July 14 Trenton to Frankford

July 14

Happy Birthday to me!!   What better way to spend the day than traveling around on a boat having a great adventure with the one you love.    I am truly blessed.

We had a good couple day stay in Trenton.  There’s a Royal Canadian Air Force Base across the river from the marina and while at times it made for some loud and close overhead  takeoffs we also got treated to some stunt parachuting. 

Saturday evening  our friends Eric and Karen  who are the harbor hosts  for Trenton  and keep a boat at Trent Port Marina invited all the loopers over for docktails.  They  are gracious hosts and very helpful to anyone passing through this region. They put together an amazing resource booklet  available to any loopers  traveling the Trent-Severn Waterway.  

Back on the water today as we began our next section of the trip.  The Trent-Severn waterway is 240 miles long and has 45 locks – including 2 lift locks and one railway lift.  We’ll spend 2+ weeks  going through this area.  We really didn’t make huge headway today – only about 7 miles but it took us almost 5 hours.  Part of the issue was we were going through 6 locks.  The other issue was it took a bit longer to get us loaded in and out because we had 4 boats  going in at once which required rafting up.   These locks are only 110’ long compared to over 300’ long on  the Erie Canal.  So at each lock we went in first all the way to the front of the lock and got tied to the starboard wall, then a 26’ Cutwater came in and they rafted against our port side.  Next United 771 – a 50’ Hyatt came in behind us and performed the same procedure tying to the wall and then getting a 34’ Nordic Tug tied to them.  Because all the fill water comes in from the port side of the chamber and pushes  against the starboard wall they didn’t want any boats being tied to the port wall and  potentially being pushed over – hence the rafting up scenario.  It worked well and we all got pretty proficient at it by the 6^th lock.  The 2 smaller boats continued but United 771 and us tie up here at Frankford. 

Each of the locks are part of the Parks Canada  system and  the grounds are used as parks with manicured lawns, trees, flower beds, bathrooms, picnic tables, etc.   The public is invited to help  when it comes time to  open the lock doors and push the turnstiles that open the doors manually.   There was a family with 3 little girls  who were having a  blast "helping out". 

The Frankford lock is also one of the few that has power pedestal.  That made it nice to run the A/C a bit since it made it all the way to 80 today.

A trip to town for some pizza and a triple chocolate brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream completed the day.   Oh - and Martha was excited to finally see some  white swans.  We've heard about them but not seen them and then when we do they have a few little ones with them.  

Journey for July 14