Belleville-Trent-Severn Waterway-Georgian Bay-North Channel-Lake Huron-Straits of Mackinac-Lake Michigan-Charlevoix MI (700 Miles)
We arrived back in Belleville on July 4 and set out for Trenton the next day. The Trent-Severn Waterway lay ahead of us and we weren't quite sure what it would bring, so we had to have a "last supper" before heading out.
Alex insisted on a photo with the boys in the band before we left.
And next morning, off we sailed - approximately 240 miles and 45 locks ahead of us.
Just 5.5 miles later, we were already through Lock #6 at Frankford. The weather was miserable, so we stayed tied up to the lock wall for two nights.
The "lift"at some of the conventional locks is more than 50 feet. It's a long way up or down...
...and a bit of muscle can be needed to keep the boat on the wall, especially if there's wind, which there frequently was - you can see the Canadian flag blowing straight out in the top right corner of this shot.
However, the lock masters were always very helpful, and patient!
It wasn't all work and no play, however. Along the way, we met many fellow "Loopers" and enjoyed a number of dinner gatherings...
...and cocktails on the dock, known in Looper circles as "docktails," here in Peterborough, where we laid over for a couple of days...
and took in a fabulous southern style travelling BBQ that happened to be passing through town.
This "coconut palm" on the dock in Peterborough added a bit of charm!
Leaving Peterborough, we encountered the first of two "lift locks" on the Trent-Severn system. In these locks, you enter a giant bath tub and it is lifted (or lowered) with the boat in it. An ingenious bit of engineering where gravity does all the work. The "tub" going down on one side acts as a counter-weight and lifts the tub on the other side. In this picture, we're about to enter the tub on the right, while the tub on the left (which is full of water) is at the top. Amazing!
Here we are in our "tub"at the top of the second lift lock, about to go down this time.
By this point, we had become good friends with Tom and Nancy on their Defever 44, Terrapin. They live in northern Michigan and stored their boat for the winter in the same yard where Tosca II is stored. Here, they are in the lift lock with us.
The waterway is well marked, but there's no room for error as the channels are quite narrow and the bottom is not forgiving - granite! Here Alex keeps a watchful eye from the bow.
And here she checks our location on the electronic charts.
The towns along the way were very picturesque. This is the oddly named Bobcaygeon, which, by the way, is the subject of a song by our son Stewart's favorite band, The Tragically Hip!
Bobcaygeon, somewhat incongruously, is also the location of a huge, high-end shoe store, Bigleys. I escaped lightly - Alex picked up only two pairs.
All sorts of waterfront properties.
Almost without exception, they had "Muskoka chairs" at the water's edge but, oddly enough, never anyone sitting in them!
We kid you not, these empty chairs were everywhere.
Parts of the waterway are fairly remote, and somewhat reminiscent of the Dismal Swamp Canal (see Blog for Leg 4).
But it seemed someone else was never far away!
How did they get there? Through the locks, of course!
We didn't eat out every night!
A highlight of the Trent-Severn comes towards the end - the "Big Chute." This is a marine railway that lifts your boat out of the water, then carries it from one waterway across land to the next leg of the system.
It's another of the engineering marvels of the Trent-Severn. Here's a boat being lifted out on the upstream side.
Then it's down the other side.
We were a little apprehensive, so we checked it out thoroughly the day before.
But we need not have worried - the railway crew was very professional. They even hopped down and did a bottom inspection for us while we were in the slings.
What a ride!
Then it was on to the last lock...
...and, after two weeks, the Trent-Severn was behind us.
Here we're heading into Lake Huron.
We spent a couple of nights at Wye Heritage Marina in Midland (which, by the way, has the best showers we have encountered in more than 2500 miles at this point). Midland is the boating center for the Georgian Bay and we had a distinct feeling of "having made it!"
Not exactly what we were expecting, however, as we left Midland and found ourselves in fog!
