Sunday morning we decided to travel from Orillia to The Big Chute Marina, at the entrance to the most anticipated “lock” of all.  It is not exactly a lock, but we will explain that in the next post.

Jim and Susan on “Gypsy”  traveled with us until Sparrow Lake, where they would stop for a few days to visit friends.

    

We had only two locks and two swing-bridges today.  The second lock is the deepest on the Trent at 47 feet.  There was not room for boats to pass through the first bridge so the oncoming boat held back.

    

    

    

Today took us through “McDonald’s Cut”, another one of those narrow passage-ways that required us to hail the Security International Safety Signal on our VHF radio, “Security, Security, Security, this is Kara Mia, 43 ft. cruiser, west bound on McDonald’s cut, arriving in approximately 3 minutes.”  When we are through the cut we hail again that we have cleared.

Imagine excavating this cut by hand in 1905!    

    

Although the scenery was beautiful, the rock-lined channels with strong currents are dangerous and kept us tense as we worked to stay in the middle avoiding large rocks just beneath the surface.  You can see frequently we are just feet away from the banks on either side.  More than a few boaters have lost props in these waters.

        

        

While the rivers offered little houses, neat houses, trailer-park houses and landscaped houses – the lakes presented more up-scale and sizable homes.

    

    

    

Ron’s favorite house was on a tiny island…..

…..and paddle boats and ducks……

    

Restaurants along the water were busy on a Sunday afternoon.

The water is crystal clear and you can see the growth that presents a problem for us.  The weeds get sucked up through the engine and A/C strainers and clog things up.

We finally arrive at The Big Chute Marina, another step back in time.  It is quiet and peaceful and as we stroll around the grounds it reminds me of the days in my grandparent’s yard, sitting in the swing beneath the trees…..and the small laid-back marina had none other than – an ICE CREAM store!  What is it with these Canadians and their ice cream?

    

    

    

        

After docking and settling in we walked over to “The Big Chute” to see what we would encounter in the morning.  We video taped another looper boat, the Macgee brothers on “True North” as they went over…….

    

As the sun began to set above the trees we called it a day.  A big day awaits us tomorrow.