Wednesday July 22: Port Severn

Monday morning, after three days of enjoying Orillia, it was again time to move on. The waterside park – along with the pavillion that has been there forever – is still very nice. Sometimes it's nice that things don't change too much. There are still black squirrels running around, the statue of Champlain is still in the park and of course the ice cream/hot dog stand that has been there since the 50's.

No stop in this area is complete without a night spent at anchor in the bay by Chief's Island. All sand bottom and totally protected except from the north west. Only a relatively few boats – and quite peaceful. No one insisting that the entire anchorage enjoy THEIR music!

The ducks quickly found us with young ones that were diving down for food. Obviously they are still being fed by passing boaters :-)

The rains were due in late in the day – fortunately from the west. It was quite the view of the sun setting behind the approaching storm clouds. The rains came and went throughout the night and by morning the skies were clear but the wind was now blowing out of the west at 20 mph.

Fortunately much of the travel was on the narrow waterway of the Severn River. It's such a beautiful area along this stretch of the Trent. Downside: almost any available shoreline is taken up by cottages.

The winds continued to blow – even in the sun it was cool. Steve managed to stay warm though with his hood keeping his ears warm :-)

Our destination was the lock at Swift Rapids. Fairly remote with a small service road as the only access. The grounds are really nice. Entertainment for the evening was provided by the guy in the boat docked ahead of us. Seems he really didn't like the Canadian geese.

First thing once docked, he and his wife started raking the grass all around the table by their boat. Guess their two little dogs stepped in the goose dirt and that of course would be bad! So the rest of the afternoon, he would chase the geese into the water. And they would come back. And he would chase them back into the water ….. Seemed like a no win situation to us!

Steve took advantage of the picnic table nearby to make turkey meatballs – for dinner tonight (with spaghetti) and some for left over lunches. Thanks once again to Becky for the GREAT recipe!!

He even had a few spare minutes to try out the red Adirondack chairs put out by Parks Canada (we'd see these in the Canadian Rockies as well. Kind of fun ….

This morning we were off at 9 am to make the first lockage of the day. Swift Rapids is the largest conventional lock in the Trent system and used to be one of two marine railways originally on the system (Big Chute is the other one and it is still a railway). My family and I went over the marine railway here in the late 50's. I must be getting old :-)

After a stop at the Waubic Inn for breakfast (a short 3 miles downstream from Swift Rapids), we stopped at the bottom end of the Big Chute Marina railway for lunch. Everything is pretty much the same as it was the last time we were in this area – 2 years ago.

The winds were still blowing – perhaps a bit harder – so it was nice to stop for a couple of hours before continuing.

Never saw any black bears while we were in Alberta – funny that we should spot two of them here along the Severn River :-)

So we are tied nicely at the lock wall above the last lock on the Trent-Severn system. Winds are supposed to diminish tomorrow morning but pick back up again tomorrow afternoon.

Time to figure out where to go from here. The weekend is coming up, it's cottage week (not sure what that means but there are lots of boats around) and it's the construction holidays for the boaters from Quebec – time to hide out somewhere for sure :-)