June 2 to June 13, 2007

June 2, 2007 - I sincerely hope we have not used up our lucky days. This morning in Oswego we got up about six in the morning woken up by all the fishermen headed for Lake Ontario. They were kind of a loud and raucous bunch as fishermen in a group usually are. But we went ahead and rose for the occasion which was to be an early morning trip across Lake Ontario which was about sixty miles we figured as the crow flies. We looked across at the flags on the marina and they were totally still. So it was get ready and go and we will eat breakfast on the way. We had planned on having milk and cereal anyway for this morning. We heated up our tea in the microwave, unplugged from shore power and loaded with the gas in the tanks from yesterday off we went. Well I have seen hazy conditions before but these were almost like fog. We set the power of the engine on about 3500 or a little more in rpms and started the trip. We could see an occasional fishing boat from time to time as we crossed. The haze out in the middle of the lake had become a fog in which we probably could see only two boats lengths around. We had tried to set up the radar before we left but it would not turn on for some reason so for parts of the trip we were running pretty blind with only the GPS to tell us what was going on as far as a course across was concerned. We had put in three waypoints the night before because we had to pass close to an island which was surrounded by lots of rocks and if we could read it right on the chart some kind of lighthouse was on it. We hit our first waypoint on the nose and then I screwed up setting the course for the second one and had to reset it. It came on and we lined up on it and by this time the weather had eased just a bit and we could see somewhat better. We were getting close to the rocks and the second waypoint when in the sunlight the thing we thought might be a lighthouse came upon us with its brilliant white paint shining in the sun above the fog layer. What a beautiful sight to see and it was surrounded by rocks and scads of birds but the lighthouse itself was just almost decayed to nothing but yet painted this wonderful white color. Now it was on to the next waypoint and again the haze and fog thickened around us only this time we were now running close to shore but could barely see an outline of it. And again when we reached the waypoint there was another big and beautiful white lighthouse. We felt very fortunate at that point that we had succeeded and our navigation had worked. All of a sudden as we got closer to land the sun came out and it became a glorious sunny day. We continued to follow the markers through the bay to get to a canal cut that ran on to Trenton, Ontario and that is where the Trent-Severn Waterway begins in Canada. But before that; in the cut we had been told that there would be two road bridges which were very low and Shorty would not fit under had to be opened by a bridgemaster. We came to the first one and I noticed it said on my chart that it was a customs checkin point as well. We pulled over and tied up and I went up the bridge house and asked if we could check through customs there and he said sure; he would call them for me. I went to get the necessary things he said I needed from the ships papers and then went back. He made the call to border services and I gave the man the information and he gave me a number to use anytime anything went wrong in Canada and he would help us. Did not even need a passport to get in and Shorty did not need a decal. We proceeded through that bridge and the next and then we were in the bay which led to Trenton and we arrived there at about noon. Then we proceeded onward to the first lock where after being locked through we went into the offices there and purchased our transit pass for one way through the canal system and also a pass to tie up at any lock after we passed it for free by tying to the wall outside it where the have restrooms, picnic tables, benches, etc. We can also fill up with water which we did this evening. After the first lock it was just like the Erie Canal in that they have in very quick succession a series of six lock they like for you to complete all at once and which are probably less than a mile apart. We completed this set with two other boats and since Shorty was small we were told to tie off on the bigger boat instead of the lock wall. Boy did this make life easy for us and a little bit harder for them and we were the lead boat out and second one in for all of this series of locks and while this is all happening everyone is chatting with each other. It is somewhat like my mom used to call a hen party. We did this until three o’clock when we dropped out because we were tired and had a long day at that point. Then we tied up the boat and went up to visit with the lockmasters that had traveled all over in the USA including Florida and Texas and elsewhere. Today was also a very hot day for up here and they said it was too early to have one of these. There is a tropical depression on the US coast which is stalling a cold front for up and here and making the winds southerly and pulling our hot humid weather this far north. All that is supposed to change with a possibly rainy day tomorrow and onward with cooler weather but I hope not cold weather. One of the other boats said they watched us go across Lake Ontario but did not realize it was us until they were headed the same direction as we were. We were going much faster than them and then they saw Shorty’s big outboard and understood why we were doing 20 mph and they could go 15 mph max. So we sort of lead the way but if you looked at our track on radar we were probably doing a lot of ess curves all the way over as Shorty seems to torque first one way five degrees and then the other when going that fast in about 1 foot swells left over from other boats wakes and even waves from windier days prior. Also I seem to have an attention deficit because I have a tendency to look all around and when I come back I have lost my heading by a few degrees. Bob says I turn the wheel the direction I am looking unconsciously. But after a hazy, foggy start the sunset here is just a pale pastel of colors and once again the water is like a looking glass and we have just had one fantastic day crossing a large body of water that is one that is generally windy and nasty. We have many more to go and I am sure our luck will not hold forever but when it does it is a beautiful thing to behold. This is a very scenic part of Canada and the trees we noticed are much smaller in size with more pines and cedars and hardwoods and also cattails in the marshy areas. The locks we are going through are hand operated by the lockmaster and his crew and most of the locks are gravity filled and emptied. We have changed our flags to the Canadian flag on top, USA next, and below that our great loop flag as a courtesy to the host country but not forgetting our heritage, merely honoring theirs as well.

