Bluejacket in various water conditions
Cruising Ontario Waterways
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Ontario Waterways
The urge to take a
cruise in Ontario waterways started long before we owned a boat in which we
might make such a cruise. In 1996, Liz and I took a vacation trip up the
eastern seaboard from North Carolina to Maine, Quebec, Ontario, Michigan and
Wisconsin in our campervan. In tow was the 15-foot sailboat, Loon, a cat-ketch
Bay River Skiff, designed by Graham Byrnes, that I built in 1994. We sailed Loon on Penobscot Bay and
inland lakes of Maine and other lakes in Quebec, Ontario and Lake Superior.
After seeing parts of the Rideau Canal and Georgian Bay of Ontario, we knew that
these waters would make a fine summer cruise sometime. With the addition of a
small outboard, some of it could even be done in Loon. Even though Loon was
equipped with a beach cruising tent cover, age and inclination had moved such
small accommodations out of our range of acceptable creature comfort for such a
lengthy voyage. The photo on the left was taken at Cape Lookout on Easter
morning with the lighthouse in the background. On the right is a photo of
Loon on a small island in Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior taken during our first
trip to Canada.
I had been thinking about the design of a trailerable 24-foot pilothouse cruiser for some time to take the place of our sailboat that we seldom used for cruising anymore. So, on returning home, the sketches and calculations were hauled out and work began in earnest to refine the design into something that would make such cruises in relative comfort and style. Relative comfort is the operative phrase here since we would still expect to be one of the smallest boats out there.
Actual building was started in 1998 and after being delayed by a bout of poor health, the Bluejacket 24, “Liz” was launched in 2000. Other obligations and trips crowded our calendar until, in the fall of 2002, we said “Make no other plans, we are going to take “Liz” on a cruise in Ontario next year.” The actual itinerary decided upon was to travel the 240 mile length of the Trent Severn Waterway from Trenton on the north shore of Lake Ontario to Port Severn on Georgian Bay and then retrieve the van and trailer to haul “Liz” up to the North Channel of Georgian Bay where we would make a loop cruise through the islands there.
Making a cruise to far places in a trailerable boat eliminates the time often spent in navigating well-worn or familiar areas and the extra expense in doing so, but it also introduces a new set of concerns. These relate to the trailer, tow vehicle and the extra physical impact of driving with a large load in tow. In our case, the boat was designed with minimum weight in mind. This was done to improve both performance and economy of the boat as well as reduce the all-up towing load. In keeping with this low weight objective, an aluminum tandem axle trailer was selected.
In preparation for the trip, trailer lights were checked out, wheel bearings were checked and greased and one new bearing set was installed. The original equipment brakes were replaced with a new-galvanized set since they had rusted so badly they were falling apart and the wheels were locked up. Since the trailer was only three years old and the brakes were washed out after each use, this was very disappointing. The manufacturer of the trailer, Magic Tilt of Florida, has been completely unresponsive in rectifying this, or other problems that have resulted from defective materials or poor workmanship so I caution anyone considering buying a trailer from them. Having owned boat trailers for over fifty years, this is the first time I have run into such shoddy materials or service. Nevertheless, after much work and parts replacement, the trailer was finally in top condition for the road.
The brakes on the van were also worked over with new rotors in front and pads all around since they had also been giving some trouble. On the first leg of the trip it became apparent that the van brakes were still not well. They overheated badly and we limped into Edgewater, MD, where our oldest son Mark and his wife Jan live. An excellent mechanic there diagnosed the problem as either collapsed hoses or dragging calipers and with over 160,000 miles on our 1988 Dodge Xplorer campervan, both calipers and hoses would be replaced. From that point onward, we had no more problems with the brakes. Hopefully these problems will not discourage anyone from getting into the trailerable boating scene and I offer it only as a caution that driving on the highways requires a bit more critical preparation when a trailer is behind. The advantages of being able to trail a boat swiftly to your selected cruising area are so great that such possible problems are readily accepted.
After a short visit with Mark and Jan, and another with
friends in Sharron Springs, NY, we continued north to the Thousand Islands area
and Clayton, NY, where we toured the classic boat museum there. Beautifully
restored runabouts, commuters, smaller launches and the unlimited race boats in
the new Gold Cup hangar all got our admiration before we crossed the
International Bridge into Ontario. Pleasant greetings awaited us at the border
(unlike the last time we entered Canada at Port Huron where we were given the
third degree by an officious border guard.) The short trek down the
Trans-Canada Highway to Trenton was like any trip on an interstate highway in
the US.
