July 24 update

July 23

We sit a day waiting on the weather. Walk downtown and realize there is nothing here. Groceries are a bus ride away, but we really do not need anything desperately.

July 24

A weather break, as we thought we would have to wait until Friday to move, now it looks like we can do it. Well I read the Lake Erie synopsis for the total lake and it said 10 or less winds with waves 2 foot or less. That means 3 up here just like the Pamlico Sound. We leave at 6:45 in a 2 knot following current that has us moving at 9.5- 10 knots. We clear The Detroit River into the Erie and see a complete change with waves coming from the north, starboard stern quarter, and wind from the east. Still the wind and waves are doable.

HA!! The wind is now at 20 knots with waves 3-5 and just maybe higher to busy to really check much. Boat can handle this, I can handle this, but the crew is starting to look green. We are also trying to empty the fuel tanks to finally determine how much they hold. If there is anything on the bottom of the tank it is now mixed with the fuel and the Racor 1000 filter will just have to handle it. We have 15-20 miles to go and the area we are heading toward is 15 foot water for 10 miles. This is not for me. We turn to the islands with just an hour of travel time to hit some protection from South Bass Island’s lee shore. We make it to a totally protected cove from the wind and waves, but not from the boat traffic going to Put In Bay, the main attraction of South Bass Island. We will stay here if we have to all night, but it is not a great anchorage.  The boat pointing to the wind and waves on the stern gives a lot of rolls at times, but it is better than what we were in.

The wind and waves drop off about 4 p.m. and allow us to island hop from South Bass to Catawba, to our destination in 2 foot or less following waves.

We are in slip C 48 at Brands Marina in Port Clinton Ohio for the duration. We need to clean the boat, get Raymarine to tell us where to send our unit for evaluation, rent a car and travel back home.The cell phone works, 252-571-6899 and the email now can be used again. 

 

July 23 update

July 16

We have miserable rain and cold, with a high today of 60 and a low of 48, and winds at 12 knots. We use our free marina day and sit. That’s pay 2 days get the 3^rd one free.

July 17

We leave today around 9 a.m. after fueling, hopefully for the last time in Canada. We only needed 44 gallons to fill up, but at $5.35 a gallon I will not miss the extra cost of boating in Canada. We paid $3.49 in Norfolk so this is a 53% increase over U.S. prices. This is typical of the extra cost of sailing Canada. We checked the cost of a pump out at the Bayfield Marina and we were quoted $35. I refuse to comment on this particular cost.

We travel 20 n.m. to Beckwith Island and anchor in a ½ mile open spot in the island wall. Water depth drops from 200 feet deep to less than 3 feet in a ½ mile. I will try the fishing later after the wind pipes down. Weather forecast was for less than 10 knots waves ½ meter or less.  We got the waves but wind piped up to 15 on the nose and we decided to do the last 40 miles to McGregor Bay in the a.m.

We are in fifteen feet of water so clear we can see the anchor on the bottom in the sand .Beckwith island is a native Indian island totally uninhabited except for the boaters who visit. If you go ashore the cost is $5 a person and $25 for a campsite of 4. I have not seen anyone collecting the money yet, but it is Thursday and the toll takers may wait for the weekend. When we came in and found one other boat anchored. Now 12 boats are here and it is 5 p.m.

July 18

We start at 7 a.m. for Macgregor Harbor our next anchorage.  The Bay is called for S.W. winds 10 knots or less and ½ meter waves. One hour into the trip we are in 15 knot winds and 1 meter waves. The waves are not a problem but the period is as bad as Pamlico Sound from the N.E.. One hour later and we are calming as we get within 15 miles of the Bruce Peninsula. It continues to calm and we have no wind and waves are down to minimal height.

We anchor and until 5 p.m. we are the only boat there. Two small 20-25 foot sailboats come in then to keep us company. On the way over we get a look at a working schooner with what look like teenagers running the sails.

 

 

July 19

The Bay goes completely calm overnight and we wake to a boat covered with Mayflies, see pictures below. We are back into Montana sailing weather as the last week temperatures barley made 70 F. during the day but easily saw 50F overnight. I was cleaning off the flies for 2 hours as we moved on. We talked to a resident of Warner Bay where we are presently anchored and they have not had them yet, but he recalls a Canadian town on Lake Erie that the Mayflies annually are so thick they shut the street lights off in the night.

