.
On Up to Hastings
There were six boats leaving on Wednesday, July 12 to get to
the next stop on the route which was Hastings, ON. It was a short trip, only 21
miles with only six locks to go through. The reason for this short stop is that
the next major stop, Petersborough, the home of the famous hydraulic locks, is
forty miles past Hastings, and so a stopover in Hastings makes sense. We were
second to cast off and traveled with the boat Jan’s Tern, crewed by Bob, Jan
and their grandson Spencer. Following us was Karma and Passport, and following
them was The Zone and a sailboat that was also doing the loop. As I said there
were only six locks, two of them being a flight, and with our exposure to the twelve
locks on the route from Trenton to Campbellford we all agreed that it was not
much of a big deal.
The route was more on the Trent River than on any cut canal
so there was a much more diverse landscape with wider and narrower areas. There
were also more twists and turns. We both remarked that it reminded us a lot of
some of the routes in Georgia and South Carolina. The weather was spectacular
with calm conditions early and a bit more wind in the afternoon. Fortunately, I
guess, the winds were from the west southwest and were hitting us head on and
of a speed that really didn’t affect our forward speed. And as we locked
through lock 18 and approached the Hastings Village Marina the wind was blowing
gently directly into our faces, which for me and Why Knot made pulling into our
outside leeward slip very easy. All I had to do was to aim her into the slip,
the breezes kept her straight, I gave
her a little throttle and she eased right in.
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Karma and Passport exiting Lock 18 into Hastings. |
We were the first of our merry band of travelers to arrive
at the marina so I helped Karma get tied up when they arrived. I then walked a
short distance back to the lock and chatted up Ross and Laura on The Zone as
they were going up the nine feet of lock 18.
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The Zone in Lock 18 |
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Ross at the helm of The Zone in lock 18 |
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The Zone ready to exit |
Our evening in Hastings was quiet. We were docked across
from Karma and next to Jan’s Tern. The Zone was at the far west end of the
marina. We were on the east. We also ran into Salty Dawg and Passport over on
the city wall just up from the lock. Upon returning to Why Knot we just watched
some TV. As I said it was a quiet time.
Peterborough, ON
It was Friday morning and we headed out about 7:00 am on
further up the Trent – Severn Waterway for our destination today, Peterborough,
ON. It was an unusual cruising day in that there would only be three locks to
negotiate and there were all at the end in Peterborough with the very last lock
being one of the icons of the waterway, The Peterborough Lift Lock. More about
that later.
Our initial part of the route was an anomaly on the waterway
in that it is the longest part of the waterway without a lock, about 37 miles.
As we left Hastings we made our way along the Trent River westward to the mouth
of Rice Lake, a long lake dotted with many islands. It was an easy transit for
the most part except for a very real hazard that was about halfway across the
lake and just east of our turn to head north on the Otonabee River which would
take us on to Peterborough. The hazard, or hazards to be exact are a line of
concrete foundations called “cribs” that are leftover from a very old deserted
and destroyed railroad bridge from long ago. Obviously having big ol’ chunks of
concrete across a waterway is not a good thing so great care has to be paid to
make sure that you are on course to cross through one of two green-red marker
gates that navigate your through large gaps in amongst the cribs. The south gap
was way to our south and really isn’t part of the course through the lake. The
central gap is the one to go for. At this point I would like to make a small
criticism of the Canada. In the US the green and red markers and buoys are
very, very bright, of a substantial size and are easy to spot at a distance.
Not so the markers in Canada. Though they operate just like in the US (Red
Right Returning) they are much smaller, particularly in breadth and size and are
colored with darker less obvious colors. They are difficult to see, in my
opinion. So, as we approached the gap we had a very difficult time spotting the
markers and we were getting a bit nervous. But once we were close we did spot
them and made it through the gap.
Shortly after going through the gap in the cribs we headed
north on the Otonabee River. It was very wind-y and at times very narrow. It
was difficult to make much headway because there were so many home docks by
which, due to courtesy and Canadian law, you have to reduce speed when passing.
Also there were sooooo many fisherman in the small boats all along the river,
some of them right in the middle of the thing. (Sorry fisherman. You’re a pain
in the neck.) After winding up and down and in and out along the river we
eventually came to some civilization namely the outskirts of Peterborough. We
went through locks 19 and 20 without too much incident, other than a small problem
with the gates not being able to close all the way at gate 20 due to all the
hydrilia and other water plants that was floating all around. With the gates
not able to close tightly the lockmasters could not get adequate pressure from
the upper pool to fill the lock as the water was leaking out the downside gate.
They had to drop us down again and reopen and close the gates a couple of
times. But we did make it onwards after a couple of tries.
After leaving lock 20 we glided along a short canal to a
point where we made a slight left turn and came face to face with, as I
mentioned earlier one of the icons of the waterway, the Peterborough Lift Lock.
It is unlike a regular lock that you enter and ride a rising pool of water in
the lock. Instead you enter a tub with gates at each end that seals the tub
tight full of water and boats. There are two tubs. One is always up and the
other is always down. We pulled into the left tub, tied up and waited for the
ride. The tubs are mounted on huge 7 foot diameter hydraulic pistons that
directly interact with each other. We went in the left tub, they added just one
foot of water to the upper tub which forced it down because it was heavier than
the lower tub (the boats displace their own weight in water so they are not
counted in the weight thing.) which pushes down on its piston which through a
close hydraulic system raises the piston and thus the lower tub. It rises 65
feet in only two minutes. And when was the marvel of engineering built? How
about 1896 to 1904. Yep, it’s over 100 years old. Amazing.
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The Peterborough Lift Lock |
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View from inside the tub looking back at where we came from |
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Why Knot docked for the night at the top of the lift lock |
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The view from our sundeck. After the crew left for the evening we had the whole place to ourselves. |
One of the challenges of being a looper is that we all have
to improvise in getting around these towns and cities. Sometimes we rent a car
or take public transportation if available. Most of the time we walk. The
challenge comes from the well-meaning locals who always say, “ Oh that grocery
store (or insert any kind of local service) is only a few minutes' from
here. No problem.” Sometimes they’re right but I think more often they are not.
The reason is simple. They have never walked to them before because they have
their cars. Of course its only a few minutes to them. Well, that’s the way it is shaking down here in Peterborough. Ed,
the lockmaster at the Lift Lock, a very nice guy, assured us that the local
marine store would be only a short walk away. Well, it wasn’t. It was a very
long way away. But we did get there and found out that it really isn’t much of
a store. But we did get a few things. And we are busting up the return walk
with several stops to rest our feet.
As like right now.
With this you are now caught up on our travels. As I
write this it's July 14, 2012 and we are spending a few days in Peterborough,
partially by design and also of necessity. As we are tied up to a wall at the
top of the lift lock in Peterborough we have to use our generator to keep our
batteries juiced up and to take on some of the high voltage needs such as the
air conditioning and oven / stove. It was working fine last evening and early
this morning but as I attempted to start it a little bit later in the morning
it would not start. I have contacted a local technician and he will either be
able to come by the boat today or will meet us at our next location, Buckhorn,
ON, tomorrow. We’ll see. This is not a huge challenge other than to get it
fixed. If I need to recharge the batteries I can do so using the main engines.