We still had to empty our sponges which filled again today with water from somewhere but that is a small price to pay for what we are experiencing and it could be worse. Our patch is working now.

P.S. Those mosquitoes you hear about that appear in clouds are here to welcome you to Canada in the evenings but outside of being more of them they are babies next to Texas mosquitoes.

June 3, 2007 - We spent the night in Campbellford, Ontario on the canal wall but with power at their visitor’s center. They had very nice facilities and very clean ones. The day getting to Campbellford was one of looking at very scenic areas all along the way. We saw hilly countryside and some of it was being farmed. The farms looked like dairy farms and on some we saw the cattle languishing in the lush spring green pastures. But also there were a lot of marshy areas along the canal and river basins feeding it. These are marshes of cattails and not of salt grasses. There are a lot of small islands in the river channels. And of course being a short distance from Toronto by auto there are lots and lots of summer cottages and some huge homes. Yesterday was a very hot day for Canada and if the front comes through it will be rainy and breezy tomorrow. There are also a number of small villages and they are usually at the locks we go through because there are usually roads leading to them. We checked out the local real estate values and they are the same as they are in the States anywhere from 150-500 thousand and more. There property taxes also run more but that is to be expected with the Canadian system of government which provides lots of services. Sometimes we will see small marinas and occasionally there will be some small boats like we are in them and other times there are just fishing boats because the whole area looks like it would be a fishing haven. We also have seen lots of fish jumping in the shallows and some quite near the boat but have not been able to identify them as to kind. People are really surprised at how hot it is here at this time of year. We have seen a few brave souls in swimming. The boat traffic on the canal has been really slow and they say it has been steadily decreasing since the price of fuel has gone up so high.

On yesterday’s run of locks we reached an area that had kind of a gorge through it and you could view the gorge from a suspension bridge over it. You also go a good look at the power plant at this location and it was cut through granite and then the stone was used to build the building and walls of granite were really neat looking.


June 4, 2007 - We finally got the rain that has been promised. It rained during the night and is still raining this morning in Campbellford. We have a short series of locks that are bunched closely together and which raise us rapidly up another fifty feet or so and then we leveled out for a long way. One of the locks was even a double lock which means you go into the first one and it raises you ten or fifteen feet and then into a second one ahead of that and it raises you another ten or fifteen feet at one time. These are usually powered locks but all the rest of the locks in the Canadian system are hand powered by two people turning a lever that looks like a big wrench and hand crank the gates open. All the locks fill and empty using gravity and no power. Some places adjacent to the lock will also be a small one or two turbine power plant to use water power from the river to produce electricity. It has now stopped raining this afternoon but it is still overcast and they said it would be the same tomorrow and then it will clear up for a few days. The breeze coming off of the river is pretty cool and I am sitting here writing this with my sweatshirt on and feeling comfortable whereas yesterday it was hot and humid and you sweat with any movement. The town of Hastings where we arrived at around noontime has grocery store, pharmacy and anything else we might need just around the corner from the locks. The lock building here does not have showers but the bathrooms are clean as a whistle and it is about a hundred yards from the boat to go use them so you again must plan ahead or use the head on the boat. It is just a very quiet serene place to sit and write and after while we will fire up the little generator and sit back with all of the comforts of home.

