June 26, 2019 – We departed Kingston to make our way toward Trenton, where we’d enter the Trent-Severn Waterway. It was about 70 miles, so we’d earlier decided to split it into two easier legs, when we made our reservation there for Friday.
We traveled down the northern edge of Lake Ontario, north of Amherst Island, before entering the Bay of Quinte, which zig-zags and leads to Trenton. We had our eye on an anchorage that was about midway, but as the day went on, some significant thunderstorms (possibility of tornados, and 2cm hail) were beginning to build, and the winds (projected up to 60 mph) were going to turn much more westerly.
We decided to press on a bit further, to find a more protected spot. We got there and anchored solidly, and while still windy, we were inside a point that shielded us from the waves that were beginning to build to 2 feet out in the bay. We watched as the line of storms split – the major part went north of us, and the other part fizzled, so we got a nice evening as the winds quieted.
Just at sunset, we were surprised to be ‘buzzed’ by a C-130 at a few hundred feet off the water – hmmm, maybe we are in a flight training corridor? We later found out that Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Canada’s largest Air Force Base, is the hub for air transport operations in Canada and abroad. It also hosts the National Air Force Museum of Canada. We would see and hear a lot of military traffic over the next day or so as we got into Trenton.
As it got dark, we could hear the cries of loons, but didn’t see any until the next morning; they generally tend to be pretty wary, much more so than ducks and geese, and because they float so low in the water, and dive often, staying underwater for a minute or more, they can be difficult to spot.