 

We sailed today with the enclosure completely shut as we were overcast 65F, and the wind with the canvass open made it too cold to stand. As it was we were in sweatshirts all day.

We saw lots of interesting sights today; Depth sounder has not quit since we thought we might have to replace it, and registered 569 foot of water at one point today. Interestingly ½ mile from that low depth we see the following Island to starboard.

Anchorages are plentiful now and we use 3 in a row prior to a stop at Goderich, CA  on our way to Port Huron. We even have to pass an interesting one at Cabot Head called Winfield Harbor.

I tried some pictures but they are not great. There is a hole in the granite that is wide enough for a boat to enter into a ½ mile round interior area that runs to 15 foot depths. We did not go in as we still had 30 miles to go today but it is definitely a place to hide in a storm.

 

you point toward the light house to find your opening

Cloudy day it is hard to see the water opening to left of sailboat masts

 

 

Finally a sailboat leaves as we pass.

We pull into Warner Bay, which is a recommended anchorage according to the charts, and decide lets go to the end and anchor in 12-15 foot of water. We get to a nice spot and Alice puts the anchor off the roller for me to drop. I drop the anchor and then go to reverse at idle to set the anchor.  Something is wrong the anchor is not setting and the boat is moving. Alice complains that I did not let the anchor settle in enough. I am out of gear by this time trying to decide what next. Luckily I look over the side, from the command bridge. Remember you can see bottom here because the water is so clear, well the boulder looking back at me was bigger than our boat. I tell Alice I am hauling anchor and why. We finally find some sandy bottom on the south shore and put the hook down there. I also tied a float to the anchor in case I need to pull it out with the dingy.

This brings up another point. We were so comfortable when we left after checking insurance coverage and unlimited Boat US towing.  We were never going to have extraneous costs. HA!!!

Tow boat is not in Canada and has no reciprocal service with Canada. So bring a good dingy and powerful outboard because that may be your only way to get to harbor. Makes going over a lot of 5 foot channels much more interesting.

Speaking of interesting, we forgot an item during our stop at Bobcaygeon. I will add this in proper sequence after the trip is over but put it in here for now. Bobcaygeon is renowned for the great number of marinas and rental companies that rent house boats to the public to run through the locks at 32 and beyond. They are given a 60 minute course which includes docking the boat once under supervision and sent on their way. Well you can imagine the potential problems that occur. Lock masters watch for them and try to help dock the boats and put them through the locks. We were sitting on the anchor wall at Bobcaygeon because the wind and rain made it unpleasant to move that day. BUT if you are a houseboat whose rental is up you have to go. God was looking out for us because for some reason we were on the boat not out walking when one 40 foot houseboat came running the channel and decides to go to the wall in front of us. He loses it and is now heading to us at full throttle. There is a lot of yelling which brings me topside to mass confusion as I see the houseboat about to join us. His whole family is on the bow trying to fend off as I get up on the side of our boat. As I start to push I realize this guy has got the throttle in forward so I yell reverse 10 or 20 times until he understands. He misses the hull by less than an inch and now is heading for the lock gates. That brings out the lock master to get this guy out of trouble. A single outboard engine runs these boats and control in a following sea and wind is really tough.

July 20

 The attack of the killer Mayflies was still with us. The anchor light is too low compared to sail boats and is a magnet for bugs. Once we leave the anchorage I let Alice drive and begin the 1 hour or more of bug cleanup.  Thankfully we have a raw water wash down pump and spigot in the cockpit that a coiled 50 foot hose attaches to easily and reaches the whole boat.  We leave the anchorage at 6:30 a.m. trying to see how far we can get in case the weather changes. Canadian weather forecasts have us turning bad by Monday night and if we stop as planned (Kincardine 62 NM, Goderich, 40NM and then Port Huron, 62 NM) we need 3 good days of weather. I use some internet minutes to get the US forecast and get good weather until Wednesday. Who to believe? We decide that if today holds up we will push straight to Goderich and by doing so reduce the total distance needed to run this course by 10 miles and one day. This is a straight line run and for 2 hours all is well, then fog. I turn the radar on. I forgot we do not have it on this boat.

