Day 130 back into the Trent-Severn Waterway

     We left the anchorage this morning at 8:20 am and are heading 15.5 miles to Bolsover, Ontario, specifically to Sunset Cove Marina.  Although this is a short mileage day, we do have 5 locks and two swing bridges to deal with so we don't expect to have too early of an arrival time.  The photo at the right shows the beautiful sunrise over the anchorage this morning. Lucky and the Admiral went for the morning kayak trip to show, and after breakfast we pulled the anchor and were ready to depart. The sandy, weed free bottom meant that the chain and the anchor were perfectly clean, except for a couple of weeds that happened to be floating past and got caught in the chain. Lake Simcoe was almost like a mirror for our hour long trip to the northeast corner where we re-entered the Trent-Severn Waterway (TSW).

        

       It was about an hour trip up to the northeast corner of Lake Simcoe where we re-entered the Trent-Severn Waterway. in the photo at the left we have just entered the TSW with Lake Simcoe in the background, and we have just passed through our first swing bridge. As we approached the bridge, we gave three short blasts on our horn to request an opening, and the bridge master timed it perfectly for our approach speed. The swing bridges also seem to be operated by Parks Canada so our hope was that the locks would now know that we are in the "system" for today. We never are able to communicate with the locks by radio, but our feeling is that they all communicate regularly with each other (?). Anyway, we were off to a good start for today’s transit.

   

           In the photo at the right we are approaching Lock Number 41, the Gamebridge Lock, which was our first lock of the day. The waterway is often very narrow in the manmade cuts between the many lakes so this narrow approach to the lock is not unusual. The lock was open and waiting for our arrival, and the green traffic signal was lighted, which indicates that we have permission to enter.

        

          We were delighted to see that we were still in one of the older locks that is manually operated. In the photo at the left the wooden gates have closed behind us, and we are about to start our rapid rise. All of the water that fills the lock enters at the upstream end rather than being distributed along the length of the lock by a system of pipes such as they do in more modern locks so the turbulence at that end is much greater. As a result, when the lock is not full of boats, they keep us at the other end to avoid the turbulence and give us a much smoother lift.

     

          The next photo (at right) shows the workers operating the manual systems. The man on the lock is turning a vertical crank/wheel that opens and closes a valve in the lock that allows water to enter and help fill the lock. The woman on the lock wall is walking in circles as she pushes a lever arm to open the lock gate on her side of the lock. The gearing is such that they do not have to exert a lot of effort, but that also means that a lot of turns are necessary. On busy weekend days they must be very tired at the end of a shift, but at the end of a busy summer they must be in great physical shape… While they are working hard, it is “fun” to watch for the onlookers like us. Hardly seems fair (ha, ha).  We have a video of this on YouTube at the following location:  https://youtu.be/nwgfU_2BR3w. 

       We are passing through excellent farming country (photo at left) that is very close to the major metropolitan areas, such as Toronto, so the farmers are very close to their markets. Thus, there seemed to be a lot of dairy operations as well as vegetables. We are a little too far north of Lake Ontario for grapes, as well as apples and peaches to be grown here. Basically, the waterway is heavily treed along its sides so we are not often able to see much of the countryside through which we are passing.

  

     The photo at the right shows what I meant in the captions above about the waterway being both narrow and heavily tree lined. There are sections where boaters make a courtesy call on the radio to say that “a 43 foot power boat is entering XYZ channel from the west…” When the channel is narrow and has been cut out of bed rock, we really would have great difficulty passing another larger boat. Of course, the smaller boats (generally 25 feet or less) either are not monitoring their radios or simply do not care (?). In many instances the answer, of course, is probably “both”. We have been through several sections that look like this, and each time I am reminded of how much this resembles our trip through the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia on our first Great Loop.

    

       The photo at the left is a panoramic view of the Lock and Dam Number 38. Every lock is different as some appear to have no dam, some have natural rapids while we have been through several like this with a lock, dam and sometimes even a power plant. With 45 locks in the TSW it would get really boring if they were all the same… So far, the locks have all been different and sometimes very different like the Big Chute!

          

       In the photo at the right we are about to enter the lock as the second and last boat into the lock. We are going to be placed next to the boat that is already moored on the left side. Let me tell you that from my perspective up on the flybridge it looks like a very narrow opening, but we gently glided into place on the wall although the people on the other boat were nervously watching while each of them had a boat hook in their hands ready to fend off if necessary… Fortunately, I don’t think that they had to do any pushing. Well, we had at least three feet to spare as it turned out, but if there had been a strong wind, then all bets would have been off.

     This is the scene that greeted us on arrival at the Sunset Cove Marina... It is a small but very nice marina. They have room for only about 3 larger transient boats here, and all of the spaces are on the outside of a long dock that really protects the small inner harbor. I was a little concerned that we would do a lot of rocking and rolling in wakes, but there has been almost no traffic past the marina (on a mid week night). Lucky enjoyed meeting about 4 other dogs that seem to roam the docks at will. Plus, she has been a very wiling walker, which isn't too surprising after a night of anchoring out with limited opportunity to log some miles... 

         

       The last picture shows Lucky Us moored on the outside of the long dock at the Sunset Cove Marina, and we were ready to watch some of the 2016 Olympic Games from Rio before going to bed early once again.