Day 457
6,038 Miles - We've gone over the 6,000 mile mark!
The Trent-Severn Waterway is 240 miles long and connects Lake Ontario to the Georgian Bay. It begins in Trenton, Ontario and ends in Port Severn, Ontario. While traveling on it, we will be on rivers, lakes, man-made canals and will go through 44 locks.
The Erie Canal was built in 8 years. It took almost 90 for the completion of the Trent. Construction of the first lock at Bobcaygeon (Bob-cajun) began in 1833. The last two- miles of the canal were completed in June, 1920. To this day, many of the locks and dams that were built over 75 years ago that are operated manually are still in use.
The yellow railing is the lock door and he is manually closing it after we came out of Lock 1.
We are in a lock and the guy at the top is closing the doors.
We hit Trenton just as a mini Looper rendezvous was finishing up. Well over 20 Looper boats were in port and many were leaving on Sunday morning along with us. We knew this would mean waiting at the locks as only so many boats can fit in the locks at a time.
We also hit the Trent during a scorching heat wave. Yowza, it's hot! And when we are in the bottom of a lock with no breeze or air flow until we reach the top, it is stifling. We went through 12 locks in the 31 miles to Campbellford. True North filled the last spot on the east wall of the town dock and the west wall was full, also. About 13 boats in all. We were beat.
Pictures of the different things we see on the Trent. We were surprised at how many cottages and homes line the waterway. And with the hot weather, it seemed like everyone was in the water!
Greg said it felt like we were in a boat parade as people were sitting on their lawns and decks watching the water. We waved at everyone like we were in a parade!
Also surprising how many fishing boats we saw. Most of the walls leading up to a lock were filled with people fishing, too.
The ducks were having their own parade!
Many locks have these houses, where the lock masters used to live. Today they are offices and restrooms. The lock personnel pride themselves on the appearance of their area. All had beautiful flowers and landscaping. Below is one unique lock lawn.
In Campbellford, it was Sunday and a holiday so nothing was open but I did walk to the park to get this picture. It was huge! A 2 dollar coin - a "Tooney" (A one dollar coin is called a "Looney")
The TSW locks don't open until 9 am. We saw boats leaving as early as 7 on Monday morning to be first in line at the next lock. We waited until 9:30 and pretty much brought up the rear. We did 6 locks over the 20 miles to Hastings, having to wait at many of them. We got tied up just as a storm hit.
Waiting at a lock. Mike is sitting on the bench on the right. See the blue line painted on the wall? When tied up there, it means you are the next boat in the lock. Because the locks close early - 6pm - many boats tie up to a lock wall overnight. Staying on the blue line requires you to be the first in the lock the next morning. (Staying on a lock wall is kind of like staying in a Walmart parking lot in an RV!)
The blue line
We have found all the lock personnel to be friendly and helpful. (much more so than the rivers and Erie workers). They will stand on the side walls and when the boat is high enough, they will engage us in conversation. Most seem to be college age and are employed by Parks Canada. Their bosses, the lock masters, are equally as nice.
All of our locks so far have been lifting up, which is a little harder than going down. The locks on the inland rivers and Erie Canal all fill from the bottom. Many of the Trent locks fill from the side, so we loop our lines around the cables attached to the lock walls on the side opposite from the entering water. As you can imagine, this pushes the boat into the wall. Our biggest challenge is keeping the boat off the lock wall. We have fenders out (bumpers) but often they are squished against the wall and trying to go up with the boat at the same time. Mike is on the bow (front), I'm in the cockpit (back) and Greg is in the flybridge with a pole, all of us pushing to keep the boat off the wall. No need for a Planet Fitness membership. Our arms are getting quite the workout.
True North's engines have to be shut down while in the locks, so Greg is unable to do little tweaks that usually make our jobs easier. (the boats with bow and stern thrusters can still use them as they don't work off the engines). A smaller Cutwater boat rafted off us in two of the locks, and so Mike felt like he was trying to keep 2 boats off the wall!
We were almost to Hastings and had a flight lock and regular lock to go. A flight lock is where the lift is too great so we went into Lock 16, were raised up, and immediately went into Lock 17.
This lock was supposed to fill from both sides, but something funky happened and water came gushing out from only one side - the side we were on. The force was so great, I immediately lost my line on my cable. Greg had looped a back line around a cleat which was holding. Mike was hanging on to the bow line for dear life. I went to help him, and it literally took every ounce of strength we had to keep True North from breaking free and hitting the other wall. The boat in front of us had the same struggle. We have done all the locks on the inland rivers and Erie and have never had anything close to that happen to us before. More drama than we like!
Heading into Lock 17. The boat on the right is the one that rafted off us previously.
A view of the flight locks. We are at the top of Lock 17. (where the lock master in the picture apologized for the turbulence. He said it happens every once and awhile. Just happened to be us in the lock this time.) Behind the yellow railing is Lock 16. Behind that is the Trent Waterway.
The Hastings Marina is right after Lock 18. I walked into town after the rainstorm and got this close up picture of the lock handles used to manually close the lock doors.
My real reason for walking into Hastings was to get ice cream and butter tarts! Butter tarts are a popular bakery item in Canada. I am determined to try one in each town we stop at.
I got this tart in Trenton. It had raisins in it.
Lord knows we needed an easy day on Tuesday and we got it. A 20 mile run across Rice Lake, a 6 mph trek through the Ontonabee River and one lock brought us to Peterborough by 1pm. (the posted speed limit on the rivers and canal portions of the TSW is 10 km - 6 mph).
Crossing Rice Lake
Adding to the "less stress" was Behn (Ben) the dock master at the Peterborough Marina. We think he was the best one we've had on the whole Loop. He spoke clearly into the radio, repeated the instructions twice, was on the dock with a handheld radio talking Greg into our spot on the end of a T-dock. He called out when our swim platform/dinghy was clear of the boat behind us to make the swing into the dock. He also had a great helper with him to handle all our lines.
Peterborough is one of the larger towns on the TSW.
The guys walked into town to the Boater's World and I walked to the Peterborough Lift Lock to get a look at this unique lock that we will be going through on Wednesday, then stopped at a grocery store on my way back.
I got to walk through this lovely park on my quest for butter tarts in Peterborough.
These have pecans. Purists think butter tarts should be plain. Since all on True North like pecan pie, we think these will be just fine.
All in all - a good day.
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