Sunday June 16: Orillia

We left Coboconk yesterday a bit before noon and traveled to the Kirfield Lift Lock. Not a very long day but it gave us a nice jump to then move to Orillia today.

You can see our meanderings from when Becky left last Monday from Fenelon Falls.

The Summit Festival was still in full swing when we left with the antique boat show finishing up at 1 pm. These boats are amazing and the shine on what I assume is mahogany is something else. Not sure how old most of these boats were but someone sure spends a lot of time keeping them in pristine shape.

It was another really nice day to travel with much of the way spent on the relatively narrow canal dug from the shale rock that makes up this region.

The rock shelves on the side beckoned us but we managed to stay in the center of the channel :-)

 Even the wide areas weren't really all that wide as right off of the channel was mostly shallow water with lots of seaweed.

It's amazing to know that much of this canal was dug during a time with no mechanized digging equipment.

We ended up at the bottom of the lift lock as only one of two boats there for the night. It was early afternoon when we stopped so Steve took the opportunity to finally get our new anchor hooked up.

The anchor that was originally on the boat is not very good to use to anchor where the bottom is weeds (actually no anchor is really very good in weeds) so we replaced it with a heavier CQR style anchor.

The one on the trawler has worked really well for us so it seemed like it might be a good idea to go with a winner. Of course among boaters the "best anchor" is a subject similar to politics and religion - something to be avoided!

It rained most of the night last night - which is actually something that's enjoyable to hear. A plus is that we no longer have any leaks - yea! So we know nothing is getting wet as we enjoy the sound of the rain.

It wasn't until about noon that the rain cleared out and left overcast skies and somewhat misty moments as we headed out. Destination was below the last lock on the way to Lake Simcoe. Our thought was to just cross early in the morning (the wind typically dies down at night). The travel through the 5 hand operated locks was relatively painless as we were the only boat traveling our direction. Cutbacks on the staff at the locks is very evident as each team of two lockmasters covers 2 different locks. They drive from one to the next with about a mile or so between the locks.

So much for plan A! Once we arrived at the entrance to Lake Simcoe (about 3:15) it was calm enough to just go for it. The distance is about 20 miles and the day was still warm enough to drive from the flybridge. The wind had kicked up a bit by the time we arrived at the Narrows so we were glad to be in and tied up to the dock - especially when the dark clouds started rolling in!

It was one of the most amazing storm clouds I've ever seen. The second round was even MORE spectacular with a very definitive line where the storms clouds ended. One side of the storm went west of us over Barrie and the other went east of us toward Fenelon Falls.

 We were quite happy to NOT be on the Lake!!!

So we're here now for 3 days - who knows, maybe longer. Projects for the boat are still on the list and this is a good place to get anything we need.