June 5, 2007 - This morning started off as another gray day. We had breakfast and then as soon as everything was shipshape and ready to cast off here comes the rain. As the day went on the rain got harder and then stopped for a bit when we got to the city of Peterborough where there is a visitor center describing the hydraulic lock that we were going to be going through a little later on that is located in Peterborough. When we got back to the boat and ready to go up to the lock it started raining again and we had a very cold wind to go with it. The Peterborough lock is a hydraulic lock which if you can visualize two giant pans of water one on each side of a large tower. The pans are filled with water and one is then filled with slightly more than the other and when that happens it pushes its piston down and the other pan filled with boats rises 19 meters to the top and the gates are opened and the boats are on the way. Then they refill the upper one with boats and down it goes to lift the one on the bottom filled with boats. If there is a boat going up on one side and not the other they just balance it out with water and carry out the operation that way. We went from Lock 18 where we overnighted to Lock 24 and called it quits for the day. Our hands were cold and Bob’s were beginning to turn blue. We have the generator sitting on the dockside and our heater plugged in and running. There is a chance that we will have some frost tonight the lockmaster said. We are going to do our cooking and then shut the generator off and light our Coleman stove if we need some heat so we can conserve our generator for making microwave stuff in the morning. The wind was really blowing today in addition to the rain and made the locks hard to negotiate. About half way through we caught up with a group of rental houseboats with inboard motors going about 5-6 miles per hour between locks so we got locked through with them all day and when we stopped they continued onward because they wanted to get to some particular lake before they had to turn around and repeat the locks backward to where they rented the houseboats. They really got blown around in the wind and current. They tell us at the locks that from here on the scenic landscapes only get more so and we saw some very nice houses, cottages and more farms today along the way. We also hear that there will be more wildlife appearing as we go further. I did notice today that it was getting a bit rockier and also that the trees we see are slightly smaller as we go further north. In the winter they use the canal for skating because at the visitor’s center in Peterborough they had a great big room set aside for skate changing. Our tie up area just above the lock is very quiet and peaceful and I know don’t complain, just a couple of days ago we were sweating in the locks. The water is actually warmer than the air so it is steaming some now and certainly will be in the morning.

June 6, 2007 – We spent the night last night tied up at the lock wall in Duoro and it was really cold when we woke up and the boat was sweating inside with condensation. I woke up during the night and when I turned the condensation hit my head and rolled down on the pillow making it nice and wet. But we managed and with daylight came the realization that it might be just a gray day with no rain, better but not perfect. As the day went on things got better, the clouds continued to break up and now this evening at Burleigh Falls it is a gorgeous, not warm but cool evening which could lead to another gorgeous sunset. We are again tied off at the lock wall with use of the restroom facilities at the lockmaster office building. This is free because we bought the wall pass when we started the system at the first lock. We walked around the corner to see the falls and rapids which were very neat; all carved out of the granite and water clear enough to see the bottom of the stream. Our wake as we slice through the water is a beautiful white now and the water has only a slight colorization from the trees at the edge of the water. The scenery today from where we started is like the difference of night and day. We are now following a channel dotted with granite islands covered with trees and some of them have really beautiful summer homes on them with only access by water or in the winter by ice. Most I believe are just summer homes as they don’t appear to be open yet and they range from hunting and fishing cabins to mansions but they are usually set back so far in the woods that you can hardly see them and the only hint is a dock or a slight opening in the trees. Where we started today there were farms and agricultural land on the flatter side and marshes on the other but not any more. People tell us here at the lock that it only gets more spectacular as we go on. Today at one of the locks we met some people on vacation up here in Canada on a houseboat and they leave for Crystal River, Florida on Friday. They have a boat and it is taken care of by Three Rivers Marine there as was Shorty when I bought him and where Shorty will be returning to when the trip is finished, maybe. You never know who you will meet and where they will be from. The trawler in front of us tonight is going to their home port in Montreal, Quebec via the Rideau Canal system and they have a home on the St. Lawrence River there which sounds spectacular as it is on a hillside overlooking the St. Lawrence Seaway and the other side as well. The people are so nice and some are funny. A fellow saw me carrying my gallon can today to buy fuel for the generator as our tanks are fixed so we can’t even steal fuel from ourselves with a siphon tube to run the generator. He asked me if I was going to purchase Canadian gold because gas here is the equivalent of almost five dollars a gallon here. The lady at the general store also told me a little about the money. They have a dollar coin with a loon on the back and they call it the Looney. They have a two dollar coin which has two different metals in it which they called the Tooney. So you could go to the buy something which was a Looney Tooney in price. One lock before the one we are at tonight they were having lock problems with the cylinders and we had to wait for a diver to come and go down in this hole with a flashlight and fix the pin which had broken off with another stronger one and some more washers and cotter pin. It took them an hour or so but no one complained. They either watched or like I did went to the Lockside Trading Company and the general store and then came back to watch them finish the job.

