Day 384 – Lakefield, Ontario to Gordon Yacht Harbor Marina, Bobcaygeon, Ontario - July 24, 2012

We were off the dock just after 8:00am today.  Compared to yesterday, we have fewer locks planned, but more miles.  Although the weather forecast was for mostly sunny skies and winds less than 12 mph, there seem to be more clouds that “mostly sunny” and as the day progressed the wind was clearly higher than 10-12 mph (in fact, right before we arrived in Bobcaygeon, we would say it was blowing closer to 20 mph).

The wind and extra clouds didn’t really affect our travel.  The locks we went through today were quite protected, so it wasn’t too difficult getting in and out of them.  The place we noticed the wind the most was as we were going through Pigeon Lake toward Bobcaygeon.  The distance across the lake was over five miles, so where we entered the waves had a five mile fetch and were around one-footers.  Fortunately we were going directly into them so it was not uncomfortable.

The toughest part of today was that we had to pass through an area where one (or maybe two) boats have come in contact with a rock and done some significant damage.  As we have heard these reports from the Looper forum, from the blogs of some of the Looper’s we follow and from Active Captain, we have tried to verify and understand the problem spot.  Unfortunately that has not been easy to do – we have not been able to determine if more than one boat had a problem (we may have been seeing multiple reports about the same boat) and we have not been able to determine the exact location that should be avoided.  So, the only thing we could do was travel very slowly through the section in question.  Fortunately we had no issues.  Running aground, hitting rocks, damaging the boat, damaging the props – all these things make me very nervous about many of the places we will be traveling through over the next few weeks.
 
            Miles: 33.7      Bridges: 4        Locks: 4

much of  today's travel took us around and between marvelous
granite islands, many with small homes on them

the water flowing around Burleigh Lock

there is a green day mark on the island on the left and a red day mark
on the island on the right and we get to go between them

we love seeing loons

Lock #30, Lovesick Lock - there are many stories about who was "lovesick",
but the best line is from the Ports Cruising Guide - "Take your pick, man or
woman, but someone ended up with a broken heart."

the granite rocks are absolutely beautiful

an osprey nest in Buckhorn Lake