Campbellford, Ontario

Here we are in Campbellford, Ontario, tied up in a park next to a 20 foot replica of the Canadian two dollar coin. It turns out that the "toonie" bears an image of a polar bear created by an artist local to Campbellford.

That's the toonie to the right of Slow Dance, the boat belonging to Bob and Elizabeth Robinson, a delightful couple we have met in several marinas along the way. They hail from Gulfport, MS, and we expect to be seeing them often along the way. That's Monarch behind Slow Dance. This is where we are sitting now writing this post.

Yesterday, when we left Trenton in company with Slow Dance, we had a leisurely sail on our first day in "The System," as locals call the Trent Severn Waterway. We transited 6 locks and found both the locks and the lock keepers more friendly to pleasure craft such as Monarch than we did on the Erie.

In between the locks is a quite different story. We passed through several stretches of very narrow passages between vicious looking rock ledges on either side. In addition, many stretches are choked with very heavy weeds. Some trawlers ahead of us on the system have experienced over heating problems in engines from clogged strainers in the engine cooling water intakes. We have tried to follow the path of previous boaters and avoid the worst of the weeds, and check the strainers each morning and have had no problems in this regard.

We stayed at a lovely spot last night in the tiny town of Glen Ross, tied up to the wall just before lock 7. We hoped to be able to get some ice at the convenience store mentioned in the cruise guide, but the lock keeper informed us the store had gone out of business. He then proceeded to hand us a bread bag full of ice from his ice maker.

We joined the Robinsons at a picnic table next to the lock wall for cocktails about 5 pm. Later we were joined by a single-handed boater in a large trawler headed back the way we have come. He was heading in our direction ahead of us when his first mate/girl friend was called home to Maryland due to a serious illness in her family. John was obviously hungry for some company, so he brought a bottle of wine over to join our happy hour. We had a good time until bed time.

As you can see from the picture, which we took at 6:30 this morning when the mist was still on the water, in addition to being a fine gentleman, the lock keeper has a green thumb with the flowers at his lock!

Shortly after this picture was taken we heard a series of loud splashes. It seems a couple of dozen Canada Geese were locking through! They must have landed in the full lock chamber, then when they came to the closed lock gates, they climbed over and leaped into the river below. Some spread their wings and kind of glided, others crash landed like a pile of bricks!

The lock keeper later told us that last spring some of the geese had hatched broods above the lock. When they were out of the nest, he found them in the full lock chamber honking loudly. So he locked them down to the river below. They must have gotten used to this route from their old nesting ground, and still lock down by simply jumping off the high side when there is no lock keeper to lock them through.

We set out at 8:30 this morning and took a slow leisurely cruise through some very beautiful country and some very narrow rocky passages. The river was like glass and we saw a lot of wildwife and many lovely cottages.

We were feeling pretty good about our success so far until Bob talked to a friend of his several days ahead of us. He said, "Well you have enjoyed the easy part, from there on it gets much narrower and rockier."

We expect to take our time, however and be very careful. We will start when the locks open at 8:30 in the morning and stop around 2 pm for our afternoon nap.

Today we hit the high points of Campbellford, the bakery for bread and cookies, and the chocolate factory which makes the chocolate many of you have bought from your children and grandchildren in their annual fund raising activities.

Tomorrow we set out for Hastings, Ontario.

Happy Birthday, John McVay! We have thought about you a lopt today and hope you have had a happy day!!!

It is great to be back "on line", we have missed visiting with all of you and reporting our whereabouts! Don't know when we will be able to be on again so just keep checking!