TRENTON, ONTARIO

Saturday, June 27

A kind of lazy morning, knowing that we would only be cruising for a couple of hours today. We used a couple of “loaner” bikes from the marina and rode down to the Farmer’s Market in town. Bought some veggies, bread, local cheese and, of course, home-baked cookies. 

Elaine, at the Farmer's Market

We pulled out of Belleville marina and headed west to Trenton with a dark and cloudy sky which looked fairly threatening. The wind was blowing 10-15 knots, but from the east, so it didn’t feel that strong since we were traveling around 8 knots to the west. We were a bit confused coming into Trenton because we could see a big marina at the mouth of the Trent River, but there was no indication on any of our charts that a marina existed there. The one we had reservations at showed on the chart about a half mile up river. I called on the VHF, and they directed me past the new marina to the old one. We took a slip right on the river with no protection around it and were a little concerned since the forecast was for very strong winds later in the day.

Our unprotected slip - we later moved to the corner, under the big tree on the left.

They have recently built a new marina in Trenton, and that was the one we passed at the mouth of the river. After we were settled, I walked over there, since it looked so much more protected and so much nicer than where we were. They explained that construction on shore facilities was not yet complete, so they were not accepting transient boaters. It should be completed within a few weeks - maybe we'll stay there on our way back south at the end of summer.


I went off on a futile quest trying to get cell phone service and a data plan in Canada since my I-Pad's Verizon hot spot won’t work here. To make a long story short, I was shot down at every turn. A non-Canadian cannot get a data plan here - you can’t even get any service other than a pre-paid account, and that will not allow data downloads. This may interrupt my blogging a bit, since we will have to rely on commercial hot spots such as marinas, espresso shops, etc. while in  Canada. We are not planning on staying at marinas all the time, as we do like to anchor out, so I may be without internet at times. Ironically, our T-Mobile phones allow unlimited data while roaming in Canada, but at 128 kbps (incredibly slow), although you can upgrade to high-speed data at $50/500MB!

While I was ranting at the phone people, Elaine was walking around town and doing a little grocery shopping. It’s a nice downtown area with a number of restaurants, stores, a theater, etc. The rain held off for most of the day, but by 4 or 5 PM it started to drizzle. I had noticed a boat in the marina with the hailing port of Ashland, OR on it and I recognized it as a couple who we had met in Annapolis, MD several weeks ago. They stopped by our boat and we chatted for a while, catching up on each other’s experiences since we first met. As we were talking, the wind started coming up and the boat started reacting to the waves on the river. We were bouncing around quite a bit, so I asked the marina staff if we could move to a more protected area. The result was an incredibly protected spot right in the lee of a large building at the back of the marina which kept the wind from us all night and kept the water very smooth. The wind was quite strong all night, so I’m glad we moved when we did.

Sunday, June 28

Heavy rain all night , but it let up a bit this morning around 10 AM. We had seen a bookstore in town yesterday, and thought we would stop by today to see if they had any cruising guides for the waterway. The bookstore didn’t open until 11 AM, so we stopped by an espresso shop for coffee while we waited. Of course, it started raining again. At 11, we went over to the bookstore and found it only had electronic games and gaming supplies — no books! Since I was out walking in the rain anyway, I walked up to Canadian Tire (which is really a large variety store selling sporting goods, hardware, furniture, auto supplies, etc) to get a Canadian flag to fly as a courtesy flag and to get a couple of small plastic folding tables for the flybridge. I decided to pick up some fishing gear at the same time, since I have read that the fishing is very good where we are going. It ended up being a little over three miles round trip, all in the rain, but at least it wan’t too cold at 16 degrees (Celsius, about 57 Fahrenheit).

The rain was steady all day, so we didn’t get much done, but did walk over to the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) store after the rain let up to pick up a couple of bottles of wine…