16 Jun Knot Digin Delivery

After 9 months of waiting and negotiating we were finally on our way to pick up our “Buddy Boat” with the neighbours.

The boat was located at Starport Marine in Orillia ON. We had planned on a 4 day trip to bring her home to Port Franks..

The trip was going to be learning experience and small practice trip to get to know their boat. We used Navionics on my tablet for Navigating and tried out the new Nebo App we are planning on using when we do the loop for logging purposes.

 

 

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The daily summaries were great, tracks, speeds, time stamps all displayed on the PDF file you get emailed daily. It did seem to use a s*** load of data but there might be some setting I can play with. The program logged the weather every few minutes which seems excessive.

 

The first day we crossed Lake Couchiching and entered into the Severn River only to be held up by the CNR swing bridge. We had to wait for a container train to pass.

I’m not missing running trains yet! They seem to be running the railway just fine without me.

https://vimeo.com/348732463

I did cross this bridge in 1984 when I was in Trainman school on our “TeddyBear” trip.

A short time later we entered Lock #42 Couchiching and dropped 21′. Bill handled the boat like an old pro and we made it in and out of the lock unscathed.

The same with Lock #43 Swift rapids where we dropped another 47′ successfully. A short run later and we got to go over the rails instead of under them on the Big Chute Marine railway.

We pushed right through to Port Severn Lock #45 because we wanted to clear the Trent Severn Waterway on our one day pass. We cleared the last lock @6PM with 30 minutes to spare.

Once we entered Georgian Bay and cleared the narrow channel we opened her up and ran across to Midland Town dock for dinner on the boat then Ice cream and a walk after dinner. A good first day.

Day 2 started early with a straight run up to the Bruce Peninsula on a perfectly flat Georgian Bay with fog patches here and there. We played with the radar and Autopilot for a nice straight run to Cabot Head. It was cold crossing the bay and we were glad for the full isinglass enclosure to protect us. As we reached Cabot Head the skies cleared in time to see the rock cliffs of the Bruce. We took a side trip into Wingfield Basin then hugged the coast line all the way to the Grotto at Cyprus Lake. Then a quick run around Flowerpot Island to see the sights. On arrival in Tobermory we took on fuel and tied to the wall downtown. After dinner a walk around and a sample or two at the http://tobermorybrewingco.ca/

Day 3 was another windless day and we had a uneventful run from Cape Hurd to Kincardine. We only passed one boat all day and the Lake was like glass. Tied up at Kincardine Harbour Marina we had dinner and a walk to see the sunset.

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Day 4 we woke to another completely flat Lake Huron and sailed the last 63 nautical miles to our home port. After a quick stop in Grand Bend to top off the fuel tanks we were met by friends and family and had dinner in the lake to celebrate the arrival of “Knot Digin” to her new home.

A few days later she got to meet our Nautoncall for a raft up to get acquainted.