The fog starts off giving us ¼ to ½ mile visibility and stays that way for at least an hour. By this time we are heading for the deep, 400 to 500 plus foot depths again and colder water. The fog goes to pea soup and we cannot see past 1 boat length. We run like this for ½ hour and I finally figure we need to do something. We have the running lights on, put on life jackets and blow the horn 3 shorts every 3 minutes. We are not near the shipping lanes but are on a direct path of other pleasure boaters heading to Tobermory or going our way to Huron. They could be trapped in this as easily as we were. Finally we decide that if cooler water brought denser fog we need to get to shallow water, say 200-300 foot depth to hopefully alleviate some of the problem. We detoured back toward shore about 7 miles and then ran a parallel course to our previous course. We started to see 200 foot water and eventually some relief. By noon the fog was clearing up and by 2 p.m. the day was lovely at 70 degrees and bright sun shine. It is almost like sailing the Caribbean when you look at the water. We arrived at Goderich by 6:30 p.m. and go to the fuel dock first where we give over $100 for 20 gallons of fuel so we really will not run out in the middle of Huron and have to use the dinghy to get to shore. We pay for the dock and fuel and we have 2- $20 Canadian bills left to exchange in the U.S. We get our dock, clean the boat, grill some hot dogs, and see bed about 9:30.

July 21

We have a 60 mile run to Port Huron today and it again is a straight run for about 6.5 hours. A really nice day and we pick up the current from Port Huron about 10 miles out. When we reach the bridge the current is giving us a 4-5 knot boost in speed for around 3 miles on either side of the bridge spanning Sarnia and Port Huron.

The interesting story is this drop in water level between Lake Huron and Lake Sinclair is what caused early sailing vessels to be called upper lakes boats or lower lakes boats. Once a boat dropped through the current here it could never get enough speed up to go back to the upper lakes. At least that’s the story I was told. I brought the Freedom 35 through this same spot going to Lake Huron under power and barely had enough power to generate 1 knot of true over the ground headway.

We settle in the Black River in the Port of Huron. They have one dock master for the Port that assigns transient slips at all the marinas. We go through 2 bridges to the River street Marina and tie up.  

 We call customs upon arrival and after Alice answers a few questions, she is informed that we are not in compliance. They will come to the boat and inspect us. Until then we cannot leave the boat or have anything delivered to the boat, or give someone something from the boat. They arrived within the ½ hour looked at our papers and passports, asked a few questions said we were fine and left. They were extremely nice so except for waiting to do check in at the marina, it was not a problem. So we now have officially left Canada.

 We are tired and neither of us wants to cook so we order a delivered Pizza. We have not had a pizza in over 4 months so we looked forward to the treat.

We spend several hours this night trying to find a spot to go to ground in front of the weather system hitting the area. We have one more good day of weather then a cold front hits and brings wind, rain, and thunder storms. All my anchorage spots are on the Canadian side of the river so we cannot use them legally, although when we previously sailed Lake Erie that never stopped us. But after the customs check in I think we will forego living dangerously, while in comingled waters.

We cannot find a place to hide and go to bed thinking we will lose a day of good weather and just stay here. After all they have $.35 cent bus fares to see the city and shop.

July 22

Four a.m. and I check weather, no changes. We really would like to move with the light wind forecast. I systemically go to Active Captain and Navionics charts where marinas are listed and try to find a cheap 2-3 day hole to hide in. It is harder than you think. All the great marinas are in downtown Detroit and are now gated communities. You are asked not to leave the establishment for your own protection. I hate paying to be at anchor. Finally I see a place 60 miles away that is in a nice neighborhood, and has the basic prerequisite, CHEAP.

 We left the Black river this a.m. with 2-3 knots of current running with us. The current held 2 knots for over 20 miles so we hit the Detroit River earlier than we thought we would.

We arrive in a tumult. We have run 5 days with the depth sounder giving us no problems. Today we start the same old problems again with the sounder needing to be turned off and on. I did it once in the St. Clair Lake and when it came on the GPS said we were in Detroit. We cannot run effectively with both units down. Finally the GPS gives a true reading and we finish the day without depth. Staring to think the real problem is the software.

