Day One of the Summer Cruise is Friday, June 16 – somewhat later than envisioned at the start of the planning process – as we depart Loyalist Cove Marina, headed for a weekend in Picton, Prince Edward County, where we will meet up with friends for an afternoon, on our way to Trenton and the start of the 240 miles of the Trent Severn Waterway which in turn will lead us to Georgian Bay and The North Channel of Lake Huron. We put the first 23 miles under the keel.
Picton Municipal Marina is friendly and convenient – even takes reservations. We get all our groceries and supplies, lunch at the County Kitchen on Saturday and an afternoon with Frank and Linda. Our departure on Sunday is put back to Monday because of a weather watch – thunderstorms – which never actually hit us. So Day Three of our cruise is a Weather Day. Up at 05:30 on Monday, we’re off through The Bay of Quinte to Trenton – maybe the first few locks too, if things go well, and they do. By 11:00 we’re there, stopping at Trenton marina for a pump-out and a breather.
Then we fire her up again and head up the Trent, and will almost immediately be faced with eight locks in short succession. We are somewhat anxious about the currents at the dams because of their huge flow of water from the flood period, and we are right to be so. We tackle Lock Number 1 (Trenton), and 2 (Sidney), and are somewhat jangled by the jostle and the locking through, but make it without mishap.
Then Lock 3 (Glen Miller – yes, that Glen Miller) and then on to Lock 4, Batawa, which is named after the Bata Shoe factory that used to be nearby, and once through there we tie up at a completely empty lock wall, and though it’s still only 2:15 in the afternoon, we’ve done enough for one day: 46 miles, with 4 locks in the last six. It’s a beautiful, peaceful end to the day’s journey.
Days Five and Six are lock-heavy: From Lock 4 to Lock 8 (Percy Reach) one day, and 9 to 15 (Healey Falls, Lower) the second. The allowance for each lock is half an hour, but because there is still so little boat traffic, we can get through them much more quickly, with each lock master phoning ahead to the next, and so with each lock more or less ready for us by the time we reach it.
The journey so far: 36 miles and 15 locks.