We departed early with hopes of getting out into Georgian Bay in the afternoon and then finding a nice anchorage for the night. Brad and Angie are down to their last days aboard and it's something they wanted to do. We cruised through some early fog in Lake Couchiching and up to the "bowling alley" and down the narrow channel to Couchiching lock. There are two swing bridges on this section that require opening for passage. The railway bridge requires the bridge tender to come out of his shack and climb a bunch of stairs to operator the swing bridge. I would say he looked less than thrilled to perform his duties. The Couchiching lock is a very nice setting and I would gladly spend an evening there if offered. Next is Sparrow Lake and a bunch of narrow cuts that require larger boats to make a Security call on channel 16 to advise other boats of your passage. There is a lot of current too so if you were to meet another boat it might not be so pretty!!.
We arrived at the marine railway around lunch time and thought we would have to wait. As it turned out I had no longer started cooking lunch when we were called onto the carriage to portage the road and hill. I had pictures of the boat hauled to show the lock tenders so they would know where the shafts and stabilizer fins were located. This was helpful to them and we ended up being loaded with the aft of the boat hanging over the back of the carriage about 15 feet. They said it was the furthest aft they had ever loaded a boat and it took a while to get loaded. All went well and we were plopped back in the water and went around the corner from the railway to finish lunch. The section from here to Port Severn has to my mind the best scenery on the Trent Severn and did not disappoint this time through. It is however stressful for the captain as there is lots of current and rocks to avoid. Our plan of getting into Georgian Bay ended when we arrived at Port Severn Lock and cocktails and a swim sounded better than continuing on for 2-3 more hours. We went to the Old School House for fish and chips and some had coconut shrimp and announced it was all pretty good. Back for another episode of Homeland. I'm really enjoying this series and look forward to watching another episode each night if we are not too worn out.
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| Lock tender working our boat onto the lift |
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| View over the road and down the hill from the carriage |
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| Supported on the carriage |
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| Lots of creaking as we went down the hill. Angie was not impressed |
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