Ontario
In preparation for the trip, I had ordered cruising guides to the Trent Severn and North Channel and borrowed charts from friends who had made these cruises previously. Reading the “Ports Guides” provided much valuable guidance on navigation and regulations, plus detailed information about the locks and points of interest along the way. The Ports Guides contain great aerial photographs of much of the waterway plus all the locks and approaches. It also pointed the way to nearby ice cream parlors in the towns along the waterway, which we sampled at every opportunity. Hands down winner in the ice cream stakes is the local Kawartha Dairies brand. For me, there are only five flavors of ice cream; chocolate, double chocolate, death by chocolate, heavenly hash chocolate and rocky road chocolate. Other flavors are for emergency consumption only. All in all, the Ports guidebooks are the best that we have seen.
Public Transportation and Ramps
Searching the Ports Guide for launching ramps and secure facilities for parking the van and trailer was much less productive than I had thought. Only one marina near Trenton offered both a ramp and secure long time parking. This was Bay Marine, a few miles east of Trenton along the Bay of Quinte. In thinking about this trip, I had assumed that many others would have made the same or similar plans in the past. That is, to trailer and launch a small cruiser at one end of the waterway and retrieve it at the other end before moving on. It became apparent that my assumptions were overly optimistic since we never met any other cruisers with similar itineraries on the Trent Severn. The lack of facilities at either end of the waterway for trailer sailors reinforced this conclusion but, with some searching, we managed to make the connections necessary to match the boat and trailer in the needed order to carry on. We met several small, mostly open, boats on the waterway but all were there only for a day or two and were taking loop cruises where put-in, take-out issues were not a factor.
Ramps
that we found ourselves using at Trenton and Port Severn were unpaved with
somewhat rickety docks but, since “Liz” launches easily, we had no real
difficulty. I later found out that Bush’s Boat Livery on the eastern shore at
Port Severn might be a more desirable take-out point than the one we used at
Driftwood Cove which turned out to be a resort and not well suited to
transients. Because we were transient for only one night, we were shunted off
to a remote dock some distance away although we had to pay the full fare. We
chose Driftwood Cove for its presumed closeness to a bus stop but that proved to
be misinformation.
At the far end of the waterway, public transportation from Port Severn to Trenton at the Georgian Bay end was arranged with many phone calls to the several bus companies serving the area that, strange to say, did not volunteer connecting information for the other lines. At Port Severn, we needed to arrange a taxi pick up at our dock for 5:45AM to get us about 20 miles to Midland to meet the bus for Orilla where we changed buses for Toronto. The taxi was prompt, the driver in good humor and the fare very reasonable. In Toronto, there was a fairly short wait for the connection to Trenton on yet another bus line and another taxi to Bay Marine. After paying Bay Marine for parking the van and trailer, we were on our way back to Port Severn. The trip itself was easy enough but getting the necessary information was not. We were always surprised that we seemed to be the first people making the cruise this way. The Ports Guide states that a bus stop is available a short one-quarter mile walk from the Driftwood Cove marina near Port Severn that we chose on that basis. In fact, the bus stop is a lot further than they said and the only bus that would allow us to make the trip to Trenton in one day is an express from Sudbury to Toronto that does not stop in Port Severn. Once we had a schedule in hand, it was an easy trip and we made the whole loop and hauled “Liz” in one day. The Trent Severn was such a nice part of the trip that it is a natural for trailerable cruisers but anyone planning to do it should thoroughly check out the logistics at the ends before leaving from home.
The Locks
Any
story of a cruise on the approximately 240 miles of the Trent Severn Waterway
will necessarily revolve around the 45 locks that must be traversed along the
way. Some locks are very old, manually operated, and date to the 1800s, and
some are much newer technological marvels. Some are operated by veteran
lockmasters that live in on-site cottages surrounded by flower gardens and some
are run by young boys and girls on summer vacation from school. All operators
were eager to help first time cruisers negotiate the system without damaging
their boats. All locks have concrete tie-up walls both above and below the lock
where boats await the next opening and where they can moor for the night. It
pays to read the guidebook for any anomaly in the lock operation. In the case
of Lock #15, we were warned to avoid the starboard side of the lower tie up
walls while water is being released from the upstream double level lock.
Luckily we did read that warning since the water cascading from that lock
created such turbulence that any boat moored on the offending side of the chute
would have been knocked about and possibly damaged. Occasionally we were the
only boat in a lock and sometimes a lock was jammed full of cruisers and
day-trippers, especially on weekends.
Most locks were of the conventional gated kind and were
equipped with plastic coated cables suspended at
regular
intervals on the sidewalls for crews to hang on to while the water lifted or
lowered your boat. With a couple of lines looped loosely around the cables,
boathooks, large fenders, and crew stationed fore and aft,
the procedure went off without a hitch after a bit of practice. There was the
occasional cavity in the lock wall and the crew had to avoid letting a fender or
the deck get caught under it. Lowering locks were always simple but raising
locks were sometimes pretty turbulent so the crew of a small lightweight boat
had to pay attention. All in all, these locks were in better condition than
some across the border although we needed to pay for these and all locks we had
traversed in the USA were free.
