The Big Chute is technically The Marine Railway on the Trent-Severn. Here your boat is loaded onto a railway car, transported across a road and down 58 feet to a lower pool, and then unloaded. Really Cool. The Rail car is equipped with hydraulic rams so the slings can be positioned very accurately. Of course the water is very clear too. The car moves by cables like a big chair lift on tracks that have be constructed so the car stay very level. Kind of like caring a sofa down the stair, where the guy in front holds it high and the guy in back keeps it close to the steps. We had expected this to be a bottle neck, taking much longer than a lock. It went really quick, The guys that run the Chute have to train for two seasons before they actually get to be on the crew that move the boats up/down between the lakes. The car moves. Quite an engineering feat.
Since it only took about 30 minutes to make a round trip we took turns being the photographers for each other. Jackets went first then 20 Buck$ and Seabatical. Quite an experience.
We went through one last lock, we have done over a hundred now, we won’t see another one for quite a while. We were in Georgian Bay and made our way to Midland. Georgian Bay…. DANGER
We spent our time in Midland doing some boat maintenance and provisioning the boat for the Georgian Bay. We don’t expect to see a Grocery store for a week or so and will likely have limited phone and internet.
Joe birthday was on the 18th so we all enjoyed dinner together and Tara surprised him with a cake at the dock. We said goodbye to everyone as we all had different plans for exploring Georgian Bay.
