{"id":14623,"date":"2025-09-06T20:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T00:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/?p=14623"},"modified":"2025-09-06T20:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T00:50:16","slug":"saturday-september-6-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/?p=14623","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, September 6, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overnight at lower level Hastings Lock 18
\n44\u00b018’31.8528″N, 77\u00b057’18.1332″W
\nWhat3Words: \/\/\/race.snorer.aftershave<\/p>\n

Catherine writes:<\/p>\n

We awoke to a brief rain shower. Thankfully it did not last long. Wally talked with John at Kawartha Propellers about tending to Belisama\u2019s propellers when the boat comes out of the water. John warned us about a sunken railway bridge on Rice Lake that has given John a lot of business over the years and had been the demise of a boat we saw at Buckhorn Yacht Harbour when we were there a few weeks ago. We will be sure to look for this on the charts as we hadn\u2019t heard about it until now and there were no incidents as we passed through Rice Lake several days ago.<\/p>\n

We cast off from Lock 12 at 9:45 and traveled slowly through Campbellford, past the Giant Twoonie Park. It was hard to resist the pull of Dooher\u2019s Bakery but we managed to hold out \u2013 at least for this time.<\/p>\n

We arrived at Lock 13 on the outskirts of Campbellford to find the gates closed. We tied up on the blue line and Wally walked up to the lockmaster\u2019s office where the Lockmaster was just finishing his breakfast which included bacon \u2013 sadly there wasn\u2019t enough to share so Wally has put bacon on the grocery shopping list.<\/p>\n

The Lockmaster told us to make sure our stern was tied tightly on the blue line as he had to empty the 23-foot-deep lock into the short channel where we were moored. The water rushed out, down to the end of channel and then back up on the opposite side, which would have caused Belisama\u2019s stern to swing out wildly if it hadn\u2019t been secured. Those lock staff know their business that\u2019s for sure!<\/p>\n

Soon the gates swung open on their hydraulic power and we tied up on the port side. When going up in a lock the lock staff will advise what side to tie up on depending on the style of lock and how many other boats are in the lock \u2013 we were alone today.<\/p>\n

The Lockmaster also explained that there are two types of locks on the Trent Severn which we weren\u2019t aware of before! There are \u201cseaway\u201d locks and \u201ccanal\u201d locks. Seaway locks are deeper and they fill or empty from one side of the interior of the lock. Canal locks tend to be shallower and they fill or empty from the sluices in the gates at each end. We had Locks 13 \u2013 17 to go through today which are all seaway locks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that this system was once all manually run and through the winter as well \u2013 those men must have been really tough! \u00a0We had a very mild experience working the locks on the Trent-Mersey Canal in England and on the Charente River in France which was plenty hard enough for me \u2013 Wally not so much as he was piloting the boat.<\/p>\n

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This graphic of the Trent-Severn Waterway is posted at several of the locks. It shows the highlights of the system – click anywhere on the image to enlarge it.<\/p><\/div>\n

After Lock 13 was full and the gates opened the lock staff drove down to Lock 14 to meet us there. They staff explained that the gardens are left to the discretion of the staff assigned to each lock, so we can tell where the green thumbed gardeners work. Lock 13 had a very cute row boat planter with flowers and veggies.<\/p>\n

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Repurposed row boat at “Lucky” Lock 13<\/p><\/div>\n

Lock 14 also had a row boat planter and a trellis draped with morning glories made to look like a sail \u2013 very creative! But we didn\u2019t get a photo of 14! Lock 15 also had beautiful gardens and hummingbird feeders.<\/p>\n

About 500 meters on from Lock 15 were the massive step locks 16 and 17. As we approached they appeared to be even more intimidating going up than coming down. But it was a very gentle ride up in both locks.<\/p>\n

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Approaching Lock 16 – very intimidating size gates!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Inside lock 16 waiting to be lifted up to lock 17 – look waaayyy up to see the lockmaster!<\/p><\/div>\n

After we passed through lock 17 we had over 20 kilometers of travelling along the river interspersed much wider spots in the river \u2013 almost small lakes in their own right \u2013 and also through multiple wetlands.<\/p>\n

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Looking back down the river from the top of Lock 17 – 74 feet below!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Nice little trailer park along the way – very well done – I could stay there if we didn’t have a boat<\/p><\/div>\n

We could tell when we were getting close to Hastings as both sides of the riverbank had lots of cottages and then more homes as we entered the town. There also was the distinctive landmark of an old brick chimney and steel water tower from an abandoned factory just before we came to the lock.<\/p>\n

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Hastings Landmarks – I wonder what their “story” is – hey Copilot, tell me about the old brick chimney and water tower in Hastings<\/p><\/div>\n

We tied up for an overnight stay on the grey line on the lower side of the lock \u2013 closest to bathrooms at the lock office.<\/p>\n

Wally called his nephew Wayne and niece Cindy in response to earlier text messages. After that we called Wally\u2019s son Steve and sang Happy Birthday to him and had a brief chat.<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday Steve!<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t say exactly how old Steve is other than he will soon be qualified for early senior\u2019s discounts (starting at 55) although he doesn\u2019t look a day over 40!<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we go across the length of Rice Lake to the marina at Harris Boat Works where we will spend the next night.<\/p>\n

Bye for now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overnight at lower level Hastings Lock 18 44\u00b018’31.8528″N, 77\u00b057’18.1332″W What3Words: \/\/\/race.snorer.aftershave Catherine writes: We awoke to a brief rain shower. Thankfully it did not last long. Wally talked with John at Kawartha Propellers about tending to Belisama\u2019s propellers when the boat comes out of the water. John warned us about a sunken railway bridge on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-cruise-trent-severn-waterway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ppZJ-3NR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14633,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14623\/revisions\/14633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knotsnplots.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}