The Trent Severn Waterway

August 3, 2018. Day one. 

I left work early and got home around 3 pm. Melissa had the boat packed and ready to go. I packed my clothes into my bag last night and she took everything down to the boat this morning. We set sail for Kingston as soon as I got home. We met John and Carol aboard Xanadu and Austin and Diane aboard Sine Wave at Confederation Basin marina in Kingston. The guys were already hammered! We went to a Greek restaurant for dinner and had a great time.

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 4, 2018. Day two. 

Saturday morning I rose early and excited to get underway. Xanadu was up and ready to go but there was no movement coming from Sine Wave. We tossed the lines at 0830 and headed West. We ran at 2600 RPM's which is around 16 MPH depending on sea state. Pretty fast for a nine ton boat if you ask me.  I felt pressured to go faster to “get a jump on the the other boats” because I didn’t want to be the one to slow everyone down. In doing so, we burned a lot more fuel than I planned on and wanted to. I’m not succumbing to that kind of pressure again. Xanadu caught up to us mid morning and stayed to chat for a few minutes before powering ahead. 

We slowly made our way through the Bay of Quinte. It was a beautifully sunny day with giant cotton-ball clouds. The water was ruffled slightly by the light breeze but provided an excellent ride. Sailboats of all sizes were taking full advantage of the opportunity to be out on the bay and they were everywhere. We passed by several sailing clubs and had to power through a particularly close call by an adult Hobie Cat racing team. Damn tissue flying sailors almost tacked into our starboard railing!! It would have been devastating to their craft and crew if I had not been watching them cut across our bow less than a hundred away. Reckless! We normally slow down to hull speed as we passed them as a matter of courtesy and, in my opinion, safety. At 15 MPH we create a rather large 2’ wake and I’ve counted a dozen waves behind Providence at that speed. Those waves will rock a sailboat and rattle the crew quite readily. I do not like it when it happens to us so I try not to do it to others. Unfortunately, prudence dictated that we power up to vacate the area. 


                                             

Sine Wave caught up with us around 1500 about 3 miles from Trenton and the entrance to the Trent Severn. We took the obligatory photos of the boats going under the entrance bridge and went on our merry way to Lock 1. I thought we would have stopped at the Trent Port Marina for the night but we pressed on and made it to the top of lock 6 that day. Whew, we were tired! We got things around for dinner and cooked huge tuna steaks on the grills. Yum!

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 5, 2018. Day three. 

Melissa and I went for a 3 mile walk and took some great photos of the boats! Xanadu pressed hard through the locks at a blistering speed.  We paused for lunch at Rainey Gorge and walked over to the suspension bridge. It was beautiful. We made it to the top of Lock 19 in Hastings at the end of the day. We were tired, hot, and sweaty and the lock master took pity on us. He called the marina across the bay to ask if we could get a key for their showers. The manager agreed and I walked over and got a key. I left a generous tip and our girls were happy, Whew! We grilled Kafta, an Indian dish made with garlic, some sort of weed (cilantro), and ground lamb. We substituted the lamb with ground beef because it's hard to find here and when we do find it, it is expensive.

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 6, 2018. Day four.  

John and Carol turned Xanadu around and headed back home this morning. They made it all the way to Trenton in one day! Providence and Sine Wave continued onward. We made it to the Peterborough lift lock just before noon. We tied up and went into the museum and gift shop and watched a 15 minute movie on the history and making of the lock. The engineering and construction at that time was, and still is, amazing. The air conditioning in the theater was a welcome relief! After a short visit, we notified the lock staff that we were ready and were instructed to take commands from the lock tower. We then entered the lower chamber and tied to the wall as instructed. This is one of only two locks on the entire system where we will tie to the wall instead of looping our lines around the cables. The lift-lock works like this. Boats enter the upper and lower chambers at the same time. When the doors are closed, sealed, and locked, an additional 1 foot of water is pumped into the upper chamber making it 1,500 tons heavier than the lower chamber. Then a valve is opened to the pipe connecting the two chambers and the heavier upper chamber simply push is the lighter lower chamber up until both chambers reach their destinations. It takes 90 seconds to raise/lower boats 65 feet! This lock is amazing.

