Saturday July 9: Parry Sound - Georgian Bay

Our six days in Orillia went by too fast and I'm not even very sure of what we did!

Steve did clean and polish the stainless steel stays for the mast so that will go up before we leave.


Once they were attached, it was easy enough (there was lots of help!!) to get the mast back up.

The towels wrapped around the mast were there so the stainless wire stays wouldn't mark the newly painted mast up.

By the time we left Monday morning, the once packed marina (for the Canada Day festivities) was nearly empty.

On the way past the Big Chief anchorage (very nice sandy bottom), we stopped for an hour or so.

This gave Steve time to replace the sensor for the depth finder. It has started giving suspicious readings a while ago and then finally just was obviously bad since we could see the bottom but the depth was showing 25 feet or so of water! Thanks to Cindy for getting our new one on her trip to Detroit last week!!

Didn't make much difference while on the Trent but once into Georgian Bay, not having a working depth sounder would definitely be a problem as we expected to anchor out most of the time rather than tying to lock walls.

We continued on from Big Chief, through Lake Couchchiching  and it's lock, settling in for the night below the lock at Swift Rapids.

Solar panels were out and charging the batteries like crazy as the sun was really strong. Making it quite hot. One guy walked by our boat and indicated he really liked our power recliners ......

I just HAD to laugh :-)

And had to laugh at the boat down the way that had a little tent like thing for shade for their dog. At least that's what we figured it just had to be as there weren't any kids along! Pretty cute though.

It was crazy calm the next morning as we headed out first thing. The idea was to stop a couple of miles downstream at the Waubic for breakfast.

Cute place run by the older couple who rebuilt the place probably 10 or more years ago. Great home cooked food - always!

Sadly, it was closed. Really?? We knew it was closed one day a week but who would have figured it was Tuesday that it was closed.

Oh well. We know where another place is ......

I just couldn't stop taking pictures of the water reflections that seemed perfect.


We stopped at Big Chute marine railway and went to the marina next door for our breakfast - finally!

I'm on the way to the restaurant and was walking past the original marine railway. This was the railway that we would have used when we came here as kids on the 21 foot Lone Star aluminum cruiser. 21 feet for 5 kids and 2 adults. I see that as 3 feet per person. I also see that as would be grounds for divorce ......

Anyway, for more info about the modern Big Chute marine railway, click here.



Tuesday night we spent at the lock wall at Port Severn - last lock on the Trent-Severn waterway.

Can't say that we'll miss going through the locks :-)

Our destination the next day was Midland - on Georgian Bay!

We were meeting up with Peter and Cheryl who live a short way from there.

It was time to do some traveling together!!

We were headed north on Georgian Bay and couldn't figure out what in the world was up ahead of us in the fog. Fishing boats??

Turns out it was a flotilla of 16 boats headed north to Parry Sound. This was NOT our destination that day which was a good thing!


Steve used the travel time to give the deck a scrubbing. And it REALLY needed it!! Looked great when he was done. Nice job, Steve!!!


After traveling through the fog for most of the morning, we finally pulled into an anchorage off of 12 Mile Bay. Great spot.

We anchored and then Rahn de Vous tied up to us.

Steve and Craig then used the dinghy to take their anchor out and drop it.

Shortly after, we saw Deja Vu pulling into the anchorage with Peter, Cheryl and friend Sandra aboard.

It turned out to be a beautiful night and morning. I think this is why we love being on the water .......

We're now in Parry Sound for a couple of rainy days - more later!