The marina is what you would think for $1 a day and found. Docks are 50 year old concrete with 4”x4” posts for free board catchers. Manager is a one person show who just happens to be out for an hour or two when we arrive. That’s okay; he called the neighboring boats to help us dock. Really not a bad place after you get used to the older docks. We will sight see tomorrow as the weather has us stopped for at least Wednesday.

Here is the a.m. official forecast for Lake Erie:

 TODAY  WEST WINDS 10 TO 20 KNOTS BECOMING NORTHWEST THEN NORTH.  SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS EARLY...THEN A CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND  THUNDERSTORMS LATE THIS MORNING. WAVES 1 TO 3 FEET BUILDING TO 2  TO 4 FEET.  TONIGHT  NORTH WINDS 10 TO 20 KNOTS. WAVES 3 TO 5 FEET.  THURSDAY  NORTH WINDS 10 TO 20 KNOTS DIMINISHING TO 5 TO  15 KNOTS. WAVES 3 TO 5 FEET SUBSIDING TO 1 TO 3 FEET.  THURSDAY NIGHT  NORTH WINDS 10 KNOTS OR LESS BECOMING  SOUTHWEST. WAVES 2 FEET OR LESS.

Lake Erie is unforgiving in a blow so we will wait.

Our final destination is 35nm away. Brands Marina in Port Clinton, OH has given us a good rate to leave the boat for 2-3 weeks and head home to take care of Dr.appointments, medication refills, and try to get my braces off.

We do not know our schedule yet as the weather is in control.

 

July 15 Update

July 13

Rain and wind day, so we sit until Monday

July 14

We talk to several Ray Marine dealers and technicians and none can give a definite answer.

We finally think it is the transducer but nothing is for sure. We move 10-12 nautical miles to Midland, ON and stay at the city Marina. We have a haul out scheduled for tomorrow to look at the transducer and potentially replace the unit. We have our chart plotter/depth sounder on continuously from 9 a.m. this morning and it will not act up. Hope it shuts off over night.

July 15

Well the unit worked all night and we cancelled the haul out this morning as the cost of changing the transducer if that is not the problem especially here in Canada is cost prohibitive.

Given this problem and our costs of continuing in Canada we have decided to take the Tobermory or Bruce Peninsula side of Georgian Bay and head back to the US. If the sounder breaks down we can chart plot our way to the U.S. side of Lake Huron where the costs of repair will be less than ½ of the costs in Canada. This still gives us nice cruising, just not as long.

We have decided we will cruise Lake Erie for a while then head back thru the Erie Canal and home this fall. No great circle route for us.

If we have to sit another day waiting on the weather, we can make the U.S. via the Canadian side in about 10 days. Small run tomorrow of 20-25 miles to anchor then runs of 40 miles and 36 miles to Tobermory / Cove Island. Cove Island represents the half way mark on the Bayview Mackinac Race, long course, run annually from Port Huron to Mackinac Island.

We can then decide to come down the Canadian side of Lake Huron or cross over to Michigan. It will all depend on the depth Sounder.

July 12 Update

July 9 

We have a weather forecast of 60% chance of rain and 30-40 km winds. We are not in a rush so we sit at Bobcaygeon waiting on better weather.

July 10

We move at 7:30 a.m. to make Fenelon Falls, lock 36, about 9:30 a.m... We hope to get on the wall with electric and water. While in the lock we talk to the lock master and he explains the water comes with the electric which costs $13 a day. We tell him we just want to tie up long enough to fill the water tank, but will pay if needed. He finally comes back and tells us the number 3 spot has not been turned off from the night before and go ahead and fill as long as we are leaving.

                                                  Kirkfield Lift Lock.

You want to stop in time

Lock 36 is the Kirkfield lift lock. Just like Peterborough but it is steel and therefore more open than the concrete. We load at the top this time and you know you are going over the edge.  It is so disconcerting to look forward and see the gate and land 60 foot below you. I almost refused to load. I never loaded a boat as slowly as at this lock. The pictures do not do this justice but they were the best we could do.

