Orillia, Ontario

Before we left the attractive lock wall at Fenelon Falls on Saturday, August 4, Lynn wanted to see the 1812 re-enactment in the park next to us.  Even though it was not scheduled to begin until 11 a.m. participants had been gathering since the day before and a number of them had stayed overnight in tents.  They were already in costume and setting up their areas so we strolled through and talked to a few of them.  One was chopping wood, another was cooking over an open fire.  There were all kinds of festivities planned for the day but we decided to move on.

We tied up at the blue line of the Fenelon Falls lock around 9:30 and went through the lock with three other boats.  This was a busy day of locking.  We went through a total of eight locks, almost always with a full load.  It was slow going as we had to wait for all the boats to load and sometimes we had to wait for the locks to open. The Kirkfield Lift Lock was the coolest because we started at the top on a huge tray and dropped down smoothly from there.  We didn’t have a bird’s eye view at the front of the lock but it was still a trip.

We cruised through Balsam Lake early in the day but most of the time we were on the very narrow Trent Canal which had been blasted out of rock and was not more than 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep.  It was lined with cottages whose owners were out in full force enjoying the beautiful weather  and holiday weekend.  People were swimming off their docks very close to the passing boats since the waterway was so narrow.  

Fortunately, the few boats that passed us going the opposite way were very small.  Frankly we don’t know how we would have handled a 60 foot boat coming in the opposite direction.

We had friendly lockmates throughout the day and one told us about a great marina near where we planned to anchor that was offering free dockage for transients this weekend!  So we called and they confirmed that they still had space.

We wanted to get across Lake Simcoe today because it was expected to be a rougher passage the following day.  Lake Simcoe is huge - the biggest body of water we’ve seen since Lake Ontario.  It was fun to be out in the wide open spaces having spent so much time in twisty turning narrow passageways.

We arrived at the Starport Marina at 6:30.  It’s the only marina we’ve ever seen where all the slips are covered.  They directed us to one at the very end of this large marina.  All the boats were docked stern in so they could take advantage of the picnic tables on all the docks.   But we had such a hard time making the turn in a tight space to go stern in that we said the hell with it and went bow in which is our usual practice anyway.

We had a relaxing drink to recuperate from our long day.  Jonny went to shower while Lynn made a dinner of crab cakes, boiled potatoes and green beans.  All was good until we looked for Georgio who had disappeared.  We spent the next hour looking in all of his typical hiding places then walking the docks and the surrounding grounds in the dark to find him.  As of 10:30, no Georgio.  We didn’t think he would go on the dock because there is quite a gap between our boat and the small finger piers. We were getting frantic but finally, hoping that he would return, we tried to go to sleep.  Around midnight we heard him jump back aboard and need less to say we were incredibly relieved!  He is definitely getting bolder and we will need to be much more careful going forward!