Another Lazy Day

Hi Blog readers this is Jeff and this is my first entry.  For those of you who are under the impression that this trip is just a never ending relaxing cruise I thought I'd tell you about yesterday. Not to complain, just to enlighten.  We got up at 6:30 so we could be ready for the first lock at 9.  The lockmasters had an issue and we didn't lock through till 10.  Our destination was Orillia Ontario, a scant 30 some miles away.  We set off and in a short while we were in the Trent Canal.  A narrow rock lined and shallow "drainage ditch" that stretched for miles until the Kirkfield lift lock.  So narrow that Joy could touch the leaves of trees on the bank we were passing.  If you stray even a little bit out of the center of the channel you could seriously screw up your props, etc and therefore have to maintain 100% focus the entire time.

 We finally got to the lift lock which is different than most locks and is completely amazing.  It would be our first lock down after lifting the boat to 840' above sea level through about 40 locks and the highest elevation we would attain this entire trip.  The lift lock is like two parallel pans on water with one which goes up and one down at the same time.  We got in the pan to head down and were basically suspended in a shallow pan of water about 40' above the canal below.  Then our pan went down and the next door pan went up.  You can see how far down the canal is below us.

Shortly after exiting the lock we hit bottom and scraped over who knows what.  Rock? Tree stump? Whatever.  We were exactly in the middle of a channel marked 7' deep on our charts but somehow we hit bottom with a boat 4 1/2' deep.  Go figure.  That was the first of 5 times that day we found the bottom.  Every time you touch bottom and feel the boat scraping there is a few moments of extreme anxiety.  Are we causing serious damage (read $$$)? Will we get stuck (read $$$)? Etc.  We carried on and crossed a shallow man made lake with lots of stumps showing and knowing that if we deviated even a little out of the narrow channel we could hit something or hit bottom again.  This is white knuckle boating at 5 miles an hour for hours at a time.  Nothing stress free about it.
After a rapid fire 5 more locks, which we went through with 4 other large boats with just a few feet between us, we went through a very narrow and twisted exit of the canal between 2 rock jetties to Lake Simco. It's the largest lake on the Trent-Severn waterway.  Every lock is stressful and a bit of a challenge especially entering and exiting with a large boat.  Finally some relief!  A big, wide, adequately deep lake we needed to cross for 22 miles.  It was really nice.
After 9 + hours of travel time through 7 locks and miles of very narrow, shallow and treacherous waters we finally arrived at our destination for a calm and relaxing night in a marina.  Or so we thought.  We don't go to marina's often cause they're expensive and a bit of a splurge but after a day like yesterday we wanted to.  We called ahead and made a reservation and when we got close we called again for directions to our slip.  As we were heading into the narrow breakwater to the marina some shmuck right in front of us stops his boat and goes out on his foredeck to deal with his fenders and had no one at the wheel.  As we pass him he is drifting right into us and I start honking and speed up to avoid a collision.  So with anxiety ramped up we enter the small confines of the marina and start trying to follow our instructions to our slip.  As we pass one row of docks the depth gauge starts reading very shallow depths and we are slowed way down as we begin to hit the soft bottom of the basin.  In a state of high anxiety I ask Joy to call the office to confirm our directions.  They say we are going the right way and we "should have enough water, it's just weeds".  Basically thick seaweed growing almost to the surface.  We continue on and begin our left turn to go to the slip assigned us.  Again we slow way down and come to a dead stop! We are basically aground and the boat is not responding to the throttles!! There are a row of boats to our left with dozens of spectators and we are dead stopped in the narrow fairway adjacent to the docks with the wind picking up and very slowly moving us sideways toward the docks.  Are we all relaxed and having fun yet?!?  After literally 40 minutes of slow motion maneuvering and High High Anxiety we FINALLY get to the new slip assigned us and tie up at about 8PM and after almost 10 hours of travel.
And now you know what a typical day on the Great Loop can be like.  And btw almost every day has its moments of high anxiety and stress.  Should have gone on a Crystal cruise! JK. We are loving it and it's all part of the adventure.