A rest day in Couchiching and onwards to The Big Chute and beyond.

Our rest day was much needed. I was feeling VERY negative towards arrogant boaters, shallow water, rocks, narrows etc....ok,,,make that ALL that is involved in boating, right now.
I have to say that Hitting The Wall, as it were, took me one year, one month and three days! Not bad, I reckon:)
Anyway, I needed a day off to regroup, re-gather my confidence, hang out with Waz (he needed it too, I might add here!!!) and walk off the negativity and low vibes. We both benefit greatly from these 'do little' days. This kind of boating is very stressful! What boating isn't, in all truth?

Moving on....
We took three walks during the day, on our day off. On each walk we were accompanied by clouds of mozzies, which Waz took much delight in (well, not MUCH delight) in swatting. He had omitted to put anti-Mozzie stuff on, so what can I say??? You would have thought, by the third time he would have gotten the message, lol.

The tall trees are lovely, and we can identify some of them, but not many. Anything not a conifer is a little off our radar. We can, however identify the wildflowers, and delighted in the wild sweetpeas, the Black Eyed Susans, Shasta Daisies et al. Lots of saw-toothed ferns too! We are in awe of Mother Nature...one day there is snow on the ground, the next there is a field of wild flowers, so we are told.

 Good old Dock Leaves and flowers.

The Day lilies are spectacular, everywhere.

 Yellow Cone Flowers ?

 We  were the only two boats on the lock wall, most of the day. The blue topped 22 footer belonged to folks from Midland, who invited us to enjoy their private beach and check out their stunning garden. Ken and Brenda live in Midland most of the year, and were such helpful folks. We hope to see more of them.

 The Lock Offices usually have a garden of sme kind. This one is very colorful, with a birdhouse right in the middle, on a rock.

 They are also growing tomatoes and Zucchini!

 The view from the Lock Office level, where the bathrooms are. No showers, but nice clean Loos.

 Opposite is the rather run-down former home of the Lock Master at #42. This home is under revision as to what to do with it. Something needs to be done, as parts of it need major surgery!

 The wild blackberries were not too sweet!

 Cone Flowers are always stand-outs in any garden

 Wild sweetpeas that didn't really have a scent, unfortunately.

We finished our day with a walk in the 'other' direction, a nice meal, a sit and chat with Ken and Brenda, before retiring out of the clouds of mozzies. The threatened rain didn't actually happen, but it was overcast and coolish. We wore sweaters some of the day. This is unseasonably cool, they tell us.


We told the Lock Master we intended to lock through first thing, on our last day through the Trent Severn Waterway. 

We were up and ready to go in the morning, but decided to wait for two fast boats to lock through first. No hurry.

Slightly foggy morning, but clear and very pretty, looking back down the canal.

 The front boat is the Four Winns which I will tell you about in another post...or later this post. The rear boat is a Formula. They were travelling together, from Montreal, and had taken only a week to get to Lock 42..which rather flabbergasted us! Not much time, but they mostly travel at around 25-28 knots! Remember that for later!!

 We have pulled away from our lovely two day position, on the  way into the lock

Out the other side and down another twenty or so feet...the canal was relatively narrow, with cottages and some permanent homes along the waterway.

The cottages are not large! and I wouldn't be paying that kind of money for them. A bit too expensive, I think.

People are very creative with their tree stumps:)

 Lovely homes with large outcroppings of rock either part of their house, deck or yard. I would love to do some landscaping to include them!

 ...and of course the settler style home with a lovely cottage garden always draws my camera:)

 The Hamlet Swing Bridge, which the boat underneath didn't seem to want to wait for, but it looks like they fit!

 Coming to the end of the canal from Lock 42

 Next up, 26 miles of little lakes, along the Trent River.

Some is skinny water, other times we were in 24 feet, as perhaps you can see.

