Friday, June 12, 2009

Today is officially Gale’s last day of employment! He said he won’t feel fully retired until he receives that first pension check at the end of July . . .

We enjoyed another beautiful day with temperatures in the mid-80’s, mostly sunny skies and little wind. We traveled 24 miles, came through four locks including another set of flight locks and stopped for a couple of hours in Hastings, Ontario, a charming small town along the waterway. Here we mailed a couple of cards, picked up some bait, and conducted a little business on the computer while we had some ice cream. Our evening anchorage was in Rice Lake near a small island named Rack Island. The lake is large but quite shallow in parts and we were anchored in a very large grassy area. The bullfrogs loved this spot, too!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Another beautiful day! We spent some time fishing this morning and collected a few small perch for later. It was nearly noon again before we hauled up the anchor and headed out. We covered a little more than 13 miles and came through Locks 8, 9, 10, 11/12, 13 and 14. Locks 11 and 12 at Ranney Falls are “flight locks.” In flight locks when the boat comes out of one lock it is actually entering the next lock. These are typically constructed where a large lift must be achieved in a short distance. In this case, the total lift was 48 feet. We made it through Lock 14 just at closing time and since the next lock was only another 3 miles or so, we decided to continue on to Lock 15 and tie up to the lock wall overnight. After checking out the area below the lock, Gale thought he would rather look around for an anchorage. We ended up in a protected spot in Crowe Bay where we visited with some folks who were relaxing out on their dock and also talked to three ladies going by in their rowboat out to the island where they had a cottage. We caught a few fish here, but didn’t have quite the luck we had at our last fishing hole. What we really enjoyed, though, was the bullfrog concert! Gale said he had never heard so many bullfrogs making so much noise together and they were still singing when we awoke in the morning!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The river was like glass all morning and we spent that time enjoying where we were and completing a few jobs around the boat. Gale worked a little more on the dinghy motor until it was operating satisfactorily and then did a few other tasks that had been further down on the priority list. We pulled anchor after lunch and motored along about 2 knots covering 12 nautical miles and going through Lock 7. At the lock, Gale and Lucy ran to a little convenience store close by to pick up some bait while Maureen stayed with the boat. He opted for the regular worms as opposed to the colored ones; evidently, some fish prefer pink or green night crawlers over the undyed ones! Either way, the proprietor guaranteed that we would catch fish with these worms or he would refund our money. And catch fish we did! We anchored at about 5:30 pm near a little island in a spot called Blue Hole. With Gale’s first cast, he pulled up a beautiful small mouth bass. We also caught a rock bass, a few perch and blue gill. We had never had better tasting fish!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Since we had fishing licenses now but no dip net, we decided to walk back to the hardware store where we purchased the licenses yesterday afternoon. It was about 2 miles to the store, but we all enjoyed the walk on this cloudy morning. On the way back, we were hoping to get close enough to the swans to identify whether they were mute swans, whistling swans or of the trumpeter variety. The locals said this was the first time they’d seen swans in Trenton. Unfortunately, the swans were staying at a distance because of a large group of canoes that had put in and were paddling about.

By noon, the boat was fueled up, the water tanks topped off and the holding tank was pumped out. We headed up the Trent River to Lock 1 of the Trent-Severn Waterway. The Trent-Severn Canal is 240 miles long and made up of 44 locks, numbered 1 to 45. Lock 29 does not exist. The controlled clearance is 22’ so the mast will remain down through this part of the trip. The controlled depth is 6 foot which was not a problem for us since we only draft 18 inches. Most of the Canadian locks do not use VHF radios to communicate with boaters. Instead, as you approach each lock, you see a stretch of wall painted blue where boats waiting to go through the lock tie up. In general, all of the locks on the Trent-Severn are manually operated. In these cases, the lock tender must walk the controls around in a circle turning a gear mechanism to open or close the lock gates and the water valves.