We run into one of the many of the canal barges at lock 38 where we had to wait on the barge. It was heading back to Peterborough and we were going west. These barges are designed just for the Waterway and take up the whole lock in some situations. Sometimes they are too long and the bow is then folded up to let them fit. See pictures below:

 

We tied up at Lock 39 for the night. There is nothing here. We have 5 boats tied up at the top and bottom of the lock for the night going both ways. The Frenchman with us on the bottom is heading back to Quebec after just buying this used 38 foot Bayliner. So he is going back exactly on the same route we just came west on.

July 11 

We left Lock 39 and headed to Lock 42 for the night.  We have had an on and off problem with the depth sounder while up here and assumed it was the weeds growing from the bottom reducing sensitivity in the through hull sender. Yesterday it was worse and today we cancelled anchoring in favor of finding a full service marina where we can take time to get a Ray Marine technician to look at it. We ran a lot today, 6 hours, with just the chart plotter and no depth. In this shallow water that is no fun. Alice’s arms are tired from throwing the weighted line and yelling, mark.  We tie up at lock 42 which is the largest single lift lock on the waterway at 48 feet. We need to go an additional 18 miles to the marina and clear the Chute railway lock in the morning before we hit the Starboard Marina to try and find a solution to the depth sounder problem.

July 12

Lock 42 is huge, with a 48 foot lift, and quick. We were in the lock tied up, and then leaving in about 15 minutes. The pictures are not great but give a sense of the enormity of the lock. Lock is left full of water over night.

These upper doors are curved and are 2 doors deep to hold the 48 foot of water pressure

Lower doors

 

Next is the Big Chute, which is a rail road lock. You pull into 2 boat slings attached to the sides of an open rail car. The first sling just controls the bow of the boat from moving forward and back and also side to side.  The stern sling keeps your stern from going lower as they move the car forward up the tracks on to dry land.  The final outcome is a bow resting on the car bottom with a raised stern to protect the props. You move 600 foot over the tracks and are lifted and lowered 58 foot.

All the books tell you to tie up and watch a few go through but when we arrive there are no other boats. We try tying on the floating docks and I finally quit as we move over 5 foot water and going toward shore with no cleats yet to tie too and head back to the blue line. We are immediately hailed to enter so I just head on in. The load is not that difficult as they give you timely directions.

This is what we see upon arriving with small boats coming out. The new railway can carry a boat 100 foot in length and 24 foot wide, weighing 90 tons.

Railroad track heading over top of granite hill we traverse

A look back from the boat at where we just came from.

We leave the Chute behind and head another 8 miles to our Marina for the night.Depth sounder worked today until we got to the marina where it quite again. Hopefully we will find a solution to the problem.

 

 

 

July 8 update

July 4

 

We continue up the Ontonabee River today through lock 28 to find some place to anchor. We have a lot of work for Alice today as we go through 8 locks in 10 miles. Whether we make all the locks today does not matter in that our destination is lock 31 and Buckhorn marina on Buckhorn Lake. This is where the scenery of limestone and granite take over from farm land and rolling hills.

Today’s highlight was the Peterborough lift lock, Lock 21. We tied up before the lock and went into the museum/visitors center. The lock is the highest lift lock in the world and lifts us 65 foot to the top to another water level. We go into the lock and tie off to a horizontal rail this time as compared to the vertical lines on a normal lock. The lock is a rectangular pan full of water over 6 feet deep. We drive the boat in, along with any boat going our way. While we are doing this, 65 feet in the air other boats are loading to come down. When all are ready the lock master basically turns a T value and puts 3 meters additional water in the upper chamber to start the top down and us up. The whole trip takes about 8 minutes.

 

Approach to Peterborough Lift Lock lower end heading north.

We approach on starboard and enter the right side of lock for trip up. 

 

 

Looking down from the top of the lock as boats load into the lower pan. 

We only made Lock 24 by 3:30. Lock 25 was having problems so we sat for a ½ hour for repairs to be made. At four we decided to stay for the night and leave at 9 a.m. the next morning when the locks open.