We decided to push on nevertheless, and soon, as the fog lifted and the sun came out, the iconic granite islands of the Georgian Bay emerged. We had arrived!
The size and style of the "cottages" along the way ran the full gamut, from the modest...
...to the more elaborate.
Some only accessible by float plane.
And some displaying a little eccentric flair.
Couldn't resist this one - our younger son is Edward, known within the family as Teddy.
Our first stop in the Georgian Bay was Henry's Fish Restaurant, accessible only by boat or plane. People fly in for lunch, or arrive by their own boat, as we did.
The owner, Paul, took an immediate liking to Alex and treated us as visiting celebrities.
In return, we were very good customers.
Indeed, we returned twice, with our good friends Peggy and Don, who came to visit from Guelph...
...and my mate, Stuart, who came for a visit from Niagara-on-the-Lake.
And on to Parry Sound, home of hockey legend Bobby Orr, and where Rowland stayed a week while Alex returned to Calgary to catch up on how the family was doing.
After Alex returned from Calgary, we began our real cruising on the Georgian Bay, but we started cautiously, with a short hop to Kill Bear, a beautiful spot with a very good marina.
From Kill Bear on, it was pure Georgian Bay cruising, with scary navigational challenges...
...and fishermen
...and more kayaks along the way.
In some parts, the bottom (granite) is barely below the surface (and, obviously, a huge navigation hazard)...
...while in some areas, the drop-off is so precipitous you can tie-up to the granite wall.
There are numerous narrow passages where only one boat at a time can safely transit. As you approach these, you give a "securite" broadcast on the VHF radio to warn other vessels that you are approaching. This is the approach, using the range markers to keep us right on course, to the Little Detroit pass.
Along the way, we spent the night "on the hook", in some spectacular anchorages that we hope to revisit. Here we are in The Bustards.
At Killarney, you leave the Georgian Bay proper and enter the North Channel. We loved Killarney, where we reveled in the music of Andy Lowe, which had a sort of Stan Rogers-comes-to-the-Great Lakes tone to it.
In Killarney, I also persuaded Alex that we needed an underwater inspection of the hull and running gear (props in particular). What a sport! It might look like she's standing on the swim ladder, but she's not - she's standing on a granite ledge, showing how precipitously the bottom drops off (or comes up, if you're not paying attention).
From Killarney on, we enjoyed beautiful anchorages - the Pool in Baie Fine...
...where a turtle came looking for a handout...
...and breaking free of the weedy bottom was a challenge.
On we cruised, until Blind River. At this point, family business called Alex back to Calgary, while Rowland stayed on the boat.
When Alex returned from Calgary, we made our way from Blind River across to the U.S., where we cleared customs and immigration at Drummond Island, before heading to Mackinac Island. To our surprise, we were soon enveloped in dense fog. We've cruised extensively in Nova Scotia, where the fog can get so thick "you can lean on it," so this didn't really bother us.
Still, we figured we deserved a good lunch ashore when we arrived.
Mackinac Island is unique. No vehicular traffic, very picturesque...
...site of the iconic Grand Hotel
We enjoyed our two days there...
...but there was a lot of surge in the marina from the ferry traffic and we were glad to head out into the Straits of Mackinac...
...under the world famous Mackinac Bridge
and on to Charlevoix, Michigan, where we had arranged to store TOSCA II for the winter at Irish Boat Shop.
The folks at Irish are wonderful. During haul-out, they pointed out that we had a spare prop shaft, worth a few thousand dollars, tucked away in a secret compartment - apparently a feature of Tollycrafts. We never had any idea!
We caught up with our friends Tom and Nancy again. Their boat Terrapin is stored for the winter in the same yard.
Some final cleaning...
...and TOSCA II was put into a warm, cozy bed for the winter. We returned to Calgary, via Traverse City and Chicago.
With the end of Leg 8, we now have approximately 3000 miles under our keel since we set out on the Great Loop from Gasparilla Island in September 2012. We've passed the half way mark!
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