At mile 221.2 is McDonalds Cut. I mention that here because it was all cut by hand in 1905. No machinery was used at all. When you consider how long it took and the work involved, you can perhaps...I say PERHAPS...appreciate the skinny channel...maybe in a small boat!:)

At Mile 224.5 we approached Swift Rapids and Lock #43...almost finished!!!! two to go!!!
This is a very tall lock. We are forced to tie up to the wall to wait our turn along with the myriad other large and small boats. We were not on the blue line, as that was full of waiting boats, already.
A large 55ft Sea Ray with a SeaDoo Jetski in tow muscled her way straight into an already full to busting lock, only to be ordered back out...whereby her captain slotted himself into a tiny space at the head of the queue! Sigh!

We found out that the captain is Russian, and he had a crew (guests?) of four. He was not a patient man!!!
The Lock staff are very much in charge of the order of business and who goes in and when. We indicated that we were in line, tho not ON the line, to go into the lock. We managed to eat some al fresco lunch while waiting...boats were coming in and going up and in and down, in the half hour we waited and ate.

Waz went to the staff again to indicate we were ready to leave, and there ensued a conversation with the Russian and the Lock Staff....They were to go in first, and we had to go in alongside....more sighs! There was literally NO ROOM BETWEEN US! Our fenders were right against the hull of their boat!
We went down without incident, all 47 feet of lock...and when it came time for the gates to open, I asked them politely to go first (made good sense) BUT...to go VERY slowly past us, while I pulled their boat off the wall and guided her past us. He complied for 2/3 of the way, then hit the gas. Our front fender swung up, narrowly missing me and allowing the boats to come within an inch of each other. Sheesh! Who needs these nutters? He was the kind of guy who was probably the class bully! His boat name pretty much says it all...Man O' War!!

We were happy for them to leave us in their wake, except that we also had current from the Falls to deal with, and lots of rocks on either side.


Looking behind me, back at the Dam at Swift Rapids.

 

All the little boats went  out through the lock before us, creating plenty of wake to negotiate as well as the current.

 

 

I wasn't able to get pics leading up to the boat being driven onto the slings at the Big Chute Railway, so this is the first opportunity I had to take any. Waz is still positioning the boat according to instructions from the crew directing the operations. The slings literally lift the boat to stabilize to hold it from tipping once the railway comes out of the water and over the road and down the other side. We are then hanging in air, but our Keel is resting on the wooden deck of the carriage. Fenders are now on deck to avoid getting tangled in the slings.

 You can see the rails going over the grass, ahead. The man on the right was working the forward slings into position.

 Being tightened

 ...and we are underway, I believe. This photo also is looking back at the boats on the Blue Line waiting for us to get to the bottom, any boat there to come up, and they will be called into position for their own trip over the hill to the water down below. It is a fascinating process and over in a flash. I chose to sit on the front of the boat and videotape the whole thing with my little camera.

 You can clearly see the Blue Line, which is where any boat waits, here or at the various locks, to indicate they are ready to lock through, or move forward when called. The wind was blowing us onto the dock, therefore to port, as we made our way onto the railway. Waz handled her beautifully. Hats off to him!

 We are about to get to the summit, then will go over the top to the water below.

 

 ...and it is all over in a flash!. We are now leaving the Big Chute Railway, and into the water again below the Dam.

I raced to the back of the boat to get these next two shots of the railway. Doesn't look much, does it? Hard to believe it carried our boat over the road, out of the water!

 Spectators can stand on the steps to watch the process, or like the folks on the deck of the building, which is then about our own height, as we go over the top.

Yet another narrow channel lies ahead of us. This area is known as the Little Chute. The walls are rocky and unforgiving and the current swift. Almost straight out of the lock we confronted with an almost 270 degree turn to port. This involved us doing some quick jiggery pokery to get around the corner in the small space we had, between the red and green markers. This was another Securite Call on the radio, to announce our intentions, and to avoid any conflicts with other larger than 40ft vessels. We encountered a couple of small boats and Pontoon boats which didn't appear to have any radios! sigh! You can see from the photo below, just how narrow those markers make the channel.

