Picton Harbor

This September Karen and I booked a week off from work and had planned on traveling up the Trent Severn waterway for a few days to explore the area.  Unfortunately when we arrive at our home port of Trent Port Marina, we were notified that Lock #3 was shut down for "maintenance" and expected to be shut down for a day or two.  Well....leave it to Parks Canada to not be completely forthcoming in what was really going on.  Lock #3 is not terribly far up the Trent for us, it would probably take us an hour or so to get there so there was no point in traveling up the Lock #3 if  we couldn't go much further.  So we decided to wait and see what would happen.  We kept watch on the Parks Canada website and followed their twitter feed until Sunday (the closure happened on Thursday).  Sunday, after I spoke with the marina manager, who seemed to indicate that the Lock would be shut down for the better part of the week if not longer, Karen and I decided to change our plans.  Trent Port Marina is nice, but Karen and I wanted to get out there and travel a bit to try our hands at planning a longer trip and visiting the area.  This past summer has not been great for boating and we were looking forward to heading up the Trent system.

The journey begins, Trent Port Marina is in our wake.

We talked to our dock neighbor and asked him about Picton Harbor as we decided that we would explore the North Passage from Kingston to Trenton.  The North passage takes you through protected waters outside of the busy and open shipping lanes where Lake Ontario and the St-Lawrence Seaway meet.  Our neighbor did advise us to call ahead and reserve space at the municipal wall because the Tip of the Bay Marina was in disrepair.  I called right away and as luck had it, there was space for us on a 50 ft. wall. We left the dock on what was looking like a gloomy overcast and rainy day and slowly (most of the way) made our way towards Picton Harbor.

The coast line of the Bay of Quinte is full of wetlands which are home to a variety of wildlife.

Belleville govt. pier with the Coast Guard buoy tender. 

Snake Island....full of cormorants, not sure how many snakes make their home here.

Because we had planned on taking our time to reach Picton in order to conserve fuel, I calculated that we would be arriving later that evening.  That was the initial plan, however Karen reasoned that we should make an effort to make up time and arrive in daylight as opposed to arriving at dusk when the markers might be difficult to see.  I agreed and as soon as we hit Big Bay, we throttled up both engines and watch the speed indicator start to climb until the throttles were wide open and our speed topped out at 19.89 kn....I won't mention what the fuel consumption was.  We were across Big Bay in no time and had shaved 2 hours off our time of arrival.

Woohoo! 19.1 kts.  That works out to 35.37 Km/h or 21.97 Mph, burning 40 gal/hr.

The rest of the trip to Picton Harbor was peaceful and we saw lots of great scenery.  Travelling by boat really gives you a different perspective than travelling by car.  The wind picked up a bit and we closed off the canvas to keep warm, but the trip was worth it in the end.

Passing by Deseronto

More wetlands.

What a great summer cabin!

More of the coastline on the way to Picton.

A coastal quarry operation.

The entrance into Picton Harbor.

As we entered Picton Harbor, the channel was bordered by various sailboats and smaller power boats bobbing happily on their moorings and nestled deep within the cove the fuel docks and the wall to which we would gently tie up to and make our two day stopover before continuing on to our next destination.

Check out this short video clip where I talk about our arrival at Picton Harbor.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd-Wy9FEt5U&t=52s)

Our view from the govt.pier in Picton Harbor.

Tropical Horizons tied up and resting.