Enjoying a lay-day in Parry Sound

We are enjoying a lay-day at Big Sound Marina in Parry Sound.  Since leaving the Trent-Severn Waterway and beginning our passage through Georgian Bay, we spent two nights on the hook before coming to the marina yesterday.  Just when I think the scenery can't be any more beautiful, I am in awe again.  This area is also called the 30,000 Islands, but there are probably 3 or 4 times that many islands.  There are numerous well-marked channels as navigating safely through the rocky waters is of paramount importance.  We anchored the first night in Frying Pan Bay on Beausoliel Island, which is part of the Georgian Bay Islands National Park.  We took a leisurely hike around Fairy Lake and only got lost once.  The next night we anchored in Echo Bay and had our first experience with Med mooring.  In order to cut down on swinging and allow room for more boats to anchor, this technique involves putting down an anchor and then backing in toward shore and carrying a line from the stern of the boat and tying off on shore.  Being novices at this, it took us forever and it didn't help that when Mark took the first line ashore (a very old anchor line), it had deteriorated and actually snapped in two places when tension was put on it.  Fortunately this happened while we were working with it and not in the middle of the night.  While enjoying some down-time in Parry Sound, we have also done laundry, bought groceries, shopped for Canadian trinkets, and gotten a haircut for Mark.  Tomorrow is Canada Day  and there are big festivities planned here, but weather permitting, we will move on to a quieter spot.

Our first glimpse of Georgian Bay

An Inukshuk - the Inuits used these stone representations as directional markers. 
 They are replicated today in front of many cottages.

Acting silly! - My heron pose

Mark at Fairy Lake on Beausoleil Island

Beautiful beyond belief!

Calypso anchored in Frying Pan Bay

Next stop - Georgian Bay!

After many days without wi-fi access, I have a weak signal and will try to finish this post quickly.  This will be our last night on the Trent-Severn Waterway.  We are docked above the last lock at Port Severn.  Tomorrow night we expect to be on the hook in a pretty cove somewhere and we hope it will be quiet.  Unfortunately, Canada Day is this weekend (July 1) and it feels like every boat in Canada is headed for Georgian Bay right now.  The next month or so we will spend in Georgian Bay and North Channel, which take us across the top of Lake Huron and then to Mackinaw Straits and Lake Michigan.  It's hard to believe that distance-wise we will soon be at the mid-point in our journey.

On the TSW we experienced two flight locks (where you go straight from one lock into the next), two lift locks (where your boat floats in a big pan that is hydraulically lifted as the pan beside it is lowered - think see-saw), and finally, the Big Chute Railway - yes, our boat was driven onto a railway carriage, held in place by slings and then carried by rail out of the water, over a hill, and back down into the water on the other side.  It was amazing (and a little frightening).

We have started meeting some very nice folks along the way, but usually our paths diverge after a few days.  It's also been amazing how many people we meet who know of or have some connection to Punta Gorda or Charlotte Harbor.  For those of you who may be wondering, my hand is doing much better - there's still a very noticeable hematoma but the purples and greens are much more muted now.  I am trying so hard to be careful, but it's really hard on a boat.

Don't know when we'll have wi-fi again, but until then - wishing everyone a safe and happy Canada Day and/or Fourth of July!

Peterborough Lift Lock - we will be entering pan on right side

View from the top of Peterborough Lift Lock

Navigational challenges abound!

Christmas in June at Port of Orillia

Big Chute Marine Railway track

Watching another boat in the Big Chute

View from Calypso while traversing the Big Chute

Can you find the moose?

Entering the Trent-Severn Waterway

Not much has transpired since my last post, but I do have a wi-fi connection, so I thought I'd update while I could.  After our beautiful day of sightseeing in Kingston, the next day was windy and wet.  We stayed onboard all day, but were finally able to get out for dinner between thunderstorms.  Yesterday was one of those absolutely gorgeous days that often follows the stormy ones.  We moved about 70 miles west from Kingston to Trenton.  A few miles from Trenton lies the first lock of the forty-four we will encounter on the Trent-Severn Waterway.  In addition to the traditional locks that most are familiar with, we will be lifted via pan locks (the boat is floating in what looks like a giant bathtub and the entire thing is lifted) and by a marine railway which takes the boat completely out of the water and carries it across dry land - stay tuned for pictures of these exciting means of conveyance (within the next week or two).

The good news is that I finally was able to see a doctor here in Trenton. In spite of the fact that my hand still looks awful and is very tender if I move it the wrong way, the doctor assured us that the big bump is nothing more than a hematoma and it will take time for it to resolve.  It's been kinda fun (in a perverse sort of way) to see how Mark copes with not having a fully functional crew member - i.e., he's been doing most of the cooking and doing most of the line handling that I usually do.  Hmm, maybe I should milk this for all it's worth.

We really are in Canada

Trenton's claim to fame

                                            Calypso is docked at Fraser Park Marina in Trenton

Canada, at last!

We are finally in Canada - arrived yesterday and cleared customs at Kingston.  It was a very painless process.  Kingston is a beautiful city and the marina is in the heart of downtown - just steps away from lots of pubs, shopping, historic buildings, pubs, churches, pubs, and more pubs.  Mark thinks Kingston is heaven - maybe has something to do with all the pubs!  We took the trolley tour this morning and saw the Royal Military College which is the Canadian equivalent of West Point.  The campus was beautiful. 

