Our Short Vacation

Wednesday, August 1

by · August 1, 2018

Wednesday August 1

We left Swift Rapids and went through what Pam thought was the prettiest part of the Trent with some interesting things on the way.  

 

Check out how narrow this is…

Then we got to another long awaited part of the Trent- The Big Chute Marine Railway.  We pulled over to a dock by the side of the Marine Railway so that we could watch how other boats did this. This gave us an opportunity to walk the facility and see it from every side.

 

 

See the pic below for the full description of how this works.

 

You pilot your boat onto a submerged rail car. There are straps that they tighten up that hold your boat from moving/tipping. When everything is secure the car slowly starts to move up out of the water.  This car moves your boat up a track, across a road and then down a steep hill to the next body of water at the bottom of the hill.  Unfortunately, the very first batch of boats that we watched experienced a loading problem that was unusual. Obviously, the picture below looks a little scary. That was the result of an inexperienced operator working the straps up front. When we finally did it, it was pretty cool, quite safe and very stable.

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They didn’t have the straps on these boats quite right.  Looked like an uncomfortable ride. You can see the cables below that move the car.

The building beside the railway contains the huge mechanisms that do the heavy lifting.

Since our boats are so big we had to go through separately.  Our props and rudders needed to hang off of the back of the rail car. Greek’s Folly went first and we were able to get some good pictures of them on the Chute.

Going into the Chute.

Click this link for video of Greek’s Folly in the Chute

The video showed what it looked like when Short Vacation went onto the Chute.

 

It was our turn in the Chute. We went back to our boat and started pulling our lines. There were some other boaters there that assisted with our lines as we maneuvered away from the dock. We slowly moved over to line up on the rail car, checked the wind and followed the directions of the main operator. And, once again we are the entertainment for the spectators. Boats of our size are not a everyday occurrence here.

There weren’t any other small boats and we are so big that we went through the chute by ourselves.  John had talked to one of the lock masters before we got there about our stabilizers and how you had to be careful of where to put the straps so they wouldn’t be damaged. He was ready for us when we came in.

 

These operators commonly climb down onto the car after it lifts out of the water to inspect your props for any damage on entanglements.

 

This was our view as we were going over the chute.

 

 

Since Greek’s Folly went before us, they waited outside the congested area until we came over the crest of the hill.  They came back to take some pictures of us on the Big Chute.

Yep, we are on the crest and headed down the hill.

Click this link to see the video as we enter the water again. Watch the whole thing and see the bow suddenly pop up.

It was a cool ride and I can see why Loopers look forward to this. Frankly, after your boat is on the car this is the easiest lock we have ever had. No ropes to tend to, no boat hooks, just another adventure. Now that adventure is over and we move forward.
We left the Big Chute and made our way to the last lock 45 in Port Severn.
We decided to spend the night above the Lock because we were meeting people for dinner and there was more room for us up there.  Last winter John and I met a LOT of Canadians. One of the Canadian couples that we became friends with was Margaret and Dwayne.  We knew that they had a cottage in the Georgian Bay right near Port Severn but they didn’t think that they would be there this summer.  During our trip through the Trent, Margaret texted me that her cousin that lives in a cottage right next to her’s wanted to meet us so we made arrangements to hook up with them.  Bob met us at the lock and took us out to the ‘compound’ where there are 5 cottages right next to each other all belonging to Margaret’s relatives.  It was enjoyable meeting Bob and Sheila Guest and some of their family and seeing three of the cottages.  We went out to dinner with them and they came back to our boat for a tour. Lovely evening.

Bob and John at the camp looking out at the lake.

Bob, Sheila and John on the back of our boat. Another picture with Pam on the boat.

The map below is an excellent view of the Trent-Severn Waterway. We had a number of people tell us that when they look at our real-time link to our position and past tracks that they were surprised to find our boat in the middle of nowhere in Canada. Zoom in on the picture and take a close look.

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