Happy Holidays

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy, healthy holiday season and all the best in the New Year!

Love,

Ed and Linda

Going Home

With summer drawing to a close we hauled Shore Thing and stored her at Admiral's Marina for the winter. We stopped at Niagara Falls on the way home and were treated to a beautiful rainbow - created by the mist from the Falls.

We will continue our trip and our blog next summer.

Big Bird, Honey Harbour

Came back to the boat after a tour of the area, including Parry Sound, and found the Canadian version of the Great Blue Heron walking around our dock checking out all the boats!

Admiral's Marina, Honey Harbour

Our new guests arrive - Greg & Marzena from our neighborhood. We took them to Bone Island, one of our favorite places, and visited with Ted & Pat.








Greg played rock star to the ladies.

Our rainy day activity was to drive around the area looking at some of the locks on the Trent Severn waterway. We stopped at the Marine Railway where Ed enthralled Marzena with his detailed description of the mechanical workings of the railway!!!

Honey Harbour, Georgian Bay

We've been in Georgian Bay since August 30th. It's really a beautiful place. Unfortunately there hasn't been much WiFi availability so we haven't been able to update our blog. We're on a "borrowed" computer at a nearby resort and are restricted from adding pictures so we'll update the blog when we return home later in September. Lolly and Duncan, friends from home, joined us for a great week of exploring some of the 30,000 islands of the Georgian Bay. Tomorrow we are expecting Greg and Marzena, also from Mumford Cove, to join us for a few days. After that it's time to winterize the boat and come home.

Here are some of the GPS locations we visited if you want to look them up in Google Earth.
Honey Harbour 44 52.416 N, 79 49.047W
Bone Island, a great anchorage where we met some new friends Ted & Pat, Dave & Sue, (who completed the Great Loop) 44 56.165N, 79 51.648W
Frying Pan Harbour, home of the world famous "Henry's Fish House", 45 10.464N, 80 08.222W

Indian Harbour, Georgian Bay for lunch

The passages to and from Henry's were very narrow and the alignment of the boat had to be pretty exacting. When we entered Indian Harbour, it was just beautiful. We did some gunkholing and found a very interesting sign on an island that said that it was a release area for the rattle snake. We decided not to go ashore on the island. We did go swimming and it was probably our last swim for the season.

The "rock person" imitates indian statues that show which way to go.

Henry's Frying Pan Island

Some of the things we saw on our way to Henry's which is an internationally known resturant. People actually come by float plane. They have dockage for about forty boats. It was about 27 nautical miles from Beausoleil Island to Henry's.

45 10.464'N

80 08.222'W

Frying Pan Bay, Beausoleil Island, Georgian Bay

44 53.883'N
70 50.772'W

Just a little inlet on Beausoleil Island which is a Provincial Park. The sign that talked about bears discouraged us from walking around the island. We met probably the last of the loopers. They really were far behind. They were from Texas.

Bone Island, Georgian Bay

Some of the scenery on or near Bone Island

Pat's brothers place

Pat's brothers place. We stopped by while we gunkholing and had a wonderful time.

Bone Island, Georgian Bay

1. The next day Pat and Ted lead us on a gunkholing trip around the area. We stopped at Pat's brother's cottage and had a great time.
   
   
   Sun. afternoon Ted lead us to Bone Island very near his cottage and invited us over for cocktails and to talk about their great adverture along with Sue and David. We had a delightful time and saw the most beautiful cottage. Pictured are: Linda, Pat and Ted Larson, Lolly and Duncan Stoddard (Ed took and picture).
   
2. There was no room on the dock so we anchored.
   44 56.165'N
   
   79 51.648'W
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Admirals Marina, Honey Harbor

We stayed in Honey Harbour doing some odds (laundry) and ends (dinghy rides for ice cream) until our neighbors from Mumford Cove, Lolly and Duncan, arrived on 9/1/07. In the mean time we met Ted Larson who had the slip next to us in the Marina. Ted, his wife Pat, along with neighbors Dave and Sue had done the loop in 2004-2005 aboard Ted and Pat's boat. Their cottages are on Tabasakwa Island and Ted offered to lead us into the area and Bone Island.

Admirals Marina, Honey Harbor

Our goal was to check out Admirals Marina since that is where we wanted to put the boat for the winter. The Marina caters mostly to cottage boats (cottages only accessible by water) but has great depth in the docks (15 feet) and a large hydraulic lift to pull the boat.

Ed is in his diving outfit changing the props because we dinged the port prop in Rosedale in the channel. He changed both props in 45 minutes--pretty good for a beginner under water.

