If you've been following my tweets lately, you've noticed a particularly nautical bent to them. I spent the last 4 days (Mon-Thurs) on the Trent-Severn waterway on a houseboat trip with a few of the guys from work. It was a blast, esp. when we got stuck tied onto a remote island during that crazy thunderstorm the other day.
We went through two propellers (not cheap, by the way) due to crazy wave and currents on Tuesday which almost saw us leaving on of our staff members behind on a remote island (prop #1) and because of a few stray submerged logs that drifted in sometime overnight into the otherwise 12 foot deep water we docked in last night (prop #2). The first prop was so badly damaged by the rocks that we were got to take it home with us. I'm going to find some way to mount it to a plaque or something like that so that we can hang it up in the group home as a trophy of our trip on the water.
We went from Happy Days Houseboats south of Bobcaygeon out to the Flat Islands for the first night, then made our way through Buckhorn and the lock there (a delightful small town with a great lockmaster) and then ran into trouble when trying to tie into Dinnertime Island. We decided that a) the lockmaster is in cahoots with the propeller replacement industry for sending us that way and b) that the island is called Dinnertime Island because of its tendency to gobble up propellers.
We lurched our way back to one of the Three Islands and waited for the replacement propeller to be delivered (which took an astoundingly quick 40 minutes!) and then we hunkered down for the night for that nasty storm that blew through on Tuesday. We also had a racoon eat all of our worms for fishing, so we were jinxed.
Wednesday was a very pleasant trip back to Buckhorn for a bit of shopping and then we pushed through for three hours all the way up to Big Island back at the top of Pigeon Lake, where we tucked into an amazing secluded cove on the back channel side of the island. Today we puttered back to the marina (after inadvertantly grinding the the prop against those stupid logs) and then made our way back home by about supper time.
It was a great trip but I now have a real appreciation of how much work it is to pilot a ship, esp. when the water is choppy and the wind is blowing and the sun is glaring off the water and you can't see where the next marker bouy is. Those three hours of driving the boat yesterday absolutely exhausted me. I am still feeling a little wobbly even though I haven't been on the boat since about noon. I think it'll take me another day to get my sea legs back.
But it's great to be home, even if we had quite the emotional roller coaster tonight when I got home!
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