Recent content by Capt. Joe

No, the above aerial is a different location from the river. The aerial is when we lived on the boat in the winter. The video river dock location is at the mouth of the river as it empties into the lake, and the lake is open water in summer. It is Pigeon Lake, which is accessed along the Trent...

Then you miss out on a lot of cool stuff but yes, you have to like it. Challenging but extremely rewarding..... ;) Best times were a couple of winters we spent in our closed-up marina, just us and the critters; everything from wild turkeys to deer, wolves, lynx, a pair of cougars, coyotes, ...

Hatred? Not at all, but this FF person seems to be offering advise, while talking without really knowing much, the way I see it. I have lived and cruised aboard for 30 years (on the same boat), 10 of those on the Great Lakes full time, in winters too. So, I think I speak from a little more...

There is a reason I don't bother with these forums anymore; people don't read what I write, they just add whatever "wisdom" they think they have to show off....., usually there is no wisdom.....:banghead:

After 30 years living and cruising full time aboard our Charles Wittholz designed trawler M V Surveyor, we sold the boat this spring, but not before she spent a winter #IceBound on the Bobcaygeon River, as it empties into Pigeon Lake. Just so happened, that the first few days of 2018 were the...

Hi Yes, not ready to show for another week or two. If you send me your phone / email contact I will be in touch. Please send to: gjberta@gmail.com Thank you,

Our Wittholz design was given a chapter in Beebe's "Voyaging Under Power". We have the original architectural plans and correspondence with Charles Wittholz. The boat was built in Corten steel and cold molded epoxies in 1978 and a major refurb was carried out in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew. (Our...

Thank you! Nice to see someone else subscribing to Jimmy's idea of "Paradise is where you make it". We spent 20 years in the south, and in the last decade we have found beauty in winter and the change of seasons on the Great Lakes.... (and as we get older, we handle the cold better than the...

The reason for the apparently little ice is because the river has a current that runs at a good clip unless they are turning the dams to draw down for the spring thaw. We also had a bad and unusual cold spell this year, where the river froze almost solid upstream as far as our boat is. In very...

Well, I posted this to see if anyone can appreciate the video - Not looking for advise. In the last 30 years we have had that boat frozen in several times when we were on the Great Lakes and yes, there can be a good discussion on the logistics of #IceBound, location and even more importantly...

What if you left your trawler #IceBound instead of hauling out for the off-season, with a couple of live webcams running 24/7. This past winter, a friend of ours offered the use of his dock on the river downstream of Lock 32 of the Trent Severn Waterway, in Bobcaygeon Ontario CA. We live on the...

We have a trawler group on Facebook, you can post on it for free: https://www.facebook.com/groups/trawlerlving/

Thank you. As far as internet provided information, I doubt it can be more accurate than what we had on SS radio back then. One would have to have weather fax and the knowledge to interpret the systems in order to better understand what is coming your way locally.

Through the nineties there were storm but nothing like Andrew was. Then we came up to the Great Lakes, in Bobcaygeon on the Trent Severn Waterway since 2010. We now enjoy the changing of the seasons, winters have been awesome up here. After 30 years full time on the boat, we now live ashore in...

... Yes, this was Cat Cay as we cruised past in the dinghy a few days later: