The harbour at the "Port of Orillia - the Jewel of the Trent" gave us by far the best showers of the trip, so it was a great start to a day of getting somewhere quickly in beautiful weather. We set off at about 0920 back into Lake Couchiching then through the aptly-named The Narrows into Lake Simcoe and all the warnings on the charts about sudden storms. No worries - a beautiful run, mostly on auto-pilot across the top of the Lake to the entrance to the Trent Canal section of the Waterway.

Midshipman Jones is settling in doing impressions of Greg and Peter C in the galley. He is, however, proving to be diametrically opposed to our departed Peter in terms of neatness!

We smoothly guided Prozac into the narrow entrance of the canal, passed all the fishermen at the entrance and passed the swing bridge that opened for us without delay after a probably-needless toot on the air horn. The channel was very narrow and shallow but not a problem for three extremely experienced helmsmen, two of which must, by now, have a cumulative entire week training under their belts.

Then came locks and more locks. The skipper guided her well into the locks and, after losing an average of one fender and half a boathook per lock (all retrieved) for the first two locks we had it all down pat with Peter on the forward line and Theyre on the after line (with a wet boat hook). We've learned that boathooks float! 

All was sweetness and light until Prozac seemed a bit sluggish at the helm upon leaving the third or fourth lock, then slowed even more as we proceeded up the channel. The depth sounder showed 3', but that had to be impossible because we couldn't calve through mud and Chevy trucks with 20 inches of keel and rudder below the canal bed. Weeds! The canal has hardly been used yet this season anfd the weeds are as thick as can be. Slower and slower we went. Between Locks 39 and 38, in a slight widening of the canal, we came to a complete halt at buoy S350 as a group of young canoers from a nearby religious school ran circles around poor Prozac. We released the forward anchor in an effort to stop her from drifting out of then channel (yes, it's that narrow) which did the trick but caused her to get quite romantically involved with the aforementioned buoy S350. Our courageous skipper donned his diving boots, flashed his butt crack and in he went! Arising from the 5-foot depth emerged this weed encrusted sea monster, proclaiming expletives about the weeds entangling the propeller. He flailed away and removed some of the weeds before it was apparent that Prozac had swung around 90 degrees and her affair with S350 had progressed to the next stage. After digging deeply through the sail locker, chucking everything out of the way, we found the spare anchor and chucked it as far as possible off port. Heave heave heave and we were slightly straighter in the channel. Peter then doffed one set of sexy shorts for another and over he went. The Jacques and Yves Cousteau cleared the propeller with brave work allowing us to sheepishly proceed (with a bow lookout to guide around the weeds) to the next lock where we were allowed to tie up on the approach wall whilst Carl went down again to see if all was clear. Seems OK.

So much time was lost that we were too late to pass any more locks and bridges (all close at 1600 before next weekend) that we had to pull into the next marina at Bolsover, where we headsucked (sic), watered, showered and ordered pizza and beer. Prior to our fine dining, Jones and Smith had a ruthless game of horseshoes, provided by Sunset Cove Marina. Ten dollars exchanged hands. The rest of the evening was spent spending hours trying to update the blog. Thanks to the unknown strangers whose wi-fi connection we were tapping into.