Tuesday

June 27, 2017

Hi all!  We'll be staying at the Peterborough Marina in Ontario for the next couple of days.  Staff here is very friendly and especially looper friendly.  The staff gave us a gift package made up for loopers.  They even have a book where loopers sign in and leave their cards.  We paged through last years book and found four loopers we know.  Pretty cool.
We have no phone access while in Canada and only wifi when staying at marinas'. 

We left Trenton, Ontario Saturday June 24 and headed up the Trent-Severn Waterway.

This is Campbellford where we stayed Saturday and Sunday nights.  All the boats in the picture are fellow loopers.  We are way back second from last.

Campbellford is known for it's famous World's Finest Chocolate Factory chocolate.  We walked to the outlet store on Sunday and had to wait for it to open.

Of course Mike made friends with the couple waiting in the car here.  They offered to drive us back to the boat.

After the chocolate outlet store we walked past this beautiful church on the hill.

This old home was across from the church on the hill.

Our boats were parked next to a very nice town park in Campbellford.

Here's a couple videos of a Flight Lock we went through...

Basically, it's two locks connected together.... we even had a single boat in the other side of the lock going the opposite way.  Once both locks were at the same water level the doors opened and the single boat came into our lock...all of us were on the starboard wall and the boat coming into our lock pulled in on our empty port wall...then we 3 boats went into his lock, the doors closed and the water levels either went up or down, depending on which side you were in...

Campbellford also had a great little pub many of us visited.

Myron and Linda at the pub.

We walked next store to to pub and ate at a restaurant called "Capers Tap House" recommended by locals.  It was great.  This is Linda and Joell.

A pretty good beer...

In the Campbellford park next to our boats was this large Canadian 2 dollar piece.  It is called the Toonie.

All tourists take a picture of the Toonie.

We've had more than a few cold nights and after Campbellford we needed to get the quilt that Mikes sister Sue made back on the bed.  Soooooo nice and warm...

After Campbellford, ON we headed to Hastings, ON for one night.  It was a very small town and not much happening, so we moved on.

On our way to Peterborough, ON we saw our first loon sighting since starting the loop.  We really are getting closer to home.

Beautiful farm on the Trent-Severn waterway hillside.

Just about in Peterborough and we passed by this open bridge.  The college kids were jumping off of it and we had to watch out for them.

Then around the corner was the Peterborough Marina and their famous fountain.  

We will be staying in Peterborough for two nights, maybe three, if the weather gets nasty on Thursday.  They are kicking us out on Friday, but we do have reservations at another marina Friday night and Saturday night.  Saturday, June 1st,  is Canada Day.  Similar to our 4th of July.  

Thursday

June 22, 2017

We left Clayton, NY on Wednesday and Headed to Canada.  There was a parade of 6 looper boats with Mikee Likes It in the lead (were quite popular!).  We were all anxious to get customs over with.  We heard stories from multiple sources and were making an inventory of our booze and food etc.  We even sent an email with our names, birthdates and passport numbers to Customs, to expedite the process.  

Crossed the St. Lawrence river and headed up to Kingston, ON.  As the lead boat, Mike was the first captain to call customs.  All other passengers are unable to get off the boat until we are cleared.  Mike went to a special TRC (telephone reporting centre) phone and dialed in.  He was put on hold for a while, then was asked to spell Joell's name and give her birth date.  That was it!   He handed the phone to the next looper and all 6 of us were through the process in minutes.  We figured it was because we had emailed our passport information a few days ahead of time.  That is our story and we are sticking to it.

After spending one night in Kingston (a very nice city), we got up early and boated on to Trent, ON.  Ready to begin our Trent-Severn adventure.  45 more locks, but supposed nice little towns and lots of good anchorages.  We'll see.

We saw this old lighthouse, on the right, and a beautiful new lighthouse on the left.

This is where Mike made the customs phone call.  We are sure the customs agent could see him while he talked.

We were so excited to have gotten through customs easily that we went for a beer at a cute little beer garden.  Larry and Elke had Rouladen.