A fellow from Parks Canada stopped by to see the boat and get Three Rivers Marine’s phone number. He said he had heard about Shorty on the radio as the locks talk to one another and let each other know how may boats are headed there way. He said that he was part of a group studying the canal system of Canada and finding out what they are going to do in the future as the infrastructure of the system is costing Canada just like the Intracoastal Waterway does in the USA. He said it may come to the point where they will have to shut down the locks and maintain the dams and hydroelectric power they produce. This was the way I felt when I began the trip; that if I did not make the trip soon it would not be there. I feel that maybe in the future the Intracoastal will be so condominium loaded that no one will care about the waterway itself and the people who use it and make there livelihood from it that they will decide not to maintain and just let it decay and forget about the boaters and retirees who live on the waterway. Everything has to do with the bottom line anymore and no one sees or cares about the beauty of the system except the people who have been on it and who use it. I wish he would have had more time to visit.

June 7, 2007 - We moved across three lakes today from Burleigh Falls. One was the lock and lake called Lovesick, then on Lake Buckhorn after the lock there and one more called Pigeon Lake to the town of Bobcaygeon, where we are tied up at the town dock again this evening. We arrived in town around noon but going across open water we move faster so it did not take us too long to get here. You have to watch the channel very close in the narrow areas of the lakes and then you can go faster on the open water as there is not much to see there. There were lots of rock islands which had to be treated cautiously as the granite rock extends out into the lake from points and it is clear enough some places to see it under the water when the wind is not rippling the surface. The winds were blowing pretty well but they were behind us most all day. A couple of times it looked like we might have some rain but most of it has now passed us by and it is a nice sunny and breezy day. We went out for lunch today since that is when we arrived here because Bob wanted a good hamburger. I had a good chicken sandwich trying to be good with the food because the day before I fell off the wagon and ate a hole in Bob’s little white powdered sugar donuts. This town is centered on the lock because it was the first lock built in this part of the system. It was built to promote trade of lumber and agricultural products from one part of the province to another. I went to the town library today here and used their internet correction to get my emails and erase all of the spam. From the last six days of no internet connection. When I finish this today I am going to try to publish it and hope I will be successful in doing so. We are across the street from some housing built to house the elderly people in the area and which is very new and nice. Last night just before sundown we had a loon very near to the boat but we did not want to scare it; so hence, no photos. You usually only hear there mournful calls in the evening answered by another loon in the distance so it was nice to see one up close. The scenery changed from more rural to flatter land and more housing today along the shore. So we are back to scenic for now and I am told it will change again tomorrow We are about as far north as we will be going and I believe tomorrow will begin our descent to Georgian bay as the river flow changes up ahead. I have not done any research on the charts though so I could be wrong. I think we passed the infamous buoy numbered C233 where a trawler hit a rock. When we were coming up on it we went real slow and tilted our motor up and hoped we would not hit anything and we didn’t so I hope that is the one. I am going to do a little walking around after bit to get in some exercise that I can use to work some kinks out. My computer aircard cannot seem to make a connection now so I will try later tonight. We think the cell phone companies up here are still analog and not digital so that might be the reason we cannot connect. I did not bring any discs to write on with me otherwise I might be able to publish from the library.

