Staging to begin the Trent Severn Waterway


We traveled to Trent Port Marina, arguably one of the nicest marinas we have stayed in before embarking on the Trent Severn Waterway (one of the highlights of the Great Loop).  The facilities were 5 star! As you can see the grounds were amazing.



The wedding below took place out on the lawn above with their reception inside the facility in a banquet room overlooking the water. The pics below were taken a short walk from the marina.


Back at the marina they had brand new showers.



A Captain's Lounge where you could watch TV or turn on the gas fireplace when it was cold. We love these!




This is the room where the reception of the wedding was held.




Here we are enjoying an after dinner drink with Doug, Dana, their friend, Jim, from Arizona.  We made burgers on the grills provided by the marina.



Dana mentioned she would like to get her hair trimmed and I volunteered to give it a shot since I cut Gracie's hair for years and have been cutting Brent's hair for the past several months.


Recently we have seen a lot of sea grass rapidly growing up from the sea bed. Some marinas have machines like this one below that cuts the sea grass and loads it on to the conveyor belt.  It then needs to be unloaded and hauled away.  

The sea grass gets wrapped around our boat's prop and you have to put it in reverse to spin it off so you can maintain your normal speed.  



Part of downtown Trenton in the pics above and below.


Wall mural in town created out of thousands of photographs submitted by the residents of Trenton. Each "pixel" is an individual photograph of someone or something connected to Trenton.



Tim Hortons is a chain restaurants here in Ontario. Brent thinks they have the best Boston Cream Donuts - ever.


Canada Day was July 1st and its about a week later now.  I guess as long a people buy them they keep making them.


We learned what Poutine is; Canadians seem to put brown gravy on almost everything. Cheese curds are another thing that is very popular here.


On one of the days we were here we walked down to the first lock of the Trent Severn just to put our eyes on it so we would know what to expect. We also needed to buy our lock pass and stick the sticker (receipt) on our windshield so each lock would know we had paid the required fees in advance. 

All the locks on the Trent Severn don't open until 9am so no need to get up early.  Brent is all in favor of that. The lock dimensions are approximately 120 ft long and 35 ft wide.  This is very small compared to the locks in Louisiana that barges and tugs have to lock through.  With this size there are not too many boats that go through at one time so it is a VERY slow process.  Bring your patience!!



Lock #1 on the Trent Severn Waterway in the picture below (there are 45 locks on the Trent Severn!)



All of the locks are opened and closed manually as shown in the picture below. Someone (usually college kids on summer jobs) walks in a circle to turn the gears that open the lock doors on either side.




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