Exodusfloatnotes

Great Loop Travels

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  • Starting Trent-Severn

    After waiting out the strong winds coming across the lake on Sunday, we left Trent Port Marina on Monday, June 24.

    The first lock at Trent had an 18-foot vertical lift. One small boat joined us.

    Den at stern at a lock with Nelson supervising.

    On Monday, we made it through 8 locks (whew) and stayed on the wall of a remote one called called Percy Reach. We were the only boat above the lock. (One sailboat was below.) Very pleasant spot. Only downside was being unable to open many windows on boat at night in order to prevent unwanted visitors from the family of racoons we saw crossing the lock bridge! Pictures show how lock workers manually open doors of lock after water has filled. Not all locks are manual, but this one still is.

    Ranney Falls Locks 11 and 12 are pretty impressive – a 48-foot vertical lift.

    Picture below shows giant “Toonie,” the Canadian two-dollar coin, in park at Campbellford. Because we wanted to make it to Hastings before rain, we were unable to stop at at Campbellford to visit what is known as the “best bakery in Canada.” More on that later.

    We docked on wall above Hastings Lock 18 that evening, Tuesday, June 25. We were walking the dogs on the sidewalk near the boat when a man and young girl came up to us saying, “Here is your donut delivery.” It was a lockmaster from one of the locks who I’d been chatting with about not being able to stop at Campbellford. He knew we were ending up in Hastings near where he lived and had made a run to the bakery for his family anyway after which he and his daughter brought us a couple of the famous donuts!

    On Wednesday, June 26, we crossed Rice Lake and made our way to Peterborough Municipal Marina. Power, water, internet, groceries, and fuel! Below is picture of the fountain/geyser in bay by marina.

  • Day #1

    Our Great Loop journey began bright and early at 6:00 this morning! Many thanks to our friends at the marina that willingly got up so early to see us off the dock. We are especially grateful for the prayers. The picture shows two somewhat sleepy-faced people attaching an official “Looper” flag.

    We wanted to get as far as Trenton, ON, today to be beyond the wind and weather predicted for Lake Ontario tomorrow which would impact portions of our trip if we waited or went part of the way. Made it to Trenton in the afternoon (78 nautical miles), in and out of rain most of the day. Dogs both get an A+ for being excellent travelers. Well, so far!

  • Routes

    First map shows rough float plan/route from home marina (Clayton) – which is above Watertown on map – through Trent-Severn and Georgian Bay plus North Channel to Mackinac Island area, above Petoskey on map (Hospodar, 2015). We hope to complete this portion of the trip by the end of July.

    Second map shows the float plan from the Mackinac Island area to Mobile Bay (Hospodar, 2015). We hope to complete this portion of the trip by the end of November.

    Third map provides broad overview of entire Great Loop (with different possible routes) – a circumnavigation of the eastern U.S. and part of Canada (https://www.greatloop.org/great-loop-route.html). We will not cross Florida and begin the route up the east coast until April 2025.

  • Historic street signs

    Love these classic signs welcoming you to vacation in the beautiful Thousand Islands region

  • Mini-launch

    The inflatable is in the water. When we’re underway, the dinghy attaches to the boat by davits on the swim platform. We use the inflatable as a “vehicle” to help us reach places the boat can’t, such as exploring in and around islands as well as getting to shore when at anchor (i.e., shuttling dogs to shore for their morning constitutionals).

  • Checking things off the lists

    …….many lists! What to clean, what to purchase, what to install, what to research – there’s a list for everything. Over Memorial Day weekend, Dennis installed our AIS (Automatic Identification System). It functions as an “overlay” on our Maptech (electronic charts running on a laptop at helm). This will allow us to see commercial boat traffic as well as any other pleasure boats having AIS and will also allow our boat to be visible to ships and boats with AIS. One picture shows Dennis pulling VHF coax wire for the AIS unit. Brian and John, two friends from the marina, showed up to help. I asked them to all say, “I love technology” for the picture. You can see by the look on Den’s face that at that moment the unit wasn’t working yet! Turns out that turning everything off and then on again also works in this case.

    Meanwhile, as the weather has sometimes been a little different from the Florida weather to which she’s grown accustomed(!), Ivy often prefers sitting in front of the heater while Nelson is the only using the sunbathing pad on the bow. I’m checking out whether these bedspreads and shams will fit the forward cabin bunks … definitely one of the more fun jobs on the list.