June 8, 2007 – We got up this morning and had breakfast and then started across Sturgeon Lake which was to be one of three that we would cross today. After we crossed the lake we came to the first lock at Fenelon Falls. We pulled over to the side because the lock did not open until 9 AM. This gave us a chance to go up and photograph the falls and look around a little bit because the lock is right in the middle of town. They had done a nice job of landscaping the grounds around the lock area and the falls were very nice and they also powered a two turbine power plant with the water as well. We proceeded through the lock and across Lake Cameron to the Rosedale lock. After Rosedale we crossed Balsam Lake and Mitchell Lake to the Kirkfield hydraulic lock which is slightly different in that it was built with structural steel and concrete and not solid concrete like the Peterborough lock. We stopped there after going through it and took some photos to help people better understand what we saw. This one was also two pans of water balanced on a cylinder on either side which goes up and down when weighted heavier on either side to raise or lower the pan. Next we passed through Canal Lake which was a virtual weed bed with a channel through them and not very deep. After that it was another series of locks lowering us which were about a half mile to a mile distant from each other on a cut through the limestone and granite. After doing this all day we are now just a short distance from making a fairly long run across Lake Simcoe which is huge and had small craft warnings posted for it today as it was very windy. The scenery today was a lot of homes and resorts built on these lakes and very weedy and marshy areas in between. Although the last few miles put us back in agricultural areas again and there were some beef cattle grazing along the canal and in the pastures. Crossing open bodies of water where you can barely get a good view of the homes is not like going through the granite of the day before. Today was hot and very sultry and now we are trying to have a thunderstorm here at the marina only it is just coming in fits and starts and gusts of wind and not much rain. All thunder at this point you might say. It has finally hit us after all the noise and we really got a downpour and it is still raining. One of the locks today was tended by two women which was unusual because mostly males get the jobs because of the gates which they opened were manual and not power gates. I bet by the time the canal closes this year they will have good muscle tone. They were using there butts to open the gates by backing the lever around behind them where the men pull the gate lever when it is not powered. It is about four in the afternoon so we don’t have to hurry with everything before we go to bed.

We are tied up at a marina tonight because we had to pull in and get some fuel. It is off of the canal and back up a creek. It is the last stop to get fuel before tomorrow.

We looked at some of our route through Georgian Bay last night but have a lot more to do before we start across that part of the trip. We will be much further north and in a lot more granite if all those islands are rocks and I’m pretty sure they are.

June 9, 2007 – We woke up this morning and the weather looked like it was going to be a sunshiny day and they had said the day would have about 10 kt. winds. We were at Trent Talbot Marina on the edge of Lake Simcoe and knew that we had about 40-50 miles of open water including Lake Couchiching which was pretty narrow so weather would not be a problem. We went out into Lake Simcoe and it had a pretty heavy short chop on it and the winds were not all that strong yet. It was a pretty rough ride and we had to plow right into the wind so it was pretty wet. Then we entered the final stage of the Trent-Severn Waterway which was composed of four locks. They were pretty big drops of better than 20 feet and then the next final lock was reached which is called the Big Chute. In the lock you enter a cage type apparatus on railroad tracks and they pick your boat up in a sling and then lower it onto the floor of the car. The car then starts up this hill with your boat in it. After it reaches the top of the slope it then prepares to take you down the hill for 75 feet in height on the rails and you slowly enter the water where you float free from the car and away you go. We then went through the last lock on the waterway and we were now in Georgian Bay our northernmost point thus far. We are spending the night in Honey Harbour, Ontario at South Bay Cove Marina. They keep telling us there is no fuel available in Killarney, Ontario so we filled our tanks today so we have about 3 days or more of running time just in case and that should put us to Little Current which is across from Killarney on the bay. Our markers have now changed sides to reds on the right green on the left and I have no idea how many times they have changed but it has been a lot. The reds have little pointed hats on them and the greens have flat tops and they are very hard to spot sometimes against foliage and other stuff. We are now truly back in rock country as rocks are everywhere and the channels are narrow and sometimes the channels split in two and there is more than one way to go. The water changes color at times and you can see how close the rocks are to the channel. They are very beautiful but at the same time very dangerous if you miss a turn so Bob is constantly checking charts and letting me know direction and how narrow the space is that I am in. After crossing the lakes the waterway got really rocky in the last stretch of waterway and now the bay. But the shores were lined with homes and we had to go very slow with all the no wake zones. Boats were trying to pass us in the narrow sections making it pretty harrowing as it is Saturday and the weekend people are out. It looks now like the shores may be pretty bare as people build back in the coves where there is more protection from the elements. They say the weather will be pretty good tomorrow but I think a front is coming in from the Dakota’s and if it was like the thunderstorm yesterday it could be pretty severe. Even though the weather is sunny it is very cool and we are wearing sweatshirts and yet we have seen people trying to swim in this cold water.

