Cruising with Ralph and Gail Big Chute & Waterfall (Day 90-92)

- July 21, 2022

What a special treat it was to cruise with these two dear friends. Ralph and his family are largely responsible for getting Mike into boating and he was Mike’s best man.

Gail and I enjoyed our morning coffee, taking in the sights of Lake Simcoe. This island was covered with birds.

As we approached our first lock of the day, there were several French Canadian/non English speaking boats lined up. We spent the day going through the locks with these folks trying to use the French we had studied many years ago😁.

We saw many more cottages and beautiful scenery between locks.

We let Gail enjoy the ride while Ralph took the stern lines. This is at the top of the lock. We are going downstream at this point on the waterway.

And here we are at the bottom of the lock. Gail our VIP (Very Important Passenger) Ralph on the stern and me on the bow.

The beauty of this area did not disappoint. But we were getting excited approaching the most exciting lock of the day, “The Big Chute.”

While waiting our turn to be loaded into the Marine rail car for “The Chute,” Ralph and Mike explored the area and found where the original lock was going to be dug before they decided on “The Chute.”

“The Big Chute” is actually a rail car that is submerged in the water as you drive your boat in. Then the operators “sling” the vessels so you don’t fall over as the rail car drives up out of the water and crosses land before going down the steep hill and back into the water where they re-float the boat. Smaller vessels like jet skis can just sit on the bottom of the rail car. This is us heading into the chute.

For those of you not on Facebook, we were live as we crossed “The Big Chute” The video is 7 minutes long.

The photos above were taken by our new friend, Jerry, who was waiting his turn to go through the “Big Chute.”

After all of the excitement we found an lovely anchorage near a waterfall on the Gloucester Pool. We all swam over and only saw one water snake and a very odd local waterman. You’ll have to ask us when you see us.