Another boat, Grace, stayed also and we each brought our suppers to the picnic tables between the boats and ate. The family consisted of the parents, 2 boys (11 and 7), and a daughter who was almost 14, we were told.

We took the dinghy and went fishing around 8 p.m. between lock 24 and 25, but all we caught were small rock fish and small mouth bass.

One of the nice things about these locks is that each has its own park like setting with tables garbage cans etc., so that if you do not have a place to anchor, for $.90 cents a foot you have a nice place to stay.

July 5,

We leave about 9:15 in the morning as the next lock is only ½ mile. We clear Lock 25 and 26 at Lakefield, then tie up at the exit wall at Lakefield and head to the grocery to get ice and a few necessities. We then head to Lock 27 at Young’s point. We are going through lakes now connected by the locks. First is Katchewanooka Lake, just a wide spot in the river with lots of 5 foot water depth. I cringe every time we drop below 7 foot. Next is Clear Lake, finally some water to travel over averaging 25 -30 feet for 7 miles. Then Stoney Lake and the Hells Gate of the Trent. This is a nice deep 5 foot channel between granite boulders and islands for about 2 miles. Water actually was deeper than 5 foot but every now and then The depth sounder does register 5 foot.

Lock 28 is Burleigh Falls and we are stuck here. Winds this afternoon have picked up to 40 km per hour so we decline to poke around for an anchorage spot. The lock master at 28 has room for 2 boats max and he says 30 and 31 are full. We remember that this is a weekend and the locals are out to play so the locks are full inside as well as at the walls.

We only have 6-7 total miles until Lock 31 and our marina for Monday to change oil in engine and transmission. Grace catches up with us at lock 28 and gets the last spot.

July 6

We move on to Lock 31 and luckily get a spot on outgoing wall for the evening. We will sit here until early morning and head into Buckhorn Marina in the a.m. So today is a people and boat watching day.

We talk to a lot of boaters and the same comments keep coming up:

1.     Depth gets a little tricky when your depth sounder moves in 3 foot intervals.

2.     Size of vessel. Most of the marinas in this area cannot take 30 foot boats. So you are left with the lock walls or anchoring.

3.     Charts from anywhere but the Canadian paper charts can be misleading.

4.     My comment- the Raymarine 7 inch screen does not show  enough of the total picture before losing critical data like markers.

5.     Find a nice place to stay prior to Friday afternoon and stay there until Sunday night.

The waterway is a mad house on weekends and holidays.

6.     Prices are atrocious. Food especially meats are 30% higher that the states. Hamburger is $5 per pound, boneless chicken breast $4 per pound, beer is $25 a 12 pack. Laundry is $3.50 per double load, Marine diesel is averaging over$5.50 per U.S. gallon and gas at a fuel station is $5.30 if my math is correct.

Forget making a repair to your boat. Fix it temporarily and get to a stateside facility. Repair facilities run $115 to $146 per hour in this part of Canada. The big deal is finding one that can do the work.

July 7/8

We finally move to Bobcaygeon and Lock 32. This is an 18 mile run through canals with 6 foot depths and lakes Buckhorn, Pigeon, and Sturgeon Lake. I can take a ton of pictures that try to show the scenery, but they hardly do the area justice. We ran this am from 6 to 8:30 a.m. in virtually crystal clear water between islands and granite outcroppings. It common to be following the marks and find yourself between 2 just showing granite peaks that have room for 4 boats across. We are the only boat moving except for a few fishermen. We arrive at the lock at 8:30 a.m. and tie up on the outgoing or north bound wall for the day.

 

We are on our 9th day since laundry and we replenish groceries every 3-4 days because of our limited refrigerator room. So this lock and town offer all in a 5 block area. But the big deal is the Library with super-fast and free internet. We also need water as we are on our 5 day, but annot get it here without paying. We should be able to make it to Fenelon Falls our next lock where they have water at the lock.

July 2 update

July 1

Canada Day arrives and we find out all the stores, except the restaurants, are closed. We cannot find an exception. So we eat at the park with everyone else and await the Motown singers who will perform at 8 p.m. tonight prior to the fireworks. Fireworks finally arrive at 10 p.m. Alice has left for bed indicating she has seen a lot of fireworks in her lifetime.

