HOMEWARD BOUND - THE TRENT CANAL - THE LAST LEG

Wednesday August 23 to Monday September 5, 2017: What a wonderful 13 days we had cruising from Kinston, on Lake Ontario to our home port in Penetanguishene on Georgian Bay. Here are some highlights:

• We spend one afternoon and overnight at Milton Island, part of the famous Thousand Islands. It had been 30 years since we last tied up at this lovely, well protected Parks Canada island and it brought back many great memories of our many times boating in the Thousand Islands with our three daughters and our small Maltese named Sachi
• Passing by Kingston, we phoned Ray and Rachel to say good bye and let them know we’d wave as we went by their waterfront condo. Rachel said she’d wave a bed sheet at us and 15 minutes later, she really did just that. What fun.
• En route to Trenton, we anchored at Prinyer’s Cove on Adolphus Reach and Green Point on Long Reach. We boated this area for some 18 years and we have so many great memories of the area and the friends we boated with here. There is almost always great afternoon wind in this area and we loved tacking our Nonsuch 30 (Knotty Cat) up or down the reaches
• We started doing some washing and waxing of the boat each afternoon with the objective of having the decks, pilot house and cabin all done by the time we got to Penetanguishene. It was a great idea, but the end result was only 20% completion. I’m going to be busy over the next few days
• We watched two great Netflix films that we recommend you see if you haven’t already. “Ricki and the Flash” with Meryl Streep struggling with her Rock n Roll career. “Walking with the Enemy”, a gripping true story from WWII in Hungary
• A wonderful stop on Stoney Lake on the Trent Severn Waterway to visit former neighbours Bert and Judy at their cottage. We spent a great afternoon and evening with them enjoying another one of Bert’s gourmet dinners
• A two day stop at Fenelon Falls and Rosedale with Randy & Audrey on “Heart Tug” and Frank & Deb on “Another Compromise”. These are long time boating friends we hadn’t seen on the water for two seasons and we had a terrific time catching up with them
• Since my childhood, I’ve done many trips on the Trent Severn. For Fran and I, this was our ninth one-way transit on the Trent. It is truly a lovely way to see some great communities, lakes and canals across Ontario at as leisurely a pace as you choose. As we moved along the system, many great memories fill our minds of our previous trips 
• For those who have only followed our blog this year, we have lots more detail about the Trent Severn Canal system in our 2016 blog postings. Here is a link 
• http://adventuresoffranandstephen.blogspot.ca/2016_05_22_archive.html

Here is a pictorial review of our trip from Kingston, up the Trent-Severn Waterway

Milton Island, the Thousand Islands

Hiking around Milton Island

Calm morning on Bay of Quinte

Frankfurt Lock in the morning calm

Percy Reach Lock

Peterborough Lift Lock

Fran with Bert & Judy - Stoney Lake

More Stoney Lake pics

Sunrise on Stoney Lake

Burleigh Falls

Lovesick Lock

Deb, Audrey, Randy, Fran, Frank, Bob, Jan

Kawartha Voyageur passing Rosedale

Crossing Big Chute Marine Railroad

Two bears on Severn River cottage property?

Farewell dinner with Bob & Jan at School House Restaurant

The Numbers for 2017:

• Total Locks - 114
• Distance - 1,591 nautical miles
• Fuel - 1575.5 litres or ~ 416 gallons $1,446 Canadian
• Engine running time 268 hours
• Days away 101

Total Numbers for 2016 & 2017 (complete Down East Circle Route):

• Total Locks - 165
• Distance 3,727 nautical miles
• Fuel 3,572 litres or ~949 gallons 
• Engine running time 596 hours 
• Days away 212

So, this is our last post for our Down East Circle Route adventure. It really was an adventure and it was wonderful to share it with other boaters and to write about it to share with our readers. To plan such a trip and then proceed to complete it, pretty much as we’d planned, feels wonderful. We learned and experienced so much from this trip greatly enhancing our boating skill set and confidence. Also, we are truly humbled when we think how very fortunate we are to be able to have done this trip. 

There are no future plans for other big boating trips on the horizon. We are looking forward to going back to our usual cruising grounds in Lake Huron’s North Channel and possibly another trip to Lake Superior. In the meantime, we have lots of memories from this trip to savour and many many pictures to sort through.

Thanks again to all those who added comments to the blog or emailed or called us. We really loved hearing from you.

Best wishes

Stephen and Fran