I’m anchored here at the entrance to the canal. In the past I’ve tied up inside the breakwater, but it’s quiet here with an easterly wind. And I’m a bit leery of walls.
After spending two nights below Big Chute we went up and over on the railway, and Miles went back to work. I meandered up to the bottom of Lock 42 and spent the night there. Nice spot with a decent burger spot close by.
This morning I woke up to a minor mess in the galley. I had the boat closed up, but found the window screen open. I’m quite certain a racoon opened the screen and came in to feast on my bagels.
It was raining and I wasn’t in a big rush, so I didn’t join the other boats for the first locking. When I was getting off the wall to enter the lock a bit later my control cable for the transmission failed, and I was stuck in reverse.
I had almost exactly the same thing happen with Mazurka 8 years ago, and the outcome was the same. I hit the wall going backwards. Fortunately no damage to the boat or dinghy apart from a scuff on the metal swim platform.
I’m fortunate that this didn’t happen when I was close to other boats. I had checked all the cables and connections carefully last year when decommissioning the upper helm. There was no sign of problems before the internal rod in the cable broke close to the end fitting.
I was able to fix the problem by replacing the cable with the one from the upper station.
Cool, grey and rainy today. A nice break from the heat of the last couple of days.
I stopped in Orillia on the way through. Had a nice chat with the folks on this boat, they’re doing a loop of Lake Huron from their home in Ohio. Cool boat. They had passed me earlier at their 29 knot cruising speed.
Boating Adventures 