The Christensen's Lucky Star

Welcome to the travels of the Lucky Star. We hope you enjoy. You will see that the most recent posting will be first. At the very bottom of the blog is an explanation of our trip aboard the Lucky Star.(you will need to click on older posts). This blog is how we will keep a picture log of our trip (double click on any picture to enlarge), and stay in contact family and friends while we are on the Lucky Star. The nice thing about a blog, is that you can stay tuned as we update and travel along. We will also email you periodically to remind you that we have posted something new. This blog address can be put in your bookmarks or favorites for easier access. You can still email us at our regular email addresses, we love hearing from you. Blog address: http://christensenluckystar.blogspot.com

July 28-Aug 11, 2007 Trent Severn, Ontario

We started the Trent Severn waterway on July 28th and continued on it until Aug 10th. This entry will be mostly pictures, not enough words to describe the sights and events that we have enjoyed. The first two pictures represent the typical lock, and lockmaster's building. Most of the locks on the Trent Severn are manually opened and closed by the lockmaster and helper.
Bob's sister and husband, Joyce and Hugh, joined us in Peterborough ON, we put them to work helping with lines in the locks. Hugh earned the name 'rear admiral' for all his great line work on the stern, and Joyce maintained her 'first class passenger'
status. When going through the locks, the stern and bow must be roped to the cables along the sides of the walls of the locks. We were sometimes in a lock with 4-5 other boats.



This is a series of pictures of the Peterborough Lift lock, the boat enters a pool of water, the entire pool is raised or lowered hydraulically. This lock lowered us 48'. There are beautiful parks and boat tie ups at each lock. Below are some of the views of inside the lock pool at the top, and then looking out over the landscape.Then pictures from the top of the lock, looking out over the landscape; and then down at water level after we have been lowered to the canal. There were two of these lift locks, very unique to the Trent Severn Canal system.
This is one of the little inlets we saw as we traveled along the canal. Everyday was as pretty as can be.
We anchored out one night, and this friendly Canadian drove his boat over to us and invited us to his cottage for coffee. We accepted, so he came back and took us on his boat to join him and his wife on this lovely deck. This cottage is built on a solid rock that you can see in the front of the house. We even had a view of our boat in the bay.
The next morning, some people that we met in the locks, came by our anchorage and had a chat with us (Bob and I are in the dingy). Life on the water is always full of wonderful surprises.
The Big Chute at Port Severn is the end of the canal system, the entry to Georgian Bay. The Big Chute is a unique lock that we had read about all along the trip. Picture driving a boat onto a marine railway, then being lifted out of the water (on a sling), traveling over a road and being lowered down a hill to the water. That is the Big Chute.




Riding the Lucky
Star on the Big
Chute.


Up and over the land, we all sat on the bow and let the lockmaster do the work.