We ate lunch at the top of the lock before descending and moving over to the Peterborough marina for the evening. We got here and tied up just before a drenching rain soaked everything and everyone. Whew! 

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 7, 2018. Day five. 

Today was more relaxing. Melissa and I walked around Peterborough this morning and grabbed a cup of coffee at Starbucks. She made Bloody Marys back at the boat with Austin and Diane as we got a pump out. We got a late start on the day but didn’t feel the need to try and rush. We cruised back through Rice Lake and four locks before stopping for the day. We enjoyed cocktails while floating in the water to cool off. We feasted on a nice dinner on a nearby picnic table and then retired to our boat where we played two games of Yahtzee. 

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 8, 2018. Day six. 

We only cruised for two hours today to get to our next destination, Campbellford. This town prides itself on its cheese curd factory, the Worlds Finest Chocolate Factory, and is the hometown of the designer of the two dollar coin, the Toonie. We walked and shopped around town. We ate poutine at the Crapes Taphouse. Yum! Poutine is a natural wonder! The base layer of french fries is covered with a generous helping of cheese curd and topped with a hot beef gravy. Delicious!!

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 9, 2018. Day seven. 

One more stop in town after our morning walk. We had to get some fresh butter tarts, fruit tarts, and warm fresh from the oven cheese bagels. Wow, they’re  great! We then got ready to make our way to Trenton. We leisurely passed through 12 locks in seven hours. Going down is so much easier. Melissa got to manually close the door on our last lock of the day! Great fun!

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 10, 2018. Day eight. 

Melissa and I walked 5 miles this morning. That woman is trying to kill me! Needless to say we got a late start on our run to Kingston. Well, we had to get fuel as we were running low. Six hours later we pulled into Kingston and tied up the boat at Confederation Basin. After the obligatory safe arrival drinks, the four of us went to the Curry Original for some good Indian food. I highly recommend this restaurant. The service was good, the food was good, and it’s close to the marina. 

Trent Severn Waterway.

August 11, 2018. Day nine. 

We took our time going home from Kingston. We stopped in Buck Bay on Grindstone Island for lunch and some quiet time. We floated around for a while and simply relaxed. It was great! We enjoyed nine days on the water, ran 38 engine hours, and cover 379 miles. This was a wonderful trip!

The Keystorm Wreck

It’s my turn to work the weekend shift at my regular job, so I have Thursday and Friday off. Melissa wants to spend the time on the boat. Who am I to argue with a woman that wants to hang out on a boat? Off we go! First to Alex Bay for our church’s annual dessert cruise! Yes, we took our boat to go to a boat cruise on Uncle Sam Boat Tours. Ya, just gotta love life on the river! It was a wonderful evening on the water with friends and dessert. When we returned to the dock, Providence took us gracefully over to a little cove near the Boldt Castle Yacht House where we dropped the hook in seven feet of water for the night.

Sunrise over the castle is superb. If you ever have the chance to visit the Thousand Islands in your own boat, this is definitely something you need to do. The holding is good and boat traffic is almost nonexistent after sunset. Thursday morning was spent delivering doughnuts to Beverly at Keewaydin State Park Marina. She was instrumental in keeping our sanity intact a few weeks ago while Providence was experiencing “hot flashes”. Funny how they go away after a few boat bucks and a whole new cooling system, think $$! We didn’t want her to think we had forgotten her generosity. We met friends later in the afternoon for a boat ride and dinner. How is it that food always tastes better on a boat? We enjoyed a great ride, conversation, and breaking bread together. After returning our friends to land we slid into the anchorage in Clayton and dropped the anchor in ten feet of water. The stars were brilliant as we turned off the navigation lights and looked skyward. Magnificent!

Friday was another spectacular day on the water. We headed downriver to Chippewa Bay for an afternoon of fishing, boating, and diving with friends. I’m just going to put this out there, if we had to rely on my skills as a fisherman to live, we’d starve to death. Just sayin. We met up with my dive buddy and discussed our dive plan. 1. Sink to bottom. 2. Take pretty pictures. 3. Return to boat. Oh yea, breathe, don’t forget to breathe. We tied to the marker bouys, suited up, and went overboard. It was an awesome dive!

