A really long short day...

Today was a short day that seemed really, really, (really) long. It was only 15.1 NM and lasted just 3 hours and six minutes. A good portion of the miles were across Cameron and Balsam Lakes which was pretty easy going. And there were only two locks, the last of which was another lift lock, the Kirkfield Lift Lock, with its smooth and swift ride. This time down instead of up. It turns out crossing the lakes is, literally, the high point of the Trent Severn waterway. It is all downhill (stream?) from here. And no, I didn't much care for the view going down any more than I did going up. Something that amused Deb to no end. I really am not afraid of heights, having spent a good portion of my working life in the sky. But First Light has no wings and doesn't belong 50 or so feet in the air sitting in a bathtub full of water that has doors at both ends and was built in 1907.

So why did it feel like such a long day? Credit goes to a narrow, twisting, shallow bit of rock infested water known as the Trent Canal. Even narrower than the Dismal Swamp and with the added feature of sporting solid rock walls on each side, walls that stick out enough to easily catch a prop. Even more fun, there were times when the bottom was within a foot, maybe less, of our spinning propellers.

Yup...going in there.

Five feet from the starboard side of the boat.

So narrow was the waterway, that it would have been impossible to turn the boat around. We carried the lowest running RPM the motors are happy with, resulting in a speed of less than 5 knots. Which is a speed so slow that the bow doesn't ride up at all. A necessary consideration given that a good lurch of power causing the stern to “dig in” could very well lead to a prop strike. A marine fun house just full of things that can pop up and make your heart race. 

So, even though the canal isn't all that long, one spends a long time in there. Adding to the fun was that we ended up bow to bow with another cruising boat about the same size as First Light. We passed each port to port at a crawl. The starboard engine was at idle and out of gear. We moved forward with short bursts of power on the port engine and massive rudder inputs to counter the asymmetric thrust. Never done that before in a boat and I was surprised at how well it worked. (Done it times uncounted in multi-engined airplanes. It works pretty well there as well.)

We are going to spend the night on the lower wall of the lift lock. Tomorrow is a another day that will include a couple of locks, one called a “chute” for reasons I'm not sure I want to know. It will also include more miles of the canal. All you can do is go slow and stay in the middle. There is absolutely nothing to be done about the skinny water under the keel. One either gets through unscathed, or hits something along the way. No use worrying about it and it's not like we have any other choice.

Fenelon Falls, Ontario

The swing bridge at Fenelon Falls that has very specific directions about which side you can

transit and that you often can't see the tour boat coming through until it's too late...

Two fishers. The guy said that the heron has stolen fish from his line before. It was funny to

watch—the guy would move over and the heron would follow him.

Piles of stones were the channel markers after the swing bridge.

The lock at Fenelon Falls

The kids and the dog were playing on the rock that was just below the surface.

It looked like they were walking on water. It was 40' from our boat.