The Almost Lost Weekend

Well, we’re back home after a relatively unproductive weekend up at the boat. Because of the ice-storm that hit over the last few days, the marina was closed early on the Friday and the sign on the door read “Closed Saturday and Sunday” so it looked as if we had wasted our time (and money since we had booked two guaranteed nights at Muskey’s Landing motel and hired a cat-sitter).

Deciding to make the most of it, we made plans for the next day to travel up the east coast of the Bruce Peninsula and visit some of the towns to which we would soon (hopefully) be boating. Provided we ever get out of the Trent River that is. We stopped in at Victoria Harbour, Midland, Penetanguishene and Port McNicoll and viewed their marinas. All those towns are of the typical small-Ontario variety with the requisite Chinese/Canadian restaurant; two Tim Horton’s and all had pretty water-fronts. (Except Port McNicoll, that is, where some contractor has convinced the town to let them build horrendous huge houses along their wharf area.)

One of the subtle Port McNicoll waterfront homes

Before we left on our little road trip we dropped by the marina on the off chance it might be open for some reason and found it actually was. A yacht salesman was there waiting for a potential client and we had an hour or two on the Mary Mary. We cut a hole in the shrink-wrapping big enough to crawl into and spent an hour gathering up some things we needed to take home. Brooke was mightily impressed with the good job the shrink-wrapping did in keeping the interior dry and clean. The mustiness I was worried about seems to have been fought off successfully by the moisture absorbing pots I left around the boat last fall. All is well and we both were feeling much more positive when we left for our drive.

However, conversations with locals in Port Severn regarding the water levels through the passageway from the Trent out onto Georgian Bay were helpful but not particularly encouraging. The general consensus seems to be that everyone is just keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that we get some more rain. When I question people about the depths of the narrow Tug Channel and mention our draft of 4 feet, I receive a standard ‘well, you should be okay’ and then a worried look comes over their face as they realize that they may be encouraging us to our doom. I have been checking the government water-level web-site periodically and the levels are sometimes off by as much as .7 of a metre from chart datum. This is alarming, especially when some of the chart depths where we need to go are only 5 or 6 feet. That means that you’re looking at possibly 3 or 4 feet if the levels remain as they are. Which they won’t but still,.. scary. 

The Tug Channel, Port Severn

The picture above shows the river spilling out from under the Hwy 400 bridge on the right and the day markers lining the Tug Channel. It winds around from right to left and you can see how narrow the channel actually is. While we were there the dam upstream was fairly wide open and the water was shooting under the bridge at what looked to be about 6 knots. Of course, the dam will be tighter come boating time. Fingers crossed.