June 10, 2007 – We awoke this morning with fog in South Bay Cove Marina but the sunrise was beautiful and bright. We knew the fog would burn off shortly with all the bright sun that we had and sure enough about and hour after sunrise it was going to be okay to go. We are still on the small boat trail through the 30,000 islands area of Georgian Bay but we think in addition to the islands there 30,000 more rocks that no one is living on. We made some really weird twists and turns on the trail all the while it seemed like we were backtracking on ourselves but all the while we were going further north and west at the same time and this afternoon coming into Byng Inlet we were actually going east by the compass heading. The trees on the shoreline of Georgian Bay look more like overgrown Christmas trees. They are probably thirty feet high on the average and you can definitely see what the prevailing winds are on the lake as the trees grow out on one side and have stubs for branches on the other side. Since the weather has been so nice since the thunderstorm and as long as the Canadian high is in place that we are traveling under we have decided it better to make hay while the sun shines because the weather is supposed to change soon. If we are in Killarney when the weather changes that will be a good place to hole up for bad weather because at that point we are going to be going through another large body of water called the North Channel. If we had been in Killarney today we would have made a run for it as the weather is perfect for Shorty to run fast. The winds are less than 10 knots and the waves were just probably six inches to one foot. Byng Inlet is a very pretty channel with all of the high granite bluffs around in with deep water coming in from Georgian Bay. Another thing which can scare the bejeebers out of you is to be running fast in 8-20 feet of water up here and look out the side window and even with the water rippling see the bottom of the bay or channel just as though you could reach out and touch it. Some of the channels next to huge rocks seemed as though they were about 30 feet wide at times and when you can see the rocks you just know they are waiting to nick you. Then you would hit deep water and all around you see rock outcroppings that are just waiting for you should you make a mistake and get out of the center of the channel. I would not trade this experience for nothing and up here you can actually go from place to place by boat easier than by road. People have built cottages on rocks and islands where it looks like there would hardly be enough area to turn around on. We met one fellow who said the islanders build and haul stuff out in the winter when the ice is as much 4-6 feet thick and sometimes more. We are fortunate in that all of the ice has melted but the weather seems cool enough and maybe there is still some lingering around. There is the cutest tugboat looking cruiser tied in front of us this evening. It is made out of steel and even the cabin is steel. It is about 35 feet long and has a raised pilothouse. We had planned to stay at the public dock but we are going to buy fuel and keep our tanks full so that if things are right we could keep running. We came probably a hundred miles from Honey Harbour to here today and tied up at the dock after running about 5.5 hours. I estimate that we used about 22 gallons of fuel. We will know for sure when we fill up tomorrow. Bob has gone to town with a loaner care to pick up some groceries we need and we bought milk yesterday at Honey Harbour so we will be pretty well fixed again. South Bay Cove in Honey Harbour, Ontario absolutely cannot be beat for facilities, amenities and staff. When we arrived yesterday there were three people at the dock to meet us, tie us up and present us with the goodies package. And now again today two people met us at the dock and did the same thing. The Canadian hospitality for people on the water is outstanding and our country could take some lessons from them.

June 11, 2007 – This morning we were up early, ate breakfast and still had time to wait until the marina opened at 8 AM before we could get fuel for Shorty. As soon as they opened we loaded up and fuel and headed out for Killarney, Ont. Which was about 70 miles away and most of the trip would be out on Georgian Bay and the North Channel and not as much inside on the Small Boat Trail which we have been following since we left the Trent Severn Waterway in Port Severn and which follows the north shore of Georgian Bay. It twists and turns through the rocks and channels until you lose all sense of direction and then you get a straight stretch and can relax for a while and not be on the constant lookout for buoys and turns and rocks running underneath the water ready to nick you in a minute if you don’t pay attention. Today’s run put us further north still but I think we have reached the northernmost part today and tomorrow we will start to go a little bit southward. We are at 45 degrees latitude North which puts us almost closer to the north pole than the equator and with the last few days of no clouds in the sky the sun looks ready to come up at five AM in the morning and it is hard to sleep late so we get up then and retire fairly early in the evening. We arrived in Little Current at about three this afternoon if I remember correctly after going seventy miles or more today. We stopped in Killarney for lunch and had fish and chips at Herbie’s fish house which is a school bus converted into a take out restaurant right at the place where the fresh fish come from the lake to the store. They were absolutely the freshest fish I have tasted and I like catfish filets. These I believe were perch fillets. After eating we went the final 20 miles to Little Current so we will be ready to tackle the final run on the North Channel back to Drummond Island, Michigan to start another phase of the trip in the USA. The weather has been unbelievable and I hope I don’t jinx it by writing about it. The scenery today was mostly solid granite cliff and huge rocks coming right down to the shore of the lake. There was hardly any cottages or homes like there has been before and a lot of the land is in a huge provincial park called Killarney Provincial Park and the rest is Indian land or as one fellow put it yesterday today we would be traveling through the crown’s land as Parks Canada is known as. We also saw some mining operations going on today and we think they were mining copper but not positive of that. They were working on an island just this side of Killarney. There was a low mountain range running north of us today for most of the day. On Georgian bay if it had been rough there was no place to put in for shelter today you would have had to just tough it out.

