Kawartha Voyager

Aug 2, 2022

We headed north on the Rideau this morning and fell in behind a tour boat. What we didn’t know at the time was this was a passenger cruising vessel on a voyage from Kingston to Ottawa and has priority over all other vessels. So, that immediately delayed our departure from Kingston Mills by an hour  

They take up the whole gosh darn lock!

We caught up to  and passed the Kawartha Voyager at Jones Falls where they docked for the night. Guess what? They’ll be at Davis Lock in the morning at first lockage and will take priority again. Boo!

We stumbled across a sign, no not literally, although in my current state that would be totally believable, about LTC John By. 

He got a royal screwing by the British. Not the first time that’s ever happened to anyone! 

We passed a couple boats that looked pretty cool. One of them was a Ranger Tug, I love those boats! The other was a rental from Le Boat, a rental company on the Rideau. This looks cool because it would be fun to rent it with two or three other couples for a week on the Rideau or Trent Severn. Any takers?

Le Boat

Ranger Tug

We ran into a little rain and my girl performed like a seasoned pro. No rain is going to get in the way of our voyage. You go girl!

Melissa went for a bike ride and did a little wildlife viewing while I put my knee on ice. 

So, we’re currently tied to a dock at the bottom of Davis Lock and Melissa whips up pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw as a side dish. This was an amazing meal! Oops, gotta go, she’s pouring a glass of wine for happy hour. Bye!

Bilge Rats!!

 That THING is going to be the death of me! That pestilent creature from the sludge ridden bowels of the dankest bilge that’s ever sailed the seas! I’ve been chasing that slime ball from stem to stern for years and just when I think I’ve rid myself of his presence, IT show up as if nothing has happened at all. ITS INFURIATING! 

Jerome is his name. He takes pride in nothing, except for his place in the band. You see, he plays the lead in a heavy metal ukulele band called the Nine Inch Gnomes. They’re nothing but degenerates!  Jerome has been known to frequent shady establishments where equal rights are, well, shall we say, decidedly one sided. But that’s not the problem. He also cavorts with characters of the “Underground” variety. For example, a couple weeks ago I was innocently visiting a dear friend of ours, Dodi, she is the kindest of souls. Well, during our visit we were commenting on the weather of the day when her eagle eye witnessed a mink swim straight into the exhaust port of our boat. I wandered over to shoo the animal away and found it was making a nest, IN THE EXHAUST HOSE!! I banged on the hull and it fled. I started the engine and out came 3 pounds of nesting material. Luckily there were no signs of shredded hose. Now, mink aren’t the smartest of creatures and require great amounts of training. This is where that pestilent gnome gets his kicks. It would not be beneath him to convince and train a mink to sabotage our boat. 

 So, by now you know that we are in Canada getting ready to cruise north on the Rideau Canal to the capital city of Ottawa. Guess who shows up, uninvited, and with a bounty on his head, like nothing is wrong in his world? That bilge rat Jerome! He was catching rays under the fire extinguisher in the cockpit. I snapped a quick photo before he had a chance to get away but he heard the shutter sound effect on my phone and made a hasty escape into the engine compartment before I could tear his beard out one hair at a time. Melissa screamed and took the wheel as I flung open the engine compartment lid and dove in after him, to no avail. He ducked into the sludge beneath the oil pan and surfaced forward of the engine and slipped behind our waste tank. He likes it there. I hope he doesn’t chew a hole in the tank again, waste fluids in a hot engine compartment are VERY BAD! The chase continues…

BTW, we made it to Kingston without mishap. No thanks to the bilge rat. 

Fleeing the Country!

 We’re outta here! Yup, we are fleeing the country as fast as we can. Well, as fast as our 7 mph boat will take us anyway. Why you ask? Well, some people say they’re moving to Canada because their candidate lost an election. Some are fed up with government regulation or policies. Some want free medical care (ha ha, that’s a good one, nothing is free). Still others are searching for the freedom the Canadian wilderness provides. Don’t they know its colder than all get out up there? They don’t call Canada the Great White North because of the desert heat and sandstorms. Good grief! 

None of that is our reason for fleeing the country, we’re heading North for our annual boat trip and we’re traveling the Rideau Heritage Waterway to the Canadian capital of Ottawa! 

This will be a 12 day journey on a route designed and financed by the British and executed by their military as a way to get from Ottawa to Lake Ontario without getting attacked by the pesky American army. (Go U.S.Army!) LTC John By completed the task in 1832. Get this, by the time it was complete, he was recalled to Britain and charged him with misappropriation of funds. They said he took too long and spent too much money building the waterway. Leave it to a pencil pushing politician to to throw a working man under the bus. Oh, all the charges were unfounded but they left a stain on his career and he left under a black cloud. He retired and then died in 1836, just four years after completion of a project that is still used today. Those ungrateful British pigs! They were probably still angry with the US for kicking their behinds in 1776! Ha ha!!

Anyway, we are heading to Kingston, Ontario tomorrow morning to finish provisioning, we can’t take fresh fruits and veggies across the border. It’s an agricultural thing I guess. We did take a couple photos of our trip to Cape Vincent where we are staying tonight. It is a beautiful sunset!

Splashed in 2022!

 Providence was launched last Wednesday and after a little cleaning and prep work we loaded her with provisions and headed for the great unknown. Ok, I’m exaggerating a little, we knew where we were heading out to. There is a little “hidey hole” we know of and spent the night there. AWESOME! What a wonderful evening for our start to the 2022 boating season. 

On Saturday I completed the electrical connection for the raw water pump so now we can wash the boat with raw water and not have to use our drinking water. Yay!

We headed out to meet up with friends at Foxy’s for drinks and then boated over to Clayton for dinner at The Hops Spot. 

We stayed the night in Clayton and departed early Sunday morning for Alex Bay, Melissa needed to get to a bridal shower so we made wakes, in a solid wall of fog! That’s a little unnerving if you’re not used to it. Oh, and we’re not used to it! Yikes! 

We made it without incident a lived to tell the tale. Yay! So, what’s next? Good question. There is a plan to visit Montreal, Ottawa, and Kingston on a two week trip in August. We’ve been trying to do this trip for the last two years but COVID-19 has been dashing our plans. It’s that social distance thing and Canada has been very strict on entry requirements, for good reason. Here’s hoping 2022 does well for everyone’s sake, and our boat trip! See ya on the water!

Captain Rusty is now an official title!

 Yes it’s true! I went to the True Course Captains School at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY in November 2021. I then assembled my application package and submitted it to the Regional Exam Center in Boston, MA. After a few corrections to my application the evaluators determined my suitability to be sufficient to become a merchant mariner and they issued my license! 

Captain Rusty Rosenberger at your service!

Master, 25 Ton, Near Coastal w/Assistance Tow Endorsement

2022 Season - Yay!

 The spring of 2022 is here, let the boating season begin!! 

We are hard at work in the Horizon Marina boat shed working on our list of projects for Providence. We still have another month before launching the boat, sigh. There is light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, ice is almost out of the bay and we will be splashing the dinghy soon! Yay! 🚤 Let’s get this season started!!