The next narrow channel was called The Narrows...and not for nothing!!! This is five mile on from the Big Chute Railway. This is the LAST of the rocky channels...so they sat! We found one more....later!
We were going SOOO carefully, negotiating between rocks, and then THUNK!!! ALL alarms started going, and the boat veered severely to port. The starb'd engine had stopped! We had hit a rock!!...and we were being SOOOO Careful, with me glued to the chart plotter, calling out the directions for Waz to steer to get around this nasty area. What we think happened, was that the boat symbol on the chart plotter covered up the + sign that indicates a rock of indeterminate depth below the surface. Grrrr! 
We got our VERY shaken selves back to rights, because there was literally nowhere else to go, in this part of the channel, and the boat was drifting towards the cliff...aieee!! No time for a meltdown...yet!

 We were literally shaking, both of us, but Waz restarted the starb'd engine and got us underway again. We couldn't (then) figure out how we had hit the rock, considering we were being so careful.
Everyone we have talked to since, has their own story of rock hopping, to tell!..and bent props and shafts and much more. We also hear about the $20,000 insurance jobs that have to be done to some boats. Thank Goodness we didn't hole and damage the boat more. We were only moving at 5.4 knots, as this is a 10kph area, for good reason.

With one more Lock to negotiate, we were sooooo OVER the whole Trent Severn Waterway. I had already mentally booked my ticket home. I was about to abandon ship...Waz said I would have to come after him!! He isn't one to panic or show how flustered he is, but this hit us both pretty hard.



The sign at the Georgian Bay end of the Trent-Severn Waterway. Mile 0!

Our Last lock, #45 ! Yayayay! This Lock is at Port Severn, and then the Servern Road Swing Bridge. The last lock is the smallest of the whole lock system. It was NOT wide!

 

One more bridge to get under...the Highway Bridge at Port Severn...not a lot of room on top, for us, but we made it, and through these VERY skinny markers to do so.

 What you cant see here, is the rock everywhere just below the surface! No room for error...and stick to the channel!

No time to get complaisant, once out of the Trent Severn...the channel to take us into Georgian Bay was just as narrow as any we had come along, and there were a gazillion rocks waiting to jump at us.  We were already nervous wrecks, so this was the last exhausting bit before some deeper water and less rocks.

 Land is never very far away...or very far beneath the surface.
I hope you can get an idea of the intensity that is required to negotiate these waters. Im not normally a panicky person, but my poor heart had an overflow of adrenalin, today! It was not feeling 'normal' by any stretch of the imagination. I have a feeling that the Captain had his own dose of the same. He would never admit to it tho!:)

 Our destination once out of the silly waters, as I now call them, was the Bay Port Marina at Midland, across the Bay. We could feel the abnormality of the damaged prop, so we didn't go too fast to get there. The Marina is indicated on the middle right, below the True.

Midland is just one of the towns in the area with huge murals on buildings. This one depicts the beginnings of the area. This was taken as we came into the Bay, before turning towards our Marina.

Waz had contacted the Marina the day before, to book a night or two, but this time when he radioed to let them know we were on our way, he asked that we go straight to the dock for Lift Out of the water. We were directed to the travel Lift Dock, well inside the marina. Here we are on approach to the marina, with the fuel dock on the left, where the yacht is. We had to turn a tight left after that, then a right, then another tight left, to get to the travel lift at the back of the marina. After all that turning, I was done for!

 ..and so we are safely where no more rocks can jump out at us! phew!. The travel lift would take us out first thing in the morning...or so we thought!. it is now 5.30pm. A LOOOOONG DAY!

I want to throw this photo in, just for the heck of it.  The yellow pole (or red or other color) is on the top of the fire hydrant so the fire dept. can find them in the snow!!!

Another day tomorrow...or so we thought.