Three of the locks deserve special mention. These are the
hydraulic lift locks at Peterborough and Kirkfield and the marine railway lock
at Big Chute. Unlike a conventional lock where the boat is raised or lowered in
a sealed chamber by the introduction or release of water, the hydraulic lift
locks are somewhat like a giant teeter-totter. That is, the lock consists of
two large tubs filled with water that alternately ride up and down beside each
other in elevator fashion. A boat enters the open gate of a tub on the bottom
and the gate is then
closed. The operator allows a small amount of additional water to enter into
the upper tub and the unbalance causes the upper tub to drop, thereby pulling
the other tub 62 feet to the upper level. The transit speed is regulated by a
giant water piston and a motor of only a couple horsepower is needed to make the
whole thing work-- a very efficient and ingenious system. If your boat is near
the front of the tub when it descends, it really does appear that you are on the
edge. We are reminded of the cartoon of sailing vessels falling over the end of
the earth. A small prayer that the guy who designed and built the gates knew
what he was doing is in order.
At
Peterborough, Liz had climbed up to the top of the lock in order to take photos
of the passage and I drove “Liz” in alone. Imagine my surprise when the voice
of the lockmaster giving me instructions over the loudspeakers sounded a lot
like my Liz. On arriving at the top, I found out that not only had Liz made
friends with the locking staff and they let her use the microphone but she also
operated the locking controls. Friendly staff, but I was glad not to know of it
at the time.
At
the marine railway at Big Chute, which is not really a lock at all, the boat
enters a structure that looks like a submerged bridge and is lifted on slings
that rise up from
underneath. Next, the entire apparatus rolls out of the water and up a hill on
rails before descending to the lower level to deposit the boats in the water
once more, much like a giant mechanical portage. By using separate sets of
rails on different levels for the front and rear carriages of the structure, the
boats are kept level while the ground beneath changes slope. It’s kind of like
a roller coaster for boats and your best chance to have a mountaintop view of
the countryside from your boat.
If we depended on the waterway for regular transportation, the locks could get tiresome, but on a cruise, they slow down the progress so that many places of interest are experienced that otherwise might be passed by. The fact that many towns grew up around the locks and are within easy walking distance gets you away from the waterway for a while so that the local culture can be experienced. The Ports Guide alerts you to much of interest along the way and gives directions to most anything a cruiser might need and, of course, directions to the ice cream vendors.
Other than fuel and supplies, the major expenses were for
passage through the locks and overnight mooring to
the
concrete walls above and below the locks. Of course, anchoring is usually
possible but having access to the shore makes the trip more interesting and dock
passage for a towed dinghy must be paid in addition the mother ship. Depending
on the time you plan to be in the waterway, the total cost is about the same to
pay for each lock and mooring individually as to buy a season pass for each. It
is also possible to buy a one-time transit pass. An advantage of buying the
season pass with stickers on your windshield is that you don’t have to come up
with the cash at each point. Anyway, that is what we did although we were
nearly to the end of the waterway when an observant lock operator noticed that
we had been given the wrong lock passage sticker. He made a couple phone calls
and issued us the correct sticker. We did pay for one night at a municipal dock
in order to visit that town since the nearest lock was a couple miles back
downstream.
It is the law in Ontario that all boats equipped with a head must have an external pump-out attached. This is true even for a small Porta-Pottie in a small boat. I did install such a deck mounted pump-out on “Liz” but we had so little use for the head on our boat that the pump-out was never used. Each lock had toilets and most had showers. I asked the local officials about the law but was met with a shrug and acknowledgement that they never checked for compliance. It’s not such a big deal since most new portable toilets come with fixtures for connecting a pump-out although a hose to a deck fitting must be installed to meet the regulations.
On the water
Navigation on the waterway is not difficult but it’s easy to make wrong turns or find your boat in harm’s way if you don’t keep your position on the chart up to date. We normally cruise in very shallow water where the bottom is only a few feet under the keel but without rocks or sudden depth changes. Here the water may be fairly deep but it does change depth fairly rapidly and bad stuff like propeller eating rocks and dragons lurk just out of sight under the surface. Constant attention to the position of these hazards is recommended. The path out of an open area will often not be visible until you are almost upon it so someone to watch the chart while another drives is helpful.
Another hazard that none of the waterway guides or
references mentioned is the abundance of floating weeds
and grass just under the surface. While it won’t hurt your boat, it will foul
the propeller. It is occasionally so thick that there is no way around, so
plowing through is the only option. It’s easy to tell when the prop is fouled
as the engine will labor a bit and the speed will drop off. I found the best
solution is to stop and reverse the prop with a burst of throttle. This usually
clears the weed but sometimes needs another go. In the still water around some
marinas, the grass looks almost solid enough to walk on. I guess you just don’t
tell the tourists about such things. Not a serious issue but something to be
aware of.