Our Maiden Voyage - April 2017

Our Maiden Voyage

It was a dark and stormy night and the rain was… hold on, that’s not really true. This is my first sea story and I wanted it to start out pretty cool with a nice dramatic flair.  To be honest, it was a beautiful sunny day. We had two days of sunshine and great weather before the rain found us, and boy did it ever rain!

This whole trip started with stuffing our friend’s minivan with all of the gear we thought we would need for our 450 mile ride home. We barely left enough room for the four of us to sit. Me, I could have ridden on the back bumper and been happy as could be. We were going to get our new, to us, boat! Yay!

I asked our friends to accompany us on this trip for a couple of reasons. First, we needed a ride there, simple enough. Secondly, they are accomplished boaters and I knew I could rely on their experience to help us out of a jam if a situation arose. So, I asked them to be our “road crew” and follow along our route. They were there to provide ground support for parts run or other “emergencies”. You know, like if we ran out of bacon or needed more napkins, stuff like that. A trip like this needed a back-up team and ours performed brilliantly. Even though we had the boat surveyed and were pretty confident in her mechanical soundness, I thought it best to have a plan. I asked for and received maintenance documents showing what had been done to the boat. Regardless of what the broker and seller say about a boats seaworthiness and readiness to take on a 450-mile journey, we really did not have first hand knowledge of the boat. It’s not that I didn’t trust the broker and the seller, well, Mark was the sellers broker and they were trying to sell a boat after all. In hind sight, it turned out to be everything they said it would be and more. Mark worked with us and made the purchase as easy as could be expected. I’ll go to Mark Kasanuch at Holiday Harbor in Waretown, NJ when I get ready to buy again. 

We boarded the boat around 12:30 and immediately began a thorough systems check. We turned on all the systems, flushed the water tank five times, flushed the head, and turned on the reverse cycle heat pump to the heat mode first and the ran it in cool mode for a while. Melissa stocked the refrigerator after we determined it to be functioning properly. After two and a half hours of inspections and systems checks we accepted delivery and signed the paperwork. Kachina was ours. Mark said the boat was fueled up and ready to go. We untied the dock lines and eased into the fairway and began our six day journey home.

Day one.

We pulled into Barnegat Bay and headed north to the Manasquan Inlet. We stayed on the inside for this part of the trip because we wanted to get a feel for the boat and stay close to marinas and help, just in case. We stopped at a marina in Manasquan to top off the tanks, just in case. We put in $18.00 and couldn’t get more fuel in the tanks. Bonus points to Mark and Holiday Harbor. We headed out the inlet, that sounds kind of funny, and made a port side turn and pointed the bow to New York City. Driving under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was amazing. Well, the views were amazing, driving under a bridge is pretty much a nonevent in a roundabout sort of way. Pretty mundane if you ask me. Anyway, Melissa and I were having the time of our lives and she was all smiles. She took pictures of everything! She had contacted a college girlfriend and told her about our pending arrival in NYC. She and her boyfriend walked down to a pier and took pictures of our boat. They yelled to each other and screamed in delight. The fishermen on the pier were screaming too, not to sure there was much delight in their voices though. We moved on. We passed through the ship anchorage that is NY Harbor and passed the Statue of Liberty. Wow, what a sight. How fortunate we are to pass her on our own boat. We took the obligatory photos and pulled into Liberty Landing marina for the night. Wow for two reasons. First, it is in a beautiful location in the city and the views are spectacular. Secondly, the price was also just as spectacular! However, we were still on our happy high as “new to us” boat owners and seeing Lady Liberty on our boat. We were hanging out with the big yachts in NYC! How cool is that? Methinks pretty cool!

Day two.

We pulled out of the marina after breakfast and headed north. We cruised the Hudson at 2600 RPM’s, approximately 15 mph. We only had a few days to get the boat home before Melissa had to get back to work. So, this was a delivery trip, no time for a slow cruise to visit the sights on the way home. Bummer. The Hudson river is steeped in American history and I would have loved to stay in the area longer and visit the sights. Next time we pass through we will be traveling a lot slower and take the time to “smell the roses”. Sigh. We did pull over and out of the main navigation channel for a lunch break. We pulled into the Albany Yacht Club for the night. The name gives a false sense of expectation prior to arrival. We cooked dinner and dined on the dock that evening. We toasted our good fortune of weather and problem free travel.

