Monday morning 7/10, we headed off to our next big adventure, traversing the Big Chute Marine Railway! It was going to be a long ride and ended up being a day for exercising our patience. The first obstacle.....the CNR railroad swing bridge. It was closed and would not open until a train passed sometime "around 10:20".
You can see all the boats waiting ahead and behind us!
The train finally passed and the swing bridge opened at 10:50.
We made it to the Big Chute and tied up to the wall. We wanted to stay there on the wall for the night so that we had time to explore this amazing lock and watch other boats going through it. This lock is very unique in that it is the only one like it in North America. The Big Chute Marine Railway actually carries boats in a cradle on train rails over land, crossing over a road and down about 60 feet to the water below.
This is a fellow looper boat, Lightning headed into the cradle.
Lightning crossed the road and headed down the 60 foot drop to the water below!
I didn't get a picture of Lightning landing in the water because I took a video of this and I can't seem to figure out how to attach a video to this software, but I did get a picture of another boat being released in the water.
Almost floating again!
Floating and moving out of the cradle.
The next day was our turn on the Big Chute! We moved over to the blue line, which indicates to the lock masters that we are ready to go over. Once they moved the cradle down into the water ready for us to move into it, we turned the key and pushed the start button.....nothing! The engine wouldn't start! What the heck?!?
We called to the lock master and let them know that we were having trouble and that we needed to do some troubleshooting, and down into the engine room to figure out what the issue was. Bill was down there for about 5 minutes and he figured out the fuel solenoid was the issue. A couple of adjustments later, we were ready to go!
Here is the cradle headed down to pick us up....again. Lol!
Almost ready for us!
Cheers moving into the cradle.
Getting Cheers snug in the cradle. She's actually on her bottom and the straps are there to keep her from tipping over.
Heading up and over the road!
I took video of Cheers going down the other side, so I don't have any pictures of that it, but I did get a picture of her moving away from the cradle.
From the Big Chute we headed to Port Severn Lock 45. Here we stayed on the wall for the night and waited until I finished work the next morning to go through the last lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway!!
Looking back at our last lock for awhile!
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