Trent Severn and the Big Chute

You haven’t heard from us for quite a few days, but we are doing fine and moving along through Canada. We have not posted on the blog for several days because in several areas we had limited phone reception and also because the roaming charges are pretty exorbitant.
Just to bring you up to date, Last Sunday we traveled to a small town called Fenelon Falls where we docked on the lock wall and walked around the small town. I saw a gal with a St. Louis t-shirt who were “Loopers” also. Mike and Cathy Cahill are on Xplorer and they now reside in Virginia. We had a pleasant dinner together with the Cahills and with Mike and Pat Sullivan from Knoxville,TN whose boat is Irish Ayes.

Monday we were in Orillia, Ontario. The excitement of that day was a big commotion that I heard shortly after we docked in the marina for the evening. Since Ned was showering, I walked out to find the local police hauling a drunk out of the water who had been hiding under our swim platform after falling out of a small boat in the harbor! They put him in handcuffs and took him away.

Tuesday we continued on the waterway until rain storms hit in the afternoon and we were forced to pull in at a restaurant/small dock called Waubic—it wasn’t even a town and had no road access. The owners were delightful people and we even met a Canadian couple who winter in Cape Coral. The Fish and Chips at Waubic were delicious.

Wednesday morning the weather was a little better so we continued on to the next lock that is another highlight of the Trent-Severn waterway. It called the Big Chute Marine Railway. That was quite interesting and we have included pictures. It’s a marine railway where they load your boat onto a large carriage on rails. Then the carriage, boat and all, are hauled on railroad tracks up or down about sixty feet. It’s a weird feeling to have the boat out of water and traveling over land. Fascinating operation.

Later that afternoon the weather got very windy so we were again forced to stop at the lock wall to spend the night and wait for conditions to calm down. We enjoyed visiting with Bob and Claudia Finlay on the Claudia J who were traveling in the opposite direction from us. The Finlays are from Exeter, NH. Thursday morning we passed through Port Severn, the last of 44 locks, thus completing another segment of the trip. We entered the Georgian Bay and headed for Midland Ontario!