July2

Alice leaves for the grocery and I start trying to line up an oil change. Toromont Cat has a service unit 2 miles away so it should go easy. Wrong. This is a commercial unit not a marine unit. I get a new number for the mobile units and call that number. This is Toronto and before they can work with me I need to sign and return some papers. Like that will be easy, since the marina does not have a fax machine or me a printer. I finally order the oil from the local unit and set up an oil change in Buckhorn on Monday morning. Buckhorn is on our way about 45 miles from here.

The situation is kind of funny in that after I get the oil, I have the filter, oil, and removal pump, but where do I put 7 gallons of used oil? Therefore we go to a full service marina to change oil. 

Chart Discussion

This is a good time for chart discussion. We use a Raymarine 7.5 inch plotter in the cockpit for navigation, added an Apple IPad using the Navionics charts and their plotter for the IPad, and Alice on her handheld Garmin and the paper charts.

The Apple system turns out to be just a paper chart and at times not a good representation of that. The GPS does not keep up with where you are at. It has an icon in the lower left corner and all it does is try to find you. When it does find you the icon does not show you exactly like a chart plotter but is off to the side only giving a general location. Today the GPS icon has us 30 miles away from our true position. We have been sitting for a day and no GPS improvement.

The paper charts are the real deal. WE have found that with Alice plotting our position from her handheld and tracking us on the paper chart we rarely have a big problem as to where we are. This is really important on some of the Canadian lakes where marks may come only every 1-3 miles apart. As you come up between two islands do you turn left or right? At 7.5 knots it is nice to know without zooming out the chart plotter only to have it drop off the relevant data you are looking for. We bought a used chart package prior to leaving that covers the Thousand Islands through Lake Huron and the paper charts from Canada are irreplaceable.

Solar Panels and Boat Battery Usage

When I installed the solar panels my thought was the boat would not get usage from them from 9 pm at night to about 6 am. Using 10 amps an hour, that would pull the 3 house batteries, 315 amps. total down 80 amp hours. The first 10 days we found that average usage was closer to 130 amps prior to the sun kicking in slowly at 5-7 amps per hour help, and then 15-18 amps at full sun.

That leaves the batteries in the am at 60% charged.

 

Usage changed on this all electric boat: 

Refrigerators use looks like 4 amps per hour per unit        8 amps/hr.

Cell phones, electric toothbrushes, computer, iPad,

 Etc. all requires a maintenance charge.                              1 amps/hr.

 

Anchor lite, interior lights                                                      1 amp/hr.

                                                                            Total                     120 amps

Coffee pot uses as much as a microwave or 85 amps

Per hour for 3 minutes 3 times per am.                               13 total amps

                                                                        Total                  133 amps

 

This represents 67% usage on the house battery bank. The next day while still sitting our usage does not change but the solar panels add back about 60-80 amps. We are now down about 70-80 amps.  We cannot run another night without the generator coming on for at least 1 hour.

I could take a risk and add the engine start battery to the works for a second night, but the generator start cannot decide to give up the ghost.

If we run the next day we need to run at least 4 hours to bring us up to fully charged as the alternator is a 75 amp, times 80% efficiency equals 60 amps per hour. This is further reduced by the smart regulator reducing the charge rate as the batteries fill up.

Our battery banks look as follows:

House- 3 group 31’- - 315 amps.

Start- 1 group 4d----- 110 amps.

Generator start 1-group 27- 90 amps.

We have no convenient place to add batteries to the boat.

We need to reduce usage by changing refrigerators or changing to a propane stove oven. All are expensive. So I think I can live with the 1 hour a day generator noise. Besides I can turn the air conditioning on during that time and cool the boat off.  

June 30 update

 

June 26           

Left Kingston this morning after fueling and a pump out. We had 2 anchorages picked out about 10 miles apart depending upon how well things went. We were at the first one by 1 p.m., so decided to go on to the second. We got there and the situation did not meet expectations so we were heading to the third when a sudden rain squall started and we could not see enough to continue.  We found a third anchorage that was not great but would do once the storm passed.  