Day three.

We topped up the fuel tanks before leaving and proceeded to the Federal Lock in Troy. After locking through we left the salt water and tides behind. Kachina was destined for the “sweet water seas”, aka fresh water.

We entered the historic Erie Canal in Waterford, NY. After tying up to the wall and waiting for the locks to open we were given the green light to enter. As we pulled up to the wall inside that first lock and the giant doors were closing behind us, Melissa turned to me and asked what I thought about the name Providence. We had been discussing boat names for a few weeks and we both immediately liked it. Before the doors were even fully closed and secured we decided right then that Providence would be her new name. A small reminder of our heavenly Father and the one true God. We continued up the Mohawk River and tied up along the wall at lock nine for the night.

Day Four.

The rain found us. Melissa and I were shivering as we motored along the river. She and Sophie curled up under a quilt that one of our friends made for her as a boat gift. Sophie, our Pomeranian, was keeping her warm. Well, as much as an eight-pound dog can anyway! Sophie is a great boat dog. She walks around the gunwale as though she owns the boat herself. Woe unto the unsuspecting goose or duck or potato chip bag that strays too close to her boat! Her defense of Providence is indisputable.

We made or way through the locks on this rain-soaked day. Good thing we had our matching yellow rain jackets! I wanted something to keep us dry, Melissa wanted us to match. I guess we had to look good while standing in the pouring rain holding on to wet lines at the bottom of the locks. Go figure. I felt like a character from Hee-Haw with my boat hook in hand. We tied to a dock near a closed restaurant near Canajoharie for Melissa’s last night on the boat. Bummer, she would not be able to make the rest of the trip due to work.

Day Five.

Melissa headed for home in the van while my new temporary first mate and I made way down the Erie. We ran in the rain for most of the morning. After we made the turn into the Oswego River at Three Rivers, in the pouring rain, we were stalled at Lock 2 due to lightening. After a short wait, for the front to pass, we were locked through. We made it to lock 4 before tying up for the night. I took the first mate out for a steak dinner at a place recommended by the lock staff. Great food and the restaurant was right next to the lock. Pretty convenient eh?

Shortly after returning to the boat we spied a HUGE yacht parking along the wall for the evening. This thing was massive. The crew was playing loud music on the aft deck most of the evening to stay awake we presumed. That didn’t keep me from sleeping soundly.

Day Six.

The captain was making a delivery so the big yacht went through the lock first thing in the morning. We were a little slow in moving that morning, must have been lethargic from all the steak the night before, so we locked through a little later. We passed them later in the morning. 

We felt the need to call on a friend to "help us across" Oneida Lake. We really didn't need his help but it made a good excuse to take him on a boat ride! He and his lovely bride surprised us with doughnuts at another lock! Yay!

We exited Lock 8 and entered Lake Ontario. The massive yacht that we passed and had been following us began to slowly overtake us while we were still in Oswego Harbor. The USCG patrol boat motoring in the area turned on their lights and sped towards us. They called the yacht and notified them they were being boarded for a “routine” safety inspection. Whew, glad they didn’t call on us. The Coasties probably wanted to see the inside of the boat. We merrily went into the lake. 

The weather called for waves 1-3 ft with a westerly breeze of 10-15 knots and a chance of showers. We stayed in the sunshine the whole way across the lake but we could see a small storm cell about 10 miles away on the radar. That little cell chased us all the way across the lake! We passed into the mouth of the St. Lawrence river under sunny skies and high water. We had to reduce speed to keep our wake low. The high water was causing significant damage to property and docks all along the river and all of the Great Lakes. We cruised passed the very familiar landmarks such as the Tibbits Point Lighthouse, Rock Island Lighthouse, and the Thousand Islands Bridge. We pulled into Providence’s new home shortly after 2pm. We made it! We traveled six days and 450 miles and were finally home. Safe and happy and sad and excited and overjoyed and… Well, I suppose I could go on and on with the adjectives but you get my point. Did I say we were happy?