Lovesick and Bobcaygeon

Days on cruise:  101

Distance traveled:  33.7 miles

Travel Time:  4 hrs, 51 mins (or 5:48 including locks)

# Locks today:  4

Total trip odometer:  2,274 statute miles

 

Ever since we began the Trent-Severn Waterway, we’ve heard from local boaters that we were “doing the ugly part of the Waterway, and once you get to Lovesick it will be so much more beautiful you won’t believe it.”   Well, we found the “ugly” part of the Trent-Severn to be quite attractive, so had a hard time believing it. Today we became believers!

After departing last night’s lock, the pervasive limestone rocks gave way to granite. If Minnesota is known as the “land of 1,000 lakes”, then this is the “land of 1,000,000 islands”.  There are an untold number of granite rocks poking their heads above water, and granite islands, many of which are inhabited by one cottage, sometimes with a tiny private foot-bridge to a mainland, but usually not.

Most of today’s route was the most circuitous we’ve traveled yet, winding between rocks and islands, making 220 degree turns into previously hidden waterways, and sometimes passing between red and green day markers so close together it would be impossible for two boats to pass simultaneously.

Florida waters were mostly turquoise, blue or green. The last 2,000 miles since we crossed into Georgia it has been brown, and visibility has not been more than a foot deep.

Today we crossed into clear water.  Literally clear.  We see huge granite rocks under the surface, appearing only a foot or two below, though charts often show they’re much deeper.  We crossed shallow lakes in which the water was often 2-3 feet deep for miles, but a channel wound it’s way through water 8 or 10 feet deep, designated by frequent markers.  It was a fun navigating puzzle, and sometimes provided surprises:  “Really?  The chart says there is a lock up there, but where is it?  This is a dead end!”  Then a 240 degree turn into a very, very narrow canal revealed a lock.

Lovesick was the prettiest lake and lock we’ve seen yet, absolutely idyllic . . . and crowded on this, the official Canada Day holiday for workers, though the real day was yesterday.

We traveled to Bobcaygeon, had to anchor out nearby for a couple hours while we waited for boats to leave the lock wall leaving space for us, then moved to the wall for the night.  We wandered into town, saw the sights including “Bigley’s” store, which is famous for it’s enormous selection of fabulous, fairly expensive shoes, if you can believe it! Who knew the tiny town of Bobcaygeon would be a famous shoe mecca? We were told New Yorkers come to shop here.

As the day wore on, holiday boaters began to journey home, and the crowds thinned appreciably, much to our delight. We know this land belongs to those who live here, not us, but the “weekend warriors” of boating are generally loud, not well schooled in good boat handling or protocol and reckless.

The weather remains warm (80s), not humid, and with light wind during the day, less at night. The scenery here rivals any we’ve seen in our home cruising grounds, including the Inside Passage to Alaska, but the weather is better, and the water is swimmable, so we have to say this may take the prize for good cruising grounds.  We’re still being told the best is yet to come when we arrive in Georgian Bay and the North Channel (the northeast shoreline of Lake Huron which we enter after finishing the Trent-Severn Waterway at Port Severn sometime next week).  We are still, amazingly, only an hour by car from Toronto, as we have been for almost two weeks.