Mike and Joell had an appetizer of smoked salmon.  Fresh caught from Mike is always best.

We all went to a hardware store and got courtesy flags.

Heading past the 1000 Islands we have to watch out for ferries.  That is the main transportation to and from the islands.  Most of the residents are summer only.  There are a lot of farms on the islands, but they're mostly self-sufficient through the winter.  The St. Lawrence does freeze over, which allows residents to cross by snowmobile.

Joell drove most of the way to Trent, ON.  Mike and Elwood relaxed.  

At Trent we all had docktails in the sun.  Expecting major rains tomorrow.

There is a Canadian Air-force Base nearby.  We will try to catch better pictures of the military planes.  We were so busy with dock-tails, the camera was slow to come out.

Tuesday 

June 20, 2017

Now this may seem very weird, but today we and 10 other loopers took a ferry to Boldt Castle, in the 1000 Islands.

We arrived at Clayton, NY yesterday.  Our looper buddies left Oswego at 6:30am.  We were waiting for a package to arrive, so we didn't leave until 1:30pm.  It was great!  We drove on plane all the way to Clayton, NY across Lake Ontario and through the St. Lawrence river.  Our engines were loving it.  We were going 22 mph and then slowly the speed increased to 25.5mph.  

We had drinks and dinner with the gang at an Irish Pub.

This morning, Mike and a few of the other guys went to the Clayton Wood Boat museum.  Then twelve loopers headed to the Boldt Castle.  The St. Lawrence water level is higher then any year since 1991.  Most of the piers are under water and locals haven't even put their boats in the water yet.  The Boldt Castle piers were also under water.  Over the last few weeks they build new piers over the old, so tourists like us could visit, but only by tour boats.  There were so many of us loopers going on the tour today the ferry boat picked us up right here at the marina dock.  The ferry then dropped us off at Boldt Castle and quickly left the dock so other tour boats could drop off passengers.  It then returned for us at a specified time.  

Today we took a lot of pictures so enjoy.

Mike bought a few new egg poachers.  They work great!

This Lord Nelson is beautiful.  It was docked near us at Oswego Marina.  We really considered buying one for the loop.  It was just a little short inside for Mike.

This is the lighthouse seen as we left Oswego and headed across Lake Ontario.

Mike and other loopers at the Clayton 1000 Islands Bar.

We ate the nightly special today and last night at O'Brien.  Food was great here on both nights.

Clayton, NY sunset last night.

The following group of pictures are from the Clayton Wood Boat Museum.

Now pictures from the ferry ride to Boldt Castle.

The 1000 Islands are just magnificent.

Well, some are magnificent and others are very small.  

Some were just rocks, but of course a vacation home had to be built on it.

Then there was Boldt Castle.  

Boldt Castle is on Heart Island.  George Boldt bought it from the Hart family and changed the spelling of it.  The magnificence of the castle was surpassed only by the love George Boldt had for his wife.  He constructed this elaborate summer home for her.  

If you don't know who Boldt was, know he came from a poor background to the US in 1864.  He became a successful hotel magnate in America managing and profit sharing the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

Boldt's wife died unexpectedly, a few months before George was to present her with the finished castle.  It is believed that George never went to Heart Island again.

This is the Power House.

The above boat house was still under water, so we could not visit it.

Here is a picture of the pier we might have landed on at Heart Island, if it was above water.

Aster Tower on Heart Island.  This was built before the castle.  It was an elaborate play house for Boldt's children.  

Stained glass in the castle center

Looking at the stained glass from the fourth  floor of the castle

Picture of the castle beams

The castle is not completely restored yet.  There were originally rooms enough to house 100 guests.

Here is a top floor room still to be restored.

Mike took this picture for his nephew Brent.

The most recent restoration was to the kitchens

The child play house (Alster Tower) had this old bike in it.

In the basement of the Alster Tower there were 2 bowling lanes.

Alster Tower

Of course all castles need a Gazebo.

The first restoration was to the Power House.

Power House

Dove Cove

Mike and Joell relaxing at the bar after a busy day.