Day 145 - Cruising Canadian Shores

Kingston has a Farmer’s Market in Market Square, behind City Hall near the marina, on Tuesdays.  We took a walk over before we left and bought vegan granola bars and some bakery items.  It was 10:03 am when we left the dock and went back into Lake Ontario.  The wind was up and there were 2 foot waves on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario.  The sky was partly sunny with a temperature around 70 degrees.  We travelled west along the Ontario shore to the North Channel.  On our port were some small islands with the larger Amherst Island behind them.  The waterway changes names, but basically winds its way west and north to the Bay of Quinte.  Trenton, our destination for today and the start of the Trent-Severn Waterway, is located at the west end of the Bay of Quinte.

 

 

 

 

The water calmed down in the channel as it was protected from Lake Ontario.  After passing Amherst Island, Prince Edward County was to the south, on our port.  The county was once attached to the mainland as a peninsula, but was made an island when the Murray Canal (to the west) was built.  The county has become a vacation destination with its extensive shoreline as well as a culinary legacy with 30 wineries and several cheese-making companies. The shores were now more like bluffs and we passed a car ferry from the mainland to Prince Edward County.  The channel turned north towards Deseronto and then west.  We cruised under the Skyway Bridge as we turned west into the Bay of Quinte.  The water was shallow and a little choppy in the bay.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed the town of Belleville at the midpoint of the bay and under another bridge to Prince Edward County.  Both the mainland and island shores are more built-up from Belleville to Trenton.  The bay narrowed as we approached Trenton and we had to be careful of even shallower water, less than 10 feet in spots.  The red and green markers are small and difficult to see and we had to slow down to pick our way through them.  A large plane took off  on the mainland, from CFB, a Canadian Forces Base.  Trenton is home to the largest Canadian Air Force Base.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at Fraser Park Marina on the Trent River where it meets the bay at 1:30 pm.  We fueled up and went to our assigned spot on the dock.  The dock master told us that most of the Loopers went through the Trent-Severn in July, so we are behind them.  Trenton is a very small town that is reinventing itself by catering to boaters.  We took a walk around then relaxed for a while on the boat.  By now it was about 80 degrees and beautiful.  We had dinner at an Italian Restaurant, Tomasso’s, on their outdoor patio by the river.  They are known for their pizzas, so we ordered one to take to the boat for lunch the next day as we begin our journey through the Trent-Severn.