June 27       

We are ahead of our proposed schedule by half a day. We arrive in Trenton the start of the Waterway at 11 a.m.…I need bait and some new artificial lures for fishing so we look to the town dock for a free tie up for a few hours. That dock needs lots of help and will not work. We see a sailboat tied to a different wall and ask if we can tie for about 2 hours. He says not a problem and helps us tie up. Just as we finish a Marina owner comes by and tells us he will let us use a slip for 2 hours rather than set a precedent letting others see us on the wall. We use his slip as it is a dock not a concrete wall. We walk a total of 3-4 miles round trip to get fishing gear, eat a quick lunch and start for the first lock.

We decide to do the first 6 locks this afternoon and stop at the bottom of 7 for the night. It has an ice cream store. Too bad it closed for the night before we tied up. It was a long day and we finally put the boat to bed on the bottom entry wall of 7.

Lock Number 1

The Trent Severn Waterway is nominally 241 miles long from Trenton to Severn, Ontario on the Georgian Bay.  From Lake Ontario you are raised 598 feet before being lowered 241 foot into Georgian Bay. The canal was started in 1833 and finally finished in 1920. There are 43 locks and one marine railway, which has a travel distance of 500 feet. There are 38 conventional locks two of which are flight locks, 2 locks combined to raise you quickly in areas where one lock would not give you enough height and individually cannot stand the water pressure of that height. We inserted a picture of locks 11-12. We were raised 24 foot in each lock but the first seemed much deeper. We have 4 unconventional locks: The railroad, Big Chute, Peterborough lift lock, and K Kirkfield lift lock.  The waterway is a series of dams/locks connecting rivers, lakes and canals. We can be in a river which opens to a lake etc. Most of the lakes are shallow and compare to Albemarle Sound for depth.

There are no VHF radios used on the locks, except for number one. You enter number one and are lifted up and while you are in the lock you go to the office and pay your fee. We are transiting one way and pay a fee of $4.65 per foot to go through the canal one way.

Now the next locks are run by the same crews on some locks, so lock 1 crew does 3 and lock 2 crew does 4. If you miss number one you wait 1.5 hours for them to return from 3. We initially programed ½ hour per lock to figure time to run on a day, but have since revised that to an hour.

All the locks respond to 3 short horn blasts and give you hand signals as to what to do next. In addition you have a concrete wall that is painted blue that you can tie up to of you are locking through. If you are not locking through but staying then any wall not painted blue can be used. If you stay overnight you pay a mooring fee of .90 per foot of boat length. For this you get a secure concrete wall and a bathroom, but not a shower.

We stayed the first night at a pay wall, then anchored 2 nights and are on a free wall in Hastings, lock 18 at the moment.

The locks all have cable spaced every 20 foot and run top to bottom. You wrap your line around the cable just like the Erie and control the boats forward and aft movement, with the pressure on the line. 

The Trent Severn is a recreational waterway maintained as a National Historic Site by the Canadian government. This then becomes a recreational area for the local population and people from all the major towns like Toronto, Ottawa, etc. For this reason earlier towns along the waterway have survived as tourist sites for the Cottagers as the Canadian vacationers are called. This is a big difference from the Erie Canal where you feel like all you want to do is get through the system.

Flight Lock 11/12

June 30

We leave for at least 2 days in the Peterborough Marina while the locals celebrate Canadian Day July first.

We clear locks 18/19 on our way to Peterborough. Nineteen is one of the original locks and still has the limestone block sidewalls. All the approach walls, bridge supports and abutments have to be watched carefully in this area, because as close as 12 inches under water another support area begins greater than the one above it by 12-20 inches in circumference. You get too close and your boat bottom could get caved in.

Arrive about 1 p.m. in Peterborough Marina. Time for fuel, pump out, clean the boat, and laundry. Very clean marina with great help and free internet to get weather and update our systems. Laundry is a handicap here with only one washer/dryer. Requires you do laundry at 6 a.m. or midnight if you have 3-4 loads.

Tomorrows Canada Day festivities are in the park right behind us so we have a front row seat. The only problem will be whether we can stay up late enough for the fireworks. I remember the granddaughters at the Oriental Croaker Fest who fell asleep during the fireworks.  We are reverting.

 

Water fountain in Little Lake at Peterborough, CA.