To backtrack just a bit, we left Oswego, NY on Friday and motored to Sacket's Harbor, NY.  It was not a perfect weather day and we had a rather rolly ride for much of the trip.  Sacket's Harbor, though, was a beautiful port of call.  We found it to be a quaint little village with a number of good restaurants, some antique shops, and lots of beautiful flowers.  Sacket's Harbor was the US naval headquarters on the Great Lakes/St Lawrence River during the War of 1812, so there are a lot of activities going on there this summer.  We toured the Sacket's Harbor Battlefield Historic site, which included the Navy commandant's home from circa 1860.  It turned out that the last Navy commandant to live there was Tatnall from Georgia, who resigned his US Navy commission to return to Georgia and serve in the Confederacy.  "Failure to launch" must have been a problem back then also, as our tour guide informed us that the Tatnalls' five grown children lived with them.

We had planned to leave Sacket's Harbor Saturday morning, but we ran into our first problem on this trip.  When I got up, I noticed that my hand was a little sore.  I looked down and discovered it was swollen slightly.  I showed it to Mark and while he was looking at it, my hand almost doubled in size.  I wasn't aware of banging it on anything, twisting it, etc., but it just ballooned in an instant.  Needless to say, we were both scared to death - in a strange place, didn't know a soul, and didn't know what to do.  I asked a lady I saw getting off another boat if she knew where an urgent care facility was and she acted like I had leprosy.  We finally determined that there was a hospital about 10 miles away and Mark arranged for a taxi to come and pick us up.  While waiting for the taxi, a gentleman out walking his dog did offer to drive us to the hospital if the taxi didn't show up.  At Good Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, they took x-rays, drew blood, and did an ultrasound to check for blood clots in my arm, but nothing showed up.  Basically they didn't have a clue what had caused the swelling, but didn't think it was anything serious.  And restoring our faith in humankind, the gentleman who had offered to drive us stopped by the ER to see if we needed anything. 

Sunday morning the swelling had gone down considerably and there was no pain as long as I didn't try to use my hand (the right one, of course), so we decided to move on to Kingston.  Well, this afternoon we decided that it wouldn't hurt to have it checked again since now that the swelling has gone down there is a knot, so we walked to the local hospital.  Found the urgent care clinic to be packed with people who had been waiting over two hours just to sign in (a preview of Obama-care?), so decided that I was probably going to live and could wait and see what happens between here and our next port of call.  If the weather is good tomorrow, we will start working our way west toward Trenton and the beginning of the Trent-Severn Canal.

Nine Mile Shoal Light on Wolfe Island

Kingston Visitor Information Center

Kingston City Hall

Kingston skyline

Martello tower - one of 4 built in the 1840's to protect the harbor

Woe is me!

Calypso prepares to enter Lake Ontario

This is the lighthouse at the mouth of Oswego Harbor on Lake Ontario that we will motor past when we venture out into the Lake tomorrow or Saturday.  We have one more lock in front of us and then nothing between us and Lake Ontario.  It's been a week since we entered the Erie Canal and I must say, that locks no longer strike fear in my heart.  After 23 Erie Canal locks and 6 Oswego Canal locks, it has become somewhat routine.  That's probably a good thing, because we have over 70 locks left before we find ourselves back in Florida. 

Just when we've gotten comfortable with the rivers and canals of NY (what I call "little water"), now we have to tackle "big water" again and start to be concerned with wind and waves once more.  One of the big unknowns is whether or not we will be able to access wi-fi often.  We are turning off our data plan while we are in Canada because doing otherwise would be too costly.  What that means is that blog posts may be few and far between in the weeks ahead.  We plan to spend a few days on the eastern end of Lake Ontario in and around the region known as "the Thousand Islands" before heading up the Trent-Severn Canal.

We spent today picking up mail that had been forwarded to the post office here in Oswego and then exploring the highlights of the city.  We discovered an old railroad tunnel that has been incorporated into a pedestrian walkway and spent some time exploring Fort Ontario.

Oswego, NY

On the shore of Lake Ontario

Mark at Fort Ontario

Getting ready to say good-bye to the Erie Canal

We now have 22 of the 23 Erie Canal locks behind us and after being lifted to an elevation of 420 ft., we have started descending again.  The two locks that we went through this morning each lowered us about 25 ft.  We are docked at the town dock in Sylvan Beach, NY - a beach resort on Oneida Lake.  The place is absolutely dead today - of course, it is a Monday and it is drizzly and 66 degrees.  We are still amazed at how few other Looper boats we have seen.  We are probably a little ahead of the pack, but there are some boats ahead of us.  We just can't seem to get into sync with anyone.  The scenery on the Erie was truly breathtaking - it's hard to believe that our boat which was in the Atlantic Ocean just over a week ago has now crossed the Adirondack Mountains.  Friday night we stopped at the Village of Conjoharie, which must have had a dozen pizza restaurants to choose from.  From there we went to the City of Little Falls.  The lock just before Little Falls lifted us 40 ft - once the highest lift in North America. Another unique feature of this lock (#17) is that the gate is a lift gate instead of the traditional horizontally-opening gates.  Tomorrow we will probably cross Oneida Lake and stop in Brewerton.  Then the next day we will begin traversing the Oswego Canal, which will take us to Lake Ontario.

Here's Mark at the top of the lock, waiting for the gates to be opened.

The beautiful scenery is never-ending.

 Lock 17 - notice the gate is lifted, awaiting our entry

This was the view from our dock at Little Falls, NY.

 Lock 19 is hiding behind this bridge. This was where we really had to dodge the floating logs.

One sees all kinds of vessels - some large  and some small

Taking a walk along the shore of Oneida Lake