44 52.416'N

79 49.047'W

Bay Port Yatch Club, Midland, On

We reluctanly left the Trent Severn Waterways after spending about 39 days moving from beginning to end. It was a wonderful experience and we met a lot of very nice people. By now we are very much behind the loopers (those doing the loop continuously are closing in on Chicago). We headed over to the port of Midland via the Waubaushene Channel. The lockmaster at Port Severn was very careful to instruct us on the change in color of markers as we made passage out of the Port Severn area. There is some shoaling around the markers and he told us which side to favor. It is tricky because the buoys change from green, then red, then green again on starboard. Well, we made it okay. It was a very different feeling going out into a large body of water after being in lakes, rivers and canals for so long.

We needed a new battery for our generator which brought us to Bay Port Yatch Club. Ed also repaired the syncronizer switch on the flybridge.

We met Pete who had been to the Newport Boat Show and spent some time in Mystic area and has a Walker Bay dinghy just like ours.

44 45.584'N
79 53.899'W

Lock 45 Port Severn

A view from the lock wall. This is the last lock in the Trent Severn. We are now about to enter Georgian Bay and a new adventure.
44 48.268'N
79 43.267'W

Big Chute

44 53.138'N

79 40.471'W

Big Chute is a marine railroad that lifts the boats out of the water on one side, moves the boats over land and puts them in water on the other side. The drop for us was about 58 feet. You stay on the boat while they are doing this.

Big Chute

The is a view from our boat on big chute. Big Chute is like a dry dock.

Swift Rapids Lock

The lock picture shows how much the lift is on this lock. It is the biggest lift of the conventional locks. Once they start the process they have to fill it or empty the lock. The other picture shows the narrow passage, McDonalds Cut.

44 51.421'N

79 32.327'W

Anchorage McLean Bay

The weather prediction was for winds about 10 knots. It turned out to be more like 25 knots and stormy. We decided to anchor out, the winds finally subsided around 10pm and it was calm after that.

44 50.694'N

79 23.540W

Day 2 Orillia

The is part of the beautiful Couchiching Park on the waterfront in Orillia. It's quite large and the marina has room for about 200 boats. There are not many here now. The weather has been rainy and overcast. It is quite warm and humid. As you can see Ed and I are still talking.

Bolsover to Orillia

44 36.833'N

79 24.760W

We did 22 nautical miles yesterday (total nautical miles is 800) and met this large cruise ship picture above with his bow up in the narrow channel. We went across the largest lake in the system, Simco, very smoothly. We decided to go on to Orilla because the winds were calm the first time in three days.

The paddle wheeler came into port just after we arrived. The staff at the marina had their end of season party on it last night.

We are at a marina for a few days, Orillia is a nice town. We are hoping to see a play here and provision the boat. It is rainy and we are expecting a few storms.

Hole in the wall

On our passage from Kirkfield to Bolsover we had to pass under this very narrow bridge. We had to go dead center to make the height and depth. Our neighbors tonight at the marina did not line up right and are having their prop replaced tomorrow.

We are at Sunset Cove Marina in Bolsover.
44 31.177'N
79 04.587'W

We arrived at the marina early and the owner drove us to West Trenton Golf Course where we played 18 holes. It was very picturesque next to the waterway but we forgot the camera again. We are at 778 nautical miles and we are still talking.

Kirkfield Lift Lock

The whole pan that we drove into moved down while the pan on the other side moved up. If you enlarge the top photo you can see that we overlook the canal 55 feet below.

44 35.86'N

78 59.477'W

We spent the night here and watched the very light traffic go through the lift lock.

Securite, Securite, Securite

East meets West

The channel was very narrow and we had to pass a large boat. We did our securite and knew he was coming. They held for us in a "wider" section of the channel.

Anchorage on Balsam Lake

We spent sometime at anchor in a cove on Balsam Lake. These are some of the sights we saw. The hot air balloon came by towards evening as well as the wooden boat. The wooden boat was five years old. The fellow stopped to talk to us and told us that there were some black bear in the property around us. We never saw any black bear.

Ed was just trying to get rid of some spiders.

Coboconk - Day 2

It was so windy yesterday that even the lilly pad leaves got blown around!

This "seagull's" wings look out of focus because he's still in flight. He just dipped down and hovered for a second while taking a drink.



Today we watched a houseboat, all dolled up with balloons and streamers, arrive at a nearby resort dock. There was a wedding going on. We're not sure if the boat is for the honeymoon or some of the guests.

Coboconk on Balsam Lake 44 39.304'N, 78 47.959W

After Rosedale Lock we ventured out onto Balsam Lake but the weatherman forecast heavy winds again and the possibility of a thunderstorm. So we went to the little town of Coboconk on the northern end of the lake and watched the clouds build and the thunderstorm blow bye with 54 mph wind gusts! It's comforting to be tied up to a dock while the weather rages by.

Rosedale Lock 44 34.30N, 78 47.06W

Spent the last two nights at the Rosedale Lock. It's a beautiful park-like setting, as are many of the locks. Only planned to stay one night and then go into Balsam Lake and anchor out but the winds have been very strong, with gusts up to 35 mph, so we elected to stay tied-up at the lock.