Bouncing Off Rocks...yes, really!

I'll get to the rocks later in the blog....ha! that'll keep you guessing:)

The weather was overcast, and yes, some more rain had fallen overnight, but we decided to press forward on our journey, with no destination in mind. Waz had identified a few anchorages, but we were open to anything at this stage. We are feeling relaxed and enjoying this part of Canada so much. The people are super friendly and easy to get along with, and the young people who man the locks are helpful and efficient. They make our locking experiences easier...for the most part. No accounting for the boaters, unfortunately.

Of course we boated through Lakefield, where we had biked yesterday. It is always interesting looking at these places from two perspectives. Nobody was out and about at 8am, with the exception of the dog-walkers.

We motored slowly through the canal into the wide open Balsam Lake. The water was still shallow and the 10kph applied. That meant we were barely moving...idle speed, almost.

Our encounter with the many little islands en-route is both good and bad. Here the scenery also changed quite dramatically. We went from well forested varieties of trees to less variety and sparser...with mostly conifers/pines....and ROCKS! LARGE PINK GRANITE ROCKS:)

We are winding our way in and out of these little islands, at this stage. It drizzled! and generally it was overcast and just plain grey.

Fascinating to see that lots of these little islands have houses and Bunkies on them. Lots of watercraft of every possible kind, and even a church built on a rock island and the churchgoers all arriving by boat:)

These places are frozen in winter, so it is interesting to observe this summer (albeit cool) lifestyle.

Most of those we encountered at the locks were complaining of the cool weather. We had our sweaters on most of the day, especially with a cooler southerly wind blowing in the front open window. 

 We are already on a windy path, leaving Lakefield. We are leaving the Otonabee River and going into Katchiwanooka Lake. This lake was very pretty, but left something to be desired in the depth category! single digits, much of the way.

 

 

 Cute homes on cute Islands.

 

 

 John and Susan obviously found a place to anchor, for the night and we didn't see any signs of life when we passed, so we didn't greet them in the usual way....Radio channel 6!

 

 As you can see...LOTS of little islands, and though the channels look deep on the screen, they numbers lie! We know this for a fact:)

 

 As you can see...more rain! and this House-Boat was to appear in our view a couple of times during the day. Don't you love the slide on the back!

 

 Photo quality left a lot to be desired, for most of the day...until the sun came out!

 

 This resort has all the toys for the punters to play on, in the lake. Looks like lots of fun. I remarked to Waz that I could see my younger self enjoying this watery summer playground, so much.

 A portion of one of the charts we are working off...we have to negotiate between all those little islands, and some of them are quite close together.

 Hells Gate is just fine if you stay within the red and green markers! Depths were good for the most part, it was just idle speed though, and rocks VERY close to the surface.

 

 

 

This house was quite stunning, and certainly THE most contemporary home we have seen yet.

There wasn't much wiggle room getting into Lock 28, and we had to wait for boats to descend. We locked through with four boats. This lock is rather tucked out of the way, but quite pretty in location.

At least the locks were different, today. It is hard keeping up with all the numbers, but I try to photograph each and every one.  Another milestone in our journey, is why. There are 45 Locks on the Trent Severn, and we are counting down, at this stage. I think we have 12 more to go before Port Severn. We also have some VERY large lakes to go through. Lets hope they aren't as shallow as the last one (Pigeon Lake).



We stopped at the top of Lock #28 to enjoy some lunch without eating on the fly...deck..literally. It was nice to just stop and enjoy the scenery for a change.

 A house boat is about to go down the lock and out the way we came in, at number 28. It was fun to walk back to the lock and talk to those going up and down.
We moved off the wall around 1.30pm, slowly making our way up yet another lake. We were followed and then passed by a large number of fast boats, fishermen in same, and joy riding families out having thrills.

Getting back to the reason for the title of this blog...

We had just come through some documented Narrows, and there was less and less water under us, no matter that we tried both starb'd and port sides to find more, and then THUNK! SHITE! It didn't sound like a prop. thunk, but a HULL thunk. Aieeeee!!! We had hit an undocumented rock.
Not far down the path...maybe another mile or so, and we were staying right on the magenta line, I might add, there was another THUNK!..yep...another hull meets rock kind of thunk.This also was undocumented, even though we were on the published and charted 'line'. I immediately took photos of the chart plotter to show where we had hit, so that we could alert the authorities...which we did later, when we had the photos printed and the times and coordinates plotted. Waz checked the bilge to make sure we weren't taking on water, and we prayed that there wasnt any real damage to the hull, coz there is nowhere here to haul her out of the water to check! We have a way to go before we can do anything like that.

Once we arrived at  Bobcaygeon we reported these incidents to the Lock people who forwarded the information to the appropriate folks who put markers out around the rocks. Pinpointing the exact location was challenging!


We mad a split decision, on our way up Pigeon Lake, not to anchor out, but to see if there was room for us on the Lock Wall, just below the Bobcaygeon Lock. This is a popular place to tie up, so we thought that if there was no room, we would go back to our #1 idea of anchoring out and around the corner, in the lake. This is what greeted us as we turned into the canal before the lock. The first of the boats were evident...and then...wow! Walls full of boats, and house boats, but too many gaps that weren't large enough for us to fit into. We parked on the Blue Line (which indicates you are waiting to go through the lock and are next in line), but couldn't stay there.

The house boats on the left were moved closer together, and the small boat in front of them was moved forward to make way for us to tie up for the night on the other side of the canal. Waz did a fabulous job of putting our baby into a tight spot with the wind blowing us off the wall. We love the way folks come out of their boats to help us by grabbing the ropes I throw at them. She is a beast to haul into the wall when she is being blown off! It took four large men to bring her into the wall.

We are now parked on the opposite wall just below the blue line there. Our neighbors locked through late in the day or left to go back through Pigeon Lake, with supplies of beer! Lovely parks are at all the stops along the way. The lock personnel have to keep the gardens and mow the lawns between locking boats through. This is easier in some of the more out of the way places, but Bobcaygeoun (Bob - cay- gee-on), the locks were full from first thing to last, any given day, and especially in the weekends, which were crazy!

 

 

 The road bridge has to swing first, before the taller boats can go into the lock just beyond. The town is on both sides, and the road bridge is actually a main thoroughfare.

 

We went out for Chinese, which was worth the long wait, and afterwards went to the Supermarket for supplies.

The next morning we were up at the usual hour, and decided to go out for breakfast to let the 'fast' crowd go through the lock first. We hate being in the middle of all the impatient people who feel the need to get there first.
After a lovely breakfast at EggSmart, on the main road, (Eggs Benedict for us both...Waz with Peameal Bacon...like a thin boneless pork chop...and me with smoked salmon, hold the muffin!) we took ourselves off on a walking tour of the town, and to find a Hardware store. Here is some of what we found on the way.

There in the background is the red sign of the Hardware store.

With the crowd well out of the way, we indicated to the staff that we would go through on the next locking, and we readied ourselves for the day. This was around 10am, by now.

 

More on the next leg in the next blog.