June 12, 2007 – After spending the night in Spider Bay Marina in Little Current and being cleared out of Canada by Canadian Customs people in the afternoon upon arrival we left this morning headed for Drummond Island and being checked in by US Customs people. We arrived at 11 AM and waiting until noon for Customs to show up we could not get off the boat. We fueled up for tomorrow while waiting for customs to show. It was another day of just a very light breeze and mostly flat water and we had 75 miles of open water to go today from Little Current to Drummond Island. We left at 6:30 AM and arrived in Drummond at 11 AM so we did a good job of letting Shorty run. There are lots of islands and big bays on the North Channel but we just do not want to waste good running days so we passed them by. There was not much scenery today but that is because we chose to go straight across and not up and down each bay. I know we missed a lot of good towns in the bays but if the weather were to change to worse while we were doing the exploring on good days we would wish we had made the time to go as we did. They are having exceptionally warm and calm weather right now and expect it to last the rest of this week.

I took the time to call some people I met while in Moore Haven, FL in January of this year. They live on Drummond Island and winter in Florida. We went out to dinner this evening with Tom and he spent the afternoon on the boat with us talking about the trip and we got some of the news we missed from him. He took us on a tour of what is the largest island in the Continental US and told us lots of history as to how it became a part of the US. It seems that some of the British and American surveyors spent some time together and got a little drunk and the Americans reran the survey so that the US came up with the island and got the British to go along with it. There is a long story to this and I will be redoing some of my writing later when I have time to review the history and get it correct. The man who owned Domino’s pizza made a number of huge investments up here and built lots of buildings, cabins and houses and when he got all through sold it to the locals and they have continuing development going on. The marina we are at has a huge investment in heated indoor storage for the boats in the winter and probably will be adding more as the price of fuel goes up and the boats are cheaper to store here than take back to Chicago and elsewhere. The water today when we were running was a deep blue and over a hundred feet deep and the water in the marina is a pale green and clear to the bottom in about 10 feet. There are rocks under water just waiting to get you and have to do a good job of navigation.

June 13, 2007- We left Drummond Island Yacht Basin at about six this morning and our goal was to make it through the Straits of Mackinac and down to Leland, Michigan as the worst scenario. Well again the weather gods have blessed us and we made it through all of the worst big water with not too many places to hide or get off of Lake Michigan. We made it through the straits and all the way down past Little Traverse Bay, Traverse Bay and the Manitou Strait and down to Frankfort, Michigan which got us now into the area where we can make short or long runs based on the weather. As we got closer to the shore after running about 150 miles of today on the open water we began to see the beautiful sand dunes of Michigan shoreline and they are huge even when you are a mile or better off shore in deep water which is between fifty and a hundred feet deep. The depth finder quit registering when it went over six hundred feet deep. The beautiful blue and clear water that we are in is so nice we just can’t believe it. Our wake and spray is just so white you steer off course some times just watching it. Our run of 210 miles is the longest yet and probably will remain that way as it was an eight hour run.

This is the first time in the twelve days that I can connect again to the internet so I am going to post this first and work on the photos from that period and may or may not get them posted today.

Shorty also got his oil changed today on his 300th hour of running by The Boat Doctors who came right to the boat and changed it. He also got his filter changed so now we pronounce him ready to run again in this marathon. If anyone has a need for maintenance or anything just call this fellow in Frankfort, Michigan or contact by internet at www.TheBoatDoctors.org. They did a super job of servicing him without having to remain tied up for another day tomorrow.