The first six locks occur in the first seven miles of the waterway. Gale rigged up one of the fishing poles and tried trolling between the locks. Within moments of putting the hook in the water, he had a little small mouth bass. Small Mouth Bass fishing season does not start for another couple of weeks, so even if it had been big enough, we would have released it. Maureen drove for awhile so Gale could do some casting for fish but, as it turned out, the first bite of the day was the only one. At 5 pm, we decided to throw an anchor in a nice little bay just above Lock 6 where we could take the dinghy out and do some fishing. The dinghy engine was running very “rough” so Gale ended up having to work on that. We either had some bad gas or there was water in it; whatever it was, our “fishing hour” turned into “working on the motor hour.” We grilled a couple of burgers and enjoyed listening to a bullfrog and the birds as we ate our dinner in this beautiful anchorage.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Today was Gale’s 55th birthday! It was a beautiful morning and with the wind at our backs (NNE 10), we enjoyed a nice trip through the Bay of Quinte to Trenton, Ontario, where we stopped at the city marina shortly after noon to make our phone call to clear customs. Coming into Trenton harbor, we noticed many white swans congregating about. We hoped to be able to get a closer look at them at some point. After inquiring at the marina, we set out on foot to find some fishing licenses, stop at the Visitors Center and pick up a few groceries. We had a very enjoyable three-hour walk and became quite familiar with the part of town we were in. We saw our first black squirrel which was quite interesting to us. Lucy received a lot of attention – we even had one lady drive around the block to come back and tell us what a beautiful dog we had! Another couple of young women stopped their vehicle to ask us what kind of dog she was. Gale had decided that the next time that happened, he would say she was a “whippet” because several people prior to this were convinced that’s what she was. The girls were surprised and said they’d never actually seen a “whippet” before and they worked at the Humane Society. Maureen got a kick out of this revelation, and told Gale that he needed to tell them the truth. We all enjoyed the joke. Lucy was allowed to go with us into most of the stores and she behaved like a well-trained working dog.

About 3:40 pm we still wanted to pick up a few items at the grocery store, but we also needed to get back to the marina to register and obtain a key for the showers before they closed the office. Gale headed for the marina and Maureen purchased the groceries. Back on the boat at 4:15, Gale was craving ice cream for his birthday dinner. They had some great choices for ice cream for sale at the marina but we needed to make our purchase before 4:30 pm so we cleared some space in our little freezer and picked out our favorites. When I mentioned to the gal scooping our ice cream that today was Gale’s birthday, she refused to take any money for the treats!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

We were up at 4 am getting ready for the day. The temperature was about 55°, skies were cloudy and there was no wind. We left our anchorage at 5:22 am and set out across the lake. The first part of the ride was a bit choppy but after awhile, the winds calmed and most of the rest of the trip was smooth. The wind picked up again late in the afternoon so we decided to travel further than we had first planned just to get around the “corner” and find a calm spot. We found that spot at 5:15 pm and anchored on the SE side of Foresters Island on Long Reach just off the Adolphus Reach of the Bay of Quinte. We were approximately 25 miles east of Trenton where we enter the Trent-Severn Canal. It was our intention to try to clear customs by phone tonight; however, we were unable to get a telephone signal. That task will wait until tomorrow.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

The first order of the day was to hunt down an inverter to replace the one that was damaged yesterday. Gale called the local taxi and the driver took him to Tractor Supply for the inverter, back to the boat to pick up the propane tank and then out again to fill the tank. Meanwhile, Maureen set out to find a couple of items at the hardware store and the pharmacy. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we enjoyed cleaning up the boat and getting everything ready for tomorrow’s crossing. Our new inverter went in seamlessly and it was very nice to be able to plug in and have electricity throughout the boat.

We had been tied up to the wall south of Lock 8 for the last two nights and decided to lock through about 4:30 pm. We were hoping to be long gone by the time the locks began their daily operation at 7:00 am. We took a brief ride around the harbor and returned to the lock wall for the evening. Maureen had been thinking about the crab rangoon we had on Thursday night so we ordered Chinese and had it delivered to us. It was every bit as good as the first time!