Forward from Peterborough

The photo below is the view of Bobcageon from our boat on the wall. The next photo is typical of a house taking the entire island. The third photo is typical scene along the waterway. The fourth photo was taken from our boat as we ascended the lift lock at Kirkfield. The fifth photo is the Kirkfield Lift Lock.

We have been unable to blog since we were in Peterborough because we have not been anywhere that had WiFi available.

We left Peterborough on Sunday morning because there were so many looper boats in Peterborough we thought it would spread the boats out in the canal system if we went ahead and moved on. Muriel decided she would get up early and get some laundry done in the marina laundry. Good idea except several others had the same idea. By the time Muriel got her laundry going the boats we travel with were all out on the water and talking to each other on the VHF radio about where we were and that we were waiting for Muriel to finish her laundry. As Muriel finished and walked down the dock with her clean laundry everyone in the marina knew who the boats were waiting for. The second lock for the day was the famous Peterborough Lift Lock. This is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world. The boats drive into a huge tank and the doors are closed. There are two tanks, which oppose each other, when one is up the other is down. The top tank is always filled one foot deeper than the lower tank so that it is heavier. The weight of the top tank brings it down on a large hydraulic cylinder and the pressure is piped to the cylinder under the other tank and causes it to rise. It is quite an experience to ride on your boat 69 feet up into the air. The photos do not do it justice.

We made a short day on Sunday and stopped on the wall at the Lakefield lock. This was just a concrete wall at the lock out in the country. We stopped early because Blue Max was having cooling problems during the run and we all stopped at one of the lock walls to resoilllve the problem. Bill went in the water and under his boat in the middle of the canal, expecting to find grass and weed stopping his water intake. He could not find anything so Guy, from Southern Comfort, got out his SCUBA gear and went under the boat and still could not find anything. The next step was to start disassembling the raw water system, Bill had been having some problems and had already checked the normal problem areas. We finally found mussell shells and grass had plugged the unlet line to the raw water strainer. After digging this out of the inlet elbow, we continued on the the Lakefield Lock for the night.

The next day we ran on to the town of Bobcageon where three of the boats got into the marina and we tied up on the wall. This was the prettiest run yet. The area around Hell's Gate was very rocky and rugged. Bobcageon is a beautiful little town and we enjoyed walking around. There is a shoe store which stocks 40,000 pairs of shoes. Muriel did not buy any! The Bakery was great too. Our refrigerator had quit working on 12 VDC so I spent time figuring out the problem and bought some new wire at the hardware store to rewire it. As usual the local people were delightful. We were on the wall two boats in front of a Canadian couple we had met in Picton so we got to visit with them some more. The boat right behind us was a local couple who spend their summers here boating and the winters in Florida in their motorhome. The said they have aquired maps of Lake Norman and want to trailer a boat to the lake to explore the lake. They were asking about transient dockage. We told them there is very little available on the lake so we would be happy for them to tie up at our dock in 2009 when they plan to be on the lake.

From Bobcageon we ran to the Kirkfield Lift Lock, another hydraulic lift lock. We tied up to the wall just below the lift and walked up the a small resturant for dinner to celebrate Guy and Peggy's 24th anniversery.

The next day's run took us across Lake Simcoe which is the largest lake on the Trent Severn Waterway and has a reputation for becoming very rough with a west wind. We had allowed for an extra day to wait for good weather if necessary but the weather could not have been better for our crossing. We arrived at Orillia, Ontario about 4:00 yesterday. We plan to stay here until Sunday. When we leave we will probably have two more days before we arrive at Port Severn which is the end of the Trent Severn. From there we will enter the Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. This us said to be the most beautiful cruising area of the Loop.