LAKE ONTARIO HEADING TO LAKE HURON (and everything in between!)

OH, the frustration of having useless internet connections! When we last left you we had arrived back into the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence Seaway. We are now in a sweet town marine of Orillia, Ontario and have traveled the greater part of the Trent Severn Waterway linking Lake Ontario to the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. Due to abysmal Wi-Fi, I’ll have to catch you up through a limited photo version of a blog. I have some incredible videos to share, too, but unfortunately have to work with what I’ve got. I’ll try to get them to you as soon as I can!

FAMILY AND FUN IN THE THOUSAND ISLANDS

We were so excited and honored that my brother Gerry and sister-in-law Carole came all the way from the Ithaca area of New York to climb aboard with us. We cruised both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the St. Lawrence River and celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks on a friends’ boat in Clayton, NY. So much love and laughter together – we are truly blessed!

4-WHEELING WITH LOOPER ,FRIENDS!

We had met the most wonderful couple on our Triangle Loop journey last year along the Rideau Canal in Canada. Dale and Jane actually live in Clayton on the St. Lawrence, and are in the final stages of completing the construction of a beautiful home on Grindstone Island, one of the larger and yet still very unspoiled isles in the river. Jeff and I had simply planned to meet up with them there to catch up – little did we know that we’d be treated to a four wheeling tour! With each our own quad, we drove through farmland, woods, and rocky coast to ultimately arrive at the Grindstone winery for Rose and Cabernet wine slushies. Pure heaven!

My New Favorite Quote

These words in a tiny restaurant in Ganonoque, Canada struck me like a bolt of lightning. Talk about inspiration to push our boundaries and live life ALIVE!

DEADMAN BAY AND SCUTTLED BRITISH WARSHIPS

Jeff and I prefer to anchor out as opposed to staying in marinas, so we found the perfect cove to tuck into just outside of the historic military city of Kingston, Canada. In the early 1800’s the British had seized control over Lake Ontario with their warships Prince Regent and Prince Charlotte but had to scuttle both after losing the war of 1812. They did so in Deadman Bay, and we were able to pass right over the remnants of the Prince Regent in our dinghy Pearl. It’s so very incredible that its ribs still exist today under just a few feet of water. We also visited Fort Henry, built by 1832 in attempt to keep the U.S. at bay from seizing their shipping passages. Crazy history!

WOOHOO! WE MADE IT TO THE TRENT SEVERN WATERWAY TO TAKE US UP TO THE GEORGIAN BAY IN LAKE HURON!

The Trent Severn Waterway and Canal winds its way through narrow canals and open lakes created to link Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. There are 43 locks in total – some that raise your boat up for most of the way, while the latter bring you back down to deliver you into Georgian Bay, a pristine setting that’s part of the Precambrian Canadian Shield of the oldest rocks and granite in the world carved out by glaciers 11,000 years ago. We are now just coming to the last of those locks – one which is called the Big Chute that is actually a railway creates to pick your boat up and carry it over a road – with you in it! I promise to get photos of that for the next blog, but in the meantime, check out these dandy locks. It’s surely been an incredible ride!

These are called Flight Locks – they’re two chambers joined together to be able to handle large changes in water levels. You enter one chamber that lifts you up, and then you enter another that will raise you up further. In this one we rose 48 feet and in another 54 feet.

The craziest locks so far have been these Hydraulic Lift Locks. These are made up of 2 water filled chambers – you drive into a platform filled with 7 feet of water. The chambers are counterbalanced on huge hydraulic pistons. While one platform with boats descends, the other one rises. These were all built in the 1800’s and still functioning perfectly!

This one – the Peterborough Lock took us up 65 feet, while the Kirkfield Lock below was the first to begin our descent toward Lake Huron. Jeff even got a tour of this one from the lock master. I was a little freaked out when we drove Oyster into the chamber – it was like a massive infinity pool especially designed to make you fall off the edge of the earth! (Jeff, of course, teases and calls me a wimp 😉).

While there are so many more experiences I would love to share with you, I’m going to stop here while I still have sufficient time and decent internet service to get this out to you before moving on tomorrow. We’ve been traveling exactly a month now, and are a day or so away from leaving the Trent Severn Waterway and entering Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. Thanks once again for coming along with uson our journey!