On the shores of Lake Superior a man takes a twenty-six foot long, fifty
year old boat on an adventure of a lifetime. The thirty-five minute
documentary focuses on the challenge of moving a craft through the
province of Ontario on some rough water and with mechanical failures.

The documentary titled Leaving the Giant Behind was broadcast in
Thunder Bay to a home audience that watched as a boat that was built
in their neighbourhood moved south. From Superior to Brighton on Lake
Ontario, the adventure is told first person, by the captain and videographer,
Paul Morralee.

To read more about the adventure see below or view a video clip.

September 18, 2002

Voyage of the Nina:
Cruising solo from the Lakehead to Brighton
by JOHN CAMPBELL, The Independent

Killer weeds, high winds, treacherous moorings, submerged rocks --
Nina of the North encountered them all on her month-long 1,350 km.
voyage from Thunder Bay to Lake Ontario. Nina's owner, Paul Morralee,
will long remember his summer adventure of 2002.

Travelling through Lake Superior "was a challenge because of the weather."
Rolling six foot waves and winds up to 85 km. an hour were not uncommon.
At Marathon, the gale was so strong that it ripped the Nina from its
supposedly secure mooring at a dock and blew the 26-ft. craft onto shore.

"It ended up beached so the whole boat was out of the water," Morralee
said, during a brief interview at Lock 14 just north of Campbellford. It
took him two days to get the 50-year-old yellow cedar cruiser repaired
and cleaned up before he was able to resume his journey.

The voyage almost came to another abrupt end when the Nina foundered
upon a rock lying a foot below the surface, in a channel off Kindersley
Island, near Honey Harbour.

With the boat tilting at a 30 degree angle and appearing to take on water,
Morralee radioed a May Day. Fortunately, the danger was not as serious
as first feared. Cottagers soon arrived and were able to push the Nina free
of its impediment, the craft apparently none the worse for wear.

Not so, as it turned out.

Morralee believes the incident was responsible for what happened next:
The boat's three-quarter-inch steering cable snapped while he was "in the
middle of nowhere." It was to be his greatest challenge during 19 days on
the water.

"When you've got something like this happening, you do panic for a moment,"
Morralee said. With two bilge pumps burned out, leaving only one to keep
the boat from filling up with water, Morralee devised a makeshift solution.
He took off the back plate to expose the rudder system and attached a
pole which he then manipulated by foot. He did this for a half hour until
good fortune arrived when another boater came along, the first he had
seen in a day. "We jerry-rigged it with a bit of rope and a couple of clamps,
and it's worked ever since."

Morralee's next test was the "killer weeds (that) lurk in the stagnant waters
of Canal Lake." Unaware of their presence, he wondered why the boat's
fuel consumption began to rise as its speed dropped. Was the engine going
to blow or was there a problem with the transmission?

At the next lock, Morralee swam under the boat to check on the shaft,
propeller and underside, but discovered everything was fine. Only later
did he learn that "weeds are a big concern now as herbicides can no longer
be used (in the waterway system) to control the growth."

Why make such a journey?

Morralee, a 40-year-old video producer, is in the process of relocating his
business from Thunder Bay to Ottawa. He plans to store the Nina over
the winter at Brighton, where his parents, John and Jill Morralee, reside.

He purchased the cruiser for $5,000 and spent the past three seasons
"restoring it gently" in preparation for the trip.

Before Morralee left the Lakehead August 14, someone told him he
was crazy to do it. Recalling the days of the voyageurs, who travelled
the same waters with fewer resources and craft much more fragile, the
Oxford native, who grew up in the Ottawa Valley, said his journey was
"anything but crazy."

It was an "exploration of how our country's joined together by water,
and also an experience of self," he said.

What he gained was "a sense of independence" and a measure of his
courage from having stood up to the challenges of travelling alone for
three weeks in circumstances that were sometimes physically and mentally
trying.

It was "an awesome experience and one I don't think a lot of people have
done," Morralee said.

In an e-mail sent to friends at the end of his travels last week, Morralee
wrote: "The satisfaction of this adventure has been the ability to go into
the unknown, in most cases, and trust my abilities to achieve what I set
out to do and to do it alone ... I feel now that with this journey under my
belt that I will trust my intuition to go after my goals with more zeal and
energy than before. If you fall then get back up, dust yourself off and keep
moving. There were four times on this trip where I was about to give up.
But through perseverance, and initially a lot of worry, I made it. As I
got further away from my challenges, things got easier."

"I look forward to life's future challenges knowing now I have learned
not to expect anything. If you never expect then how can you be dis-
appointed. I am elated at achieving a safe and happy conclusion to my
once in a life time voyage," he said.

© Copyright 1998--2002, Conolly Publishing Ltd. Brighton ON, CND