The Trent-Severn Heritage Canal

When we left Kingston, we had a choice of 2 routes to Trenton and the beginning of the Trent-Severn. The northern route, though trickier (rocks), is shorter and more protected, so we chose it.  Part of the way across, our navigation system chart stopped showing any detail.  John considered moving out to the southern route, but Mary convinced him that we can still navigate with paper charts, so he agreed.  Canadian buoys are much harder to see than ours and when they show up on the nav computer, you can tell right where to look with the binoculars.  Without it, we spend more time scanning with the binoculars.  We were doing fine, going slowly; John asked every few minutes if Mary would put her finger on the chart to show him where we were.  2 big power boats cruised out of a bay and passed us, so we decided to follow them and travel on plane for a while.

Within 15 minutes, the lead boat passed under a bridge and instead of going on the left side of the river, as the chart showed, he veered right.  We slowed down and followed the correct course, as did the other boat.  Pretty soon both boats pulled out of the channel and stopped, so we motored by.  We heard them on the radio off and on the rest of the day, trying to locate a lift so the props on the first boat could be checked.  We stopped for fuel in Trenton:

This 240 mile long waterway was begun in 1833 and took 87 years to complete.  By the time it was finished, railroads and roads had rendered it obsolete for commercial purposes but it is a pleasure boater's dream.  Most of the locks still have hand-cranked lock doors:

Through the first 6 locks and 7.3 miles, we tie up at the lock wall near Lock 6 which recently added electricity.  We heard calls on the marine radio between 2 boats back in Trenton wondering why horns were being blown at them.  They thought maybe the lock was malfunctioning so called a local marina on the cell phone.  Turns out they were throwing too much wake and the harbormaster warned them they were in for a talking-to when they reached the first lock.  They later joined us here.  John walks across the upper lock wall to go to the small town of Frankford:

Mary Frances at the lock wall.  We had planned a one night stay, but rain fell pretty much all day Thursday, so we stayed put.  That beautiful willow tree dropped lots of leaves on our bow and John had to scrub the stains off in Campbellford:

Friday we left pretty early.  The only signs of life on the other 2 boats were the captains, who offered us a hand getting away.  They soon caught up with us, as we were being cautious.  We decided to follow them on plane for a time, as they know this water.  The first one passed us at the speed that throws a giant plowing wake and got up on plane when they were about half-way past.  The second boat radioed that they would slow way down for the pass, which they did but they, also, got up on plane too quickly and tossed us around some.  We followed them only a short way, as we try to be considerate of boats on shore and small fishing boats and they were not slowing down.

You really do want to stay in the channel, as there are plenty of rocks:

When it's a short distance between locks and we're traveling slowly, Mary stays on the bow, enjoying the sunlight (and saving her hip):

Our last lock of the day is a flight lock, 2 locks that share a door.  We are raised first in one chamber, then the big, blue door opens and we drive right into the next lock:

Looking behind us down at the 2 locks as we reach the top:

We arrive in Campbellford and try to use our calling card to contact the gentleman who rebuilt our navigation computer in 2010.  The card does not work in the pay phone and the per minute charge will be $5.00 so we go back to the tourist information center where we paid for our dockage and electricity and ask to use the phone.  Guess what-the calling card doesn't work there, either.  The delightful young woman "manning" the office tells us to just put the call through.  The next concern we have is that this guy never answered his phone when we were in contact with him a couple of years ago-we always had to leave a message.  It's after 4 o'clock on a Friday-what are the chances?

He actually answers the phone and explains that even though our original cd's included Canadian waters, the system has been revised so they are now separate (surely not just so they can make a little more money).  When he reloaded all of our charts, he used the newer versions.  He will ship us what we need guaranteed overnight.  It's Sunday and we're still here waiting.  (Why we aren't using our cell phones-we have an old Alltell plan which works very well for us.  When Verizon took over Alltell, they let us keep our plan until we make any changes, including adding Canadian coverage for a month.  If we did that, we could not go back to our old plan.  We're not worried, after all we have our calling card!!!  We can use our cell phones in case of emergency, when we wouldn't worry about the charges, anyway!)

The man who designed the "toonie", Canada's 2 dollar coin is from this area, so this monument is in the park: