7/21/15 – 7/24/15        Trent Severn Waterway to Campbellford, Ontario.

7/21/15                        Trent Severn Waterway thru Lock 7 - Glen Ross

The Trent Severn Waterway is a 240 mile combination of canals and locks connecting numerous lakes and rivers. There are 44 locks of which the first 35 locks will take us from 243 feet above sea level to 840 feet above sea level and then the last 9 will take us back down to 576 feet above sea level. As you can see by the below map, the waterway meanders through the Ontario countryside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of the folks who work the locks on this waterway are college students. That may have something to do with the fact that many of these lock are opened and closed manually. The gates at each end must be opened/closed using the below turnstyles at each end of the lock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some sites along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our destination for the night was just passed Lock 7 in a little town called Glen Ross. Our dinner destination was Richard and  Donna’s Variety Store where we purchased some great Ice Cream.

 

This is us tied to the outside lock wall for the night. We don’t need A/C here at night. The evenings get nice and cool.

 

7/22/15 – 7/24/15        Campbellford, Ontario

Here come our friends Alex and Sharon on Moon Glow who stopped after Lock 6 last night. They appear to have picked up a third boat. That would be Mark and Vickie on Blue Willow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below are some lovely home and nature sitings along our way.

Beaver dam

Large rock with sign, lone tree, and a rope.
Someone's been visiting.

Locks 11 – 12  Double Lock with Traffic bridge. This is really unique. .

All 3 boats loading into the bottom lock.

Making our way from lower lock into upper lock, after we floated to the upper lock level.

Swing bridge at top of upper lock.

 

More sights coming into Campbellford

This is a shot of all the boats tied up at the wall at Old Mill Park. The Park has a commemorative $2 coin originally minted in 1996.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town was very convenient and within walking/biking distance. They had all kinds of shops and restaurants. There was a delicious bakery and a chocolate factory outlet store.

I even found one to do me a new look!

 

 

The town had a Country Concert Saturday night in the park outside our boat. Unfortunately we missed most of it as we had plans for dinner with our friends. Below are some pictures of the town and out friends out shopping.

 

Mark, Alex, Sharon and Vickie

 

 

We have now travelled 14 miles of the Trent-Severn and 127 feet up.

 

More Trent-Severn to come.

7/16/15 – 7/21/15        Oswego, NY and Kingston and Trenton, Ontario

7/16/15                                    Oswego, NY

We headed out of Brewerton toward Oswego. The first thing we had to do was complete the trip through the Erie Canal. Going through Lock 23 took care of that task. We did not travel the Western Erie Canal to Buffalo consisting of Locks 24 to 35. We took the Oswego Canal system.

We passed the Syracuse Canal Maintenance Building. This was a very impressive building. But the condition of the locks that we have traversed would certainly attest to the need for a large scale operation

Lock 1 on the Oswego Canal was quite different. It let us down 10 feet and then had to open a traffic bridge to let us out. Check out the boat behind us as he exits.
 

 

 

I thought it was interesting that these folks had a road running between their homes and their waterfronts.

 

Oswego was a large waterfront town with lots of interesting buildings on both sides of the canal and the river.

Note in the one picture that there is placid water in which our boat is sitting and that is feeding into the fast flowing river right beside it.

The rail is where the canal ends and the river begins.

 

 

 

We traveled 23 miles and descended 125 feet.

 

7/17/15                        Lake Ontario to Kingston, Ontario  (Canada)

Leaving Oswego we went through our last lock on the Oswego Canal and out into Lake Ontario.

 

This was a dreary day that ended in light rain by the time we made it to Kingston. We had to put out a yellow quarantine flag as we crossed the lake to notify everyone on the Canadian side that we had not yet been through Customs. There wasn’t really much to see on the Lake trip over. Some of the sights coming into Kingston were pretty cool.

We came in at the end of a sailing race. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many sail boats together other than at the docks.

 

Here are some of the interesting buildings we saw along the coastline.

This is a Penitentiary

 

 

We traveled 57 miles and down 9 feet.

Upon pulling into the Portsmouth Olympic Marina and getting the boat situated we had to check in with Customs. This was accomplished using a special phone at the marina. I had to stay on the boat until Ken went up and checked us in.  Good news, we were OK'd! At that time we changed out the yellow flag for a Canadian flag. It is considered a courtesy to fly their flag while we are here.

 

7/18/15 - 7/21/15          Trenton, Ontario

When leaving Kingston, we traveled along numerous rivers and across Big Bay. The weather started out foggy and cold, but we eventually got some sun.

The typical lights on the rivers and bays in Canada have a different appearance than those in the Eastern United States. They do still have some shorter ones that look more like our nuns and cans.  Quite a few of these lights are actually on shore, so there aren't a lot of channels marked in the larger rivers. The channels are marked coming into the various ports and smaller creeks. Thank God!

These were some of the homes and buildings and sights along the route.

A ferry

 

 

 

The below Islands were the poor little ones that I doubt anyone else ever takes pictures of. Actually the others were too large to fit in a single picture.

Snake Island (should of been called Bird Island)

 We spent 3 days in Trenton at the Trent Point Marina. This marina just opened last week and the landscaping was being completed while we were there.

 

Trenton is a great little town with interesting sights and convenient shopping and dining. They also have a lovely waterfront walk.

This turned out to be an eventful stop. Firstly, on Sunday our hot water heater went up. So we had to wait until Monday to get it replaced. Then we experienced some really gusty winds and my bike decide to see if it could swim. It couldn't! We were able to find it and pull it back up with a grappling hook Alex and Sharon had onboard Moon Glow. The next day gusty winds dunked my Tommy Bahama Beach Cart that I use for laundry. Luckily nothing was in it yet. I actually saw it gliding down the dock and I was able to get out and grab it before it went under. 

We met about 5 other boats here all doing the loop. I imagine we will continue to run into a lot of these boats as we continue on the next portion of trip.

We are now limited to e-mail but Ken has his phone for emergencies. We won’t have internet access everywhere we go, so that too will be limited.

Stay tuned, more to come.