A Great Week Living Ashore

After 240 miles and 44 locks on the Trent-Severn Waterway, the Admiral and I arrived in Port Severn on a Friday afternoon. We spent the rest of that day and much of Saturday cleaning and tidying the boat, catching up on laundry, and packing for our week living ashore. Late afternoon, the kids and grandkids started arriving at the boat which none of them had ever seen.

If I do say so, myself, Katahdin presents herself incredibly well and, while one's own offspring can be hard to impress, she did her job. She definitely provided a "wow" factor and the requests for rides soared. Some just couldn't wait and had to take her for an imaginary ride right now. Gracie had no problem figuring out the joystick and off we went--at least in her mind.

Teddy, only 17 months old, happily shared the view from the helm with the Admiral but didn't feel the need to try out the joystick himself.

Charlie, who didn't arrive in time to see the boat on Saturday, nonetheless found the idea of the helm fascinating. Does mariner blood run in the family?

Sunday, Sam, Nat, John Henry and I received a marine leave pass and took Katahdin for a real spin. All of us enjoyed our two hour cruise and both Sam and Nat tried their hands at the helm. While they both enjoyed it, I think it's fair to say that Nat just couldn't get enough.

For me, Sunday provided a great dry run for Wednesday when the whole fam damily would spend a full four hours afloat. We ran from Port Severn up to the Big Chute and got to watch a number of smaller boats load onto the carriage and get lifted over the hump. While I loved having the whole family together on Katahdin, keeping track of eleven people, all of whom you love dearly and three of whom are toddlers prone to screaming or crying at the top of their lungs, raised the stress level of boating an entire octave. If you'll scan down four pictures though, you'll see that Cap was not the only one who found the trip just a wee bit wearying.

My last boating event of the week ashore interrupted our celebratory and only dinner out with the family. Just after drinks arrived, we received an alert that in 20 minutes, wind would rise from non-existent to a steady 60 knots with torrential rain. Nat and John Henry kindly drove me to the boat and left me to don life jacket, tighten lines, ready engines and standby for what would come. And come it did. The sky darkened,

the wind howled, and waves broke over the dock. The day before we arrived, a boat docked exactly where we were had pulled out a cleat and nearly gotten away in the storm of that day. Fortunately for Katahdin, the wind drove us onto instead of away from the dock (remember my ten fenders?) and the fetch at our position was reduced by a small island which kept the waves hitting Katahdin to a manageable size. The worst of it passed fairly quickly. We had ridden out the blow. Where the family was having dinner it was an entirely different matter. They watched two boats pull out cleats and blow away and others come close to the same fate. I would have been beside myself to sit watching that knowing Katahdin was only a mile or two away. The Admiral called me for check ins every ten minutes and I was able to report "All well" each time.

What follows is a series of pictures of the ashore part of our week for our true friends. If you read my blog for the nautical adventure stories, feel free to skip it.

Though I would be the first to admit that we've had family vacations with "drama", we were mercifully spared this time around. In the blind squirrel category of things, I had found a well tricked out compound on small, causeway-accessible Potato Island. With two cabins and a main house, folks were able to find their own space when they needed it, sleep when and as long as they liked, and gather with others once bushy tailed and rosy cheeked. It didn't hurt that there was a terrific playground for the kids and a beach for all. Minor drawbacks included an abundance of goose poop on the beach and a brutal kind of deer fly that caused the worst reactions any of us have ever had.

Each of our three kids and spouses took responsibility for two dinners and the Admiral and I bought the somewhat ill-fated dinner out. In addition to our boating day trips, we explored Midland, Orillia, and Barrie, and enjoyed time at the playground and on the beach. Evening brought gin and tonics, great dinners, after dinner campfires and sometimes just a wee bit of Scotch. Best of all, grandchildren hugs and snuggles were abundant.