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| The fam aboard Raydiance waiting to lock through. |
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Our Canada girl with Canadian flag and Canada Dry
Our favorite
passenger, daughter Sarah, joined us on July 25th for a week. Her journey began in New Bern, NC and ended
in Peterborough, ON after 15 hours of car, plane, train and bus. Even though it had been a long day, nothing
would do until she had given us gifts from her summer travels with Kate Kelly
in southeast Asia. One of them, a hand
painted fish windsock, is flying from the antenna as I write this. Each night she was aboard we viewed pictures
of a different country they visited --Thailand, Bali, Singapore, Malaysia and
Loas. Quite an experience!
We left Peterborough
on the 26th, Thursday morning, and went through the famous hydraulic
lift. To realize that this lift was
built in the late 1890’s is a marvel.
The premise is that two “pans”, upper and lower, are filled with water. A foot of water is added to the upper “pan”
and the additional weight causes it to lower, while the lower “pan” then
rises. The total lift is 65 feet. Once the “pans” start moving the whole
process takes less than 2 minutes. Truly
remarkable. You can view a video on You
Tube under Peterborough Lift Lock. The
day we went through was rainy as you can tell from the pictures, so we did not
pull over after locking through. |
That night
we stayed at a lock called Lakeview. We taught Sarah how to play Five Crowns,
which we all enjoyed—especially me. They
tell me I’m a bad winner! Can you
believe that?
The
following day the weather was sunny and cooler.
We spent the night at Lovesick Lock. I had Sarah stand by the sign for a picture as it
seemed appropriate. Our daughter is very
happy and very in love with the young man she met in Key West, Mike Lawrence.
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| The picture says it all! |
The couple
in the boat in front of us on the lock wall were Mexican train domino players,
so we had a challenge that evening. Our
game quickly ended when raccoons decided to invade the outer deck of their boat
to help themselves to sweet corn stored in a cooler.
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| Sarah taking a picture of me taking pictures. |
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| Capturing the Captain off duty. |
Sarah bought
a new camera for her SE Asia adventure and had a great time snapping shots
along the canal. Several that I am using
are actually her pictures.
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| Family portrait at Fenelon Falls |
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| In position on the swim platform for locking through. |
On the 29th
we were lucky to find space on the wall at Fenelon Falls. The town has put in additional wall space
complete with 30 amp power and potable water. It is very popular, so we were
thrilled to have space available. Here
we met up again with “the Canadian navy”, a group of three boats we had first
met at Hastings. They were very helpful
with information about upcoming Georgian Bay.
We had dinner that evening on the patio at the Falls Restaurant
overlooking Fenelon Falls.
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| Sarah by falls at Fenelon Falls. |
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This one is for you, Uncle Dick.
Sunflowers in Canada. |
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| Beautiful sunset |
Monday, the
30th, we traveled through the other hydraulic lift at
Kirkfield. This time we were going down,
so the approach was a bit scary. As we
drove into the lift, it looked like we would go right off the other end, a 45
foot drop. Since the weather was sunny,
we pulled over after going through the lift and took pictures of other boats as
they went up. This lift was built after
the one in Peterborough, but still is over 100 years old. A road actually passes under this lift.
That night
we stayed on the wall at Thorah Lock.
Tom tried his hand at fishing again, but as you can see, weeds were the
only catch. Still waiting on the
walleye.
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| Catch of the day. |
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| Sarah and Tom with pirate windsock. ARGH! |
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| Tight fit when meeting another boat in the canal. |
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| 1905 Hole in the Wall bridge |
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| Very narrow channel leaving the Trent Waterway. |
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| Entering Lake Simcoe on our way to Orillia. |
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| Hole in the Wall Bridge |
Tuesday we said good-bye to the Trent Waterway and entered Lake Simcoe. The day started
okay, but shortly after
entering the lake, we could see storms closing in on our weather radar. So we went the 20 miles at full tilt,
arriving in Orillia in the rain, but not storms.
The Port of Orillia invested 3 million in new
docks this year and they are wonderful—wide, with 50 amp power and potable
water. After Taxes, with Kathy and Gary
and their friends Carol and Jim, were also at Orillia. They are new loopers that we had first met at
Peterborough. They were having some GPS
chip issues that Tom was working on with them.
While he was doing that Sarah and I had a ladies only afternoon of
shopping since downtown was only a few blocks from the marina. A good meal at Zats was a fine end to the day.
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Sarah and I had a laugh over the snowflake
and hanging basket on the lightpost
at the same time. |
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| Fish topiary in city garden by the marina. |
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| When it's there, you have to do it! |
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The city was having a painted chair contest.
Seemed like a good place to rest a minute.
The next
morning Sarah was picked up at the marina by a shuttle that took her directly
to Toronto airport. She had an
interesting, exasperating trip back with delays, gate changes, and missed
flights due to the delays, but she finally made it back to New Bern and
Mike. |
As always,
the week went by much too quickly. But
it was SOOOO good to have Sarah on board.
Even though we talk on a regular basis, nothing compares to seeing her
in person.
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| Full moon over Raydiance on Sarah's last night aboard. |
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