Trenton Ontario – Trent Port Marina (Port #113) ; July 26,27

Jul 26 – Thu
Thursday was a long day travelling 71 miles from Kingston to Trenton Ontario.

We will be in Trenton for 2 days, and on Saturday begin our journey up the famed Trent Severn Waterway.

If you remember the last post, we had a rough ride on Lake Ontario, it was whipped up like a Lion.
Like a Jekyll & Hyde character, on this morning Lake Ontario was again a gentle lamb.

The winds were still somewhat high at 15-25mph out of the SW, but we helped ourselves & the wave situation a lot by taking a route on the far north shore of Lake Ontario, with the Horseshoe, Amherst, & Waupos Islands blocking the wind, resulting in almost calm water.
We had a wonderful ride, doing 20mph for the first hour.

We arrived at the beautiful Trent Port Marina about 2pm.
The marina is very new, having been built only 4 years ago in 2014.
The main building, the grounds, the docks, and the showers are all beautiful and immaculately maintained. The 10 individual shower rooms are cleaned twice per day.
AND, it’s only $2.00/foot.

 

After arrival, we had many tasks to complete prior to our start up the Trent Severn.
> We had to get a new burgee/flag holder.
> We had to investigate a Garmin Chartplotter Issue.
> We had to call Lock #1 to find out where to buy the Trent Severn Waterway Pass.
> We called ahead to reserve slips in Campbellford & Hastings.
> We washed the boat.

New burgee holder
Bummer of all bummers.
Shortly after departure from Kingston, I noticed that our AGLCA Burgee/Flag mast, was loose & wiggling within the body of the mast holder (thx to the 40mph wind in Kingston).
The last thing we needed to happen is for our beloved AGLCA burgee to break off and fall in the water (Oh, BTW – I just lost my 2nd hat while securing the flag while underway).
This is a big deal because our rail mounted mast holder is a replica of the Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy female figure, given to us by Dave Sylver.
If I can’t repair it, I may not be able to get a replacement, and it is the coolest part of the boat.
FOR NOW, we have temporarily replaced it with a generic mast from the marine store.

Garmin Chartplotter Issue
Also during the ride from Kingston to Trenton, I noticed that all the water depths and markers from Lake Ontario were active on our Garmin Chartplotter, and operating normally. As soon as we got on the Adolphus Reach Waterway, just south of Trenton, the screen went to just a blue water blob with no water depths, no markers, no information.
Luckily while underway, we had backup with the IPAD Garmin Blue Charts Mobile. Both the chartplotter & IPAD have read the exact same info on the entire trip. We usually set the chartplotter up for a long range & the IPAD for short range views.
Upon arrival in Trenton, I remembered that I had not updated the chip in the Garmin Chartplotter to the Trent Severn/Georgian Bay chip (actually, it’s the same chip as the Great Lakes, which we had used when we first began the trip last July).
Chip updated, Chartplotter functioning normally again.

Trent Severn Waterway Pass
We were not sure where to purchase the pass to allow passage thru the Trent Severn.
So I called Lock #1, and the very nice lock operator Tom said, “you get it right here at Lock #1”.
He said “you can come by ahead of time, or just before the lock on the wall, or potentially while in the lock if we are not busy”.

Because we have an 11 lock day planned for Saturday on the way to Campbellford, we made a plan to go on Friday to get the pass in advance.

Slips in Campbellford & Hastings
We will travel to Campbellford Ontario on Saturday & Hastings Ontario on Sunday.
So I called both places to make reservations.

We learned that in Campbellford, there is only a City Dock Wall, and that it is first come/serve, but they have never run out of docking stations. We also learned that the 50A power stations are all on the east wall, with 30A on the west wall.

For Hastings, we did make reservations at a marina called The Village Marina.
I am getting the impression that advanced reservations will not be a big deal here like they have been in some of the bigger cities.

After all of the above, Nellie & I spent about 2 hours washing the boat. It had been about 2 weeks since the last wash. Washings are needed much less frequently now that we are back in FRESH WATER.

So after all those happenings in the afternoon, we went to dinner about 7pm.
We walked the downtown, the riverfront, and ended up at a place called Tomasso’s.
Yep you guessed it – another pizza pie.
Tomasso’s is a pretty hip, upscale joint, at least as upscale as Trenton Ontario can get. The other bonus was that it was on a very nice piece of real estate on the Trenton River.

After dinner, we walked the riverfront, walked the downtown, and walked thru some parks. We walked by the famous “Gateway to the Trent Severn Bridge”, that we will pass under on Saturday.

I was a little sleepy after the big meal, and Jonell will not read me any bed time stories, so I ran into a nice old fella willing to help.

 

That was about it for Thursday ;
> 71 miles
> 5 projects
> Gettin‘ to know the town of Trenton
> and bed time stories from Roy.

What a day !

Jul 27- Fri
Friday was a much more low-key, laid back day.
There are a few things to do in Trenton, the most interesting being The Canadian National Airforce Museum.
But like I said in the last post, we are getting kind of overdone with museums.

So we spent most of the day on a long 2+ mile walk to Lock #1, to get our Trent Severn Waterway Pass, and watch some boats go thru the lock. We took the Jack Lange Walkway, which started out as a well defined path, then got smaller, then went adios as we approached the lock, and we had to walk along the lock entrance wall.

We watched some boats lock thru. This lock, and others on The Trent, are unlike all the Erie locks, in that the doors to the locks are manually operated via the lock operator and his assistant manually turning the gearing to the lock doors with a big lever arm wheel.

After watching lock operator Tom get his exercise, we met up with him and purchased our pass for the waterway.
Take a look at this baby !
Doesn’t look like $200 bucks Canadian, does it ?

After getting our pass, we took a taxi back to the downtown area, did some window shopping, and came back to the boat.

Mike messed with Canadian TV a little, as Hulu no longer works in Canada.
Nellie read her book.
Mike worked on the blog.

Day over, whew I’m exhausted, time for afternoon drinks & thinking about where we will eat !
Dinner was back on the beautiful Trent River at a place called The Post.

While walking to The Post, we went through the local park, where Trenton was having Friday night concerts in the park. The band was playing 50’s music in a beautiful setting.

About 30 minutes after we arrived at The Post, while we were having some pre-dinner drinks, and waiting on our meal, Jonell noticed a familiar face.
It was a guy named Glen who we had just met in the boat slip right next to ours in the marina. All of the outdoor tables at The Post were now full & the social butterfly Nellie said “why don’t we invite them to join us”.

I did.
They accepted.
It was another one of those wonderful, by chance meetings, in which we met another awesome couple.
Glen & Robin live in Toronto.
Glen has been a sail boater since age 4, and currently races twice per week.
Robin has been sail boating with Glen for the last 15 years.
They have a son in his early 20’s studying law.
They are about 3 years away from retirement and have bigger plans than us which include trips to the British Virgin Islands & The Mediterranean.
They recently (last year) replaced their longtime 37 foot sailboat with a fairly new beautiful 47 foot Benetau.
The conversation was endless, we loved their company.

On the walk home back to the boat, we noticed a gorgeous sunset over the Trent River.

 

 
Tomorrow will be an interesting day ; it will be our 1st voyage in the Trent Severn Locks, and we are planning on going from Trenton to Campbellford Ontario.

Campbellford is only 31 miles away, but there are 11 Locks to pass thru.
If this was the Erie Canal, I would say no-way.
But Lock operator Tom tells me we should be able to do it in about 6 hours.
We also have to fuel & pump out heads tomorrow morning, so it will be an early 7:30am start.