The end of the Trent-Severn Canal

         What a journey this has been!  Nearly 300 miles of canals, rivers, and lakes, and forty-five locks.  We actually haven’t been through the last lock here at Port Severn, but we are here on the seawall at the lock (Thursday night July 13, Friday am) and will plan to go through it on Saturday morning and on into Georgian Bay.  Tonight we’ll spend at a nearby marina and take care of the laundry, mast-stepping, and other preps to get ready for cruising the Great Lakes.

We crossed Lake Simcoe on Monday, July 10, and found a nice quiet anchorage in Lake Couchiching, beyond the little town of Orillia.  Dan spent some time washing and waxing the hull and making sure the prop and bow thrusters were clear of weeds.  It’s been very weedy here; the waters are filled with long long strands of grassy stuff that easily wrap them selves around the propellor.  But the water itself is remarkably clear and warm for swimming!  

Tuesday we arrived at Swift Rapids, the tallest regular lock in the Canadian canal systems.  We had a drop of 49 feet that went quite quickly.  The locktenders were nice enough to allow Dan time to set up our Go-Pro camera on the rail to film our descent.  I would have attached it here, but Blogspot doesn’t accept large video files.  (Look for the debut of our YouTube channel…) Once through the lock, we took a place at the seawall to spend the night.  

Wednesday we took our time, anchoring for a bit in the mouth of the Lost Channel to explore by dinghy some beautiful little passageways with shores dotted by camps and cottages, and then we pushed on to the Big Chute. 

Lost Passage

        This is an incredible feat of engineering - a marine railway that portages boats over a road and down the hill from the Severn River into the Gloucester pool. 

When we arrived just before noon, there were already three boats ahead of us waiting for their turn on the cradle, which can handle only two boats of our size at a time, just one if they are also taking smaller watercraft, or only one boat if it is 60 feet long.  We quickly got to know everyone on the waiting boats, exchanging boat cards and promises to take pictures and videos for them if they’d do the same for us. 

We ended up being in the third ‘lockage’ (they call it a lock, even though it’s not), in the front of the cradle ahead of the trawler Tyche.  The whole trip was only about seven minutes long, but what an experience! 

        We immediately took up a place at the dock at the foot of the railway and climbed up the hill to  watch and photograph other boats going through.  One of them - Happy Trails - wasn’t planning on coming through until the morning, so we stayed the night there to film them as they had done for us.  Once all of our new friends had gotten through the Big Chute, we all traveled on to the next and last lock here at Port Severn to take up all the available space there, share our photos, and celebrate our entire cruise on the Trent-Severn at the nearby restaurants.  

Happy Trails on the Big Chute

Water control - closed sluice & open sluice.

We were lucky to have had a beautiful day for our Big Chute experience on Wednesday.  Thursday dawned stormy and windy, and other boats had to navigate a strong current caused by automatic sluice gates opening to spill the excess water down the rapids.  (The locktenders timed the use of the marine railway with the water-control, to mitigate cruisers trouble with the current.)  But the current was also a factor as we all moved on to the next lock.  There were some very narrow spots with blind curves we had to navigate with that current and wind shoving us along.  Again there were rocky outcroppings and tree stumps to watch out for, and we crept along keeping well within the nav buoys that were bouncing around. 

It was bit of a relief to come to the end of the waterway at Port Severn.  We are looking forward to a whole new chapter of our journey as we move on into Georgian Bay and Lake Huron.  

Tommie holding down the bow fly so it doesn't get away.