Saturday - July 30, 2011

The Old Grouch with Brenda on top


Lat 44 52 95; Long 79 40 67, eng 1006

Well this is the last day of our year long journey. We are both pretty sad to see its end but it has been a great year with lots of adventures and lots of new friends. We passed through Gloucester Pool and then waited at Port Severn for the lock as this was a holiday weekend. As we were waiting for the lock to open (and it was busy), another boat came up and passed us just as we were about to go to the blue line to wait our turn to go through the lock. Of course I addressed the idiot, but all I got was the finger. We continued to circle around waiting for the lock to open but this was an indication of what to expect when we got into Georgian Bay. Fortunately, the lockmaster noted what had happened and called us into the lock first when it was our turn.

On locking through, however, we encountered the worst boaters we had seen since the start of our Loop. Basically, knowledge of the rules of the road or should I say water and simple common courtesy were absent from 90% of the boaters on Georgian Bay. Passing full throttle through a narrow channel setting up a huge wake, ignoring calls on the VHF to slow down and simply just looking out for themselves was verry very, very prevalent. I wondered where the police were as I suspected a few of them had lubricated themselves before getting into their boat. As I say, the worst boaters we encountered on the entire Loop.



Finally at South Bay Cove