The scenery changes many times along the waterway from
tight, twisting passages to large open areas and
lakes to dug ditches to small and large towns to the locks and their
approaches. Geology also changes from sandstone to the Canadian granite shield
to sandstone and back again to granite. In many areas near docks and waterfront
homes, the speed limit drops to 10 kilometers per hour (about 6.2 mph). This
also holds for areas near the locks. “Liz” can run comfortably at any speed up
to about 22 mph with full cruising load
aboard.
We usually run about 12 mph for a slow plane and about 17 mph or so for open
lakes unless the waves are large enough to prevent running comfortably at that
speed. On the Trent Severn, we encountered no waves which required running at a
lower speed. Actually, moving along slowly in the narrow places is a boon since
the surroundings are usually most interesting there. Most of the waterfront
homes have boathouses, some of which induce envy with their splendor.
Around one bend there is a church nested on a small rock
island where there is scarcely enough room on the island for the whole
congregation to gather outside the church. Scenery changes constantly and is so
different
from the low lying land and marshes of our home waters that we were always on
the alert for what would be found around the next bend.
The Guides make a point that waves on Lake Simcoe can be very rough when the wind is up and small boats should take caution and listen to wind forecast before starting across. Our local North Carolina waters in Pamlico Sound are both shallower and more exposed, so Simcoe posed no problem. The Bluejacket 24 made the crossing very comfortably in a reported 20-25 kmh breeze forward of the starboard beam, averaging about 15 mph. Simcoe is a large open lake and I’m sure there are times when skippers should use caution and wait out the weather.
At
every lock, there will usually be other boats to make the transit up or down
with you. Making new friends that you may meet several times along the waterway
adds to the pleasure of the trip. The nature of the trip brings people from
near and far and widely differing social and economic status together in an
equalizing atmosphere that all can share and enjoy. There are no “first class”
or “tourist class” seats. Of course the boats range from luxurious Feadships to
little skiffs and runabouts but that did not seem to hinder the banter between
crews. “Liz”, at 24 feet, was always the smallest boat encountered that was
making the whole trip but that did not hamper our enjoyment in any way. In
areas where houseboats were rented, it did pay to be on the lookout for skippers
who were less than expert at handling the ungainly boxes near the docks and
moorings. The lockmasters told us that the crews were given only the briefest
instructions before handing over the rental check and being sent on their way.
A novice skipper in one of these high-windage barges is at a great disadvantage
when maneuvering around the locks in a crosswind.
In the “it’s a small world context”, we rounded the bend
going in to the town of Bobcageon and saw dead
ahead
the 50 foot Saint Paul, named after the boat sailed from Siberia by Vitus
Bearing in his discovery of Alaska. This boat was built by Michael and Irina
Poborunchuk in Vladivostock and sailed from there to Alaska and on down the
coast, through the Panama Canal and to our home in Oriental, NC in 1996. We met
them while they were seeking a place to safely ride out Hurricane Fran. We
found them a spot on our creek
and with the combination of a mooring and a couple anchors, the Saint Paul came
through OK. As in Oriental, they were financing their travels by selling the
intricate Russian nesting dolls made by Michael and painted by Irina as well as
Irina’s Russian folk paintings. They had adopted anglicized names of Mike and
Irene Pobo although no one could be fooled since Mike could easily pass for the
lead role in “Fiddler on the Roof.”
We had planned to take at least two weeks to make the trip from Trenton to Port Severn but I found that there was to be an in-the-water show of classic wooden runabouts on Lake Muskoka near Gravenhurst that we would miss if we held to that schedule. So, the last two days were spent hurrying to Port Severn in order to make the trip back to Trenton for the van and trailer and still get to the boatshow. We also wanted to meet Chris and Julie Bullen who were showing their beautiful Rascal runabout designed by Ken Bassett at Gravenhurst but that and the rest of the time on Lake Muskoka and the North Channel of Georgian Bay is for another story.
For more information on the waterway, Google the “Friends of the Trent Severn Waterway” on the web. While it is possible to zip through the waterway in five or six days in a planing boat, there is plenty of interest to make the cruise much longer and at least two weeks should be planned. We would rate this trip and the following one in the North Channel at the top of our list of enjoyable boat cruises. There are many other such routes on canals, rivers and waterways that can provide a wonderful experience to the owners of small trailerable boats. Some, like the Trent Severn, with frequent facilities available are suitable for small boats with only minimal cruising accommodations. We have owned boats both large and small and learned to appreciate the virtues of trailerable boats many years ago. This trip brings out all that is so attractive about them. We heartily encourage others to give this kind of cruising a try.
Tom & Liz Lathrop
Oriental, NC