July 11…still plan to do our 40 miles and 11 locks today…and we are joined in the first lock by three other boats. The next several miles and locks are a parade…first in is first out…the rest follow in order…easy up…oh, is that a little fawn grazing by the canal? Why yes, it is…and she/he is gone before anyone else in our little parade gets a peek. One fast boat zips by us once we find some open space…TRAVELER  diverts off at Merrickville…where once again we are the tourist attraction…locks here are a flight of three…piece of cake…Now just the two of us are together until we reach Lock 29A at Smith’s Falls…where we stop for the night and they continue on.

Today has reminded us of sweet grass/swamp of the Carolina’s…biting flies and scenery…nothing about it to entice you to hang around. We laugh about learning the Canadian folk dance…hopping around and waving your hands to beat off the deer flies. Bug repellent moves to the top of our list…… geesh, I hate bugs…especially those that bite, hey. I do manage to escape below for awhile…I’m still trying to find a dog groomer in Trenton.

The lock wall at Smith’s Falls is in the town park…no electric…and it is HOT…strong breeze helps…but the shade is on shore instead of us…but there’s is lots of it. A short walk to town…purchase of bug repellent with serious DEET…and supper at the Rob Roy Pub. We are back in the shade of the park and Dakota is running like a wild man, winning hearts and giving out kisses. Whoo Hoo…a dog groomer is found…Mosquitoes are held at bay tonight by this wind and our Canadian strength repellent…Floyd cranks up the generator long enough to charge everything and runs AC enough to cool thing off. And then, yep, you guessed it…we are OUT. These locks are wearing us out, hey.

Tomorrow we have only 4 locks in the next 33 miles …let’s do the happy dance, hey.  By the end of tomorrow,  we’ll start locking down instead of up. This will get a little trickier as we’ll be starting with just inches of concrete and an inability to grab our own cable. Parks Canada folks will just step up to help, I’m sure. Looking at the chart  gave the Captain a thrill…Wide parts with narrow channels…follow the markers to avoid the stumps hiding outside the channel markers…his kind of challenge…not mine!!! Should be another hot one…I may have to join the Canadian women who boat in their swim wear…trust me, I’ll be more covered than most of them….

July 10…busy day today…9:10 and we are through that short bridge and headed west…it is like being on a boat driving slowly through Eastbourough…or Crestview…no fixer-uppers on this route…lovely park areas and well kept BIG houses…Dow Lake Marina is tiny…but our gas stop offers Dakota a chance to play with a four month old bearded collie named Vera. Don’t worry Pippa, you are still number one in his books…but they romped and wrestled enough that he was worn out the rest of the day. And that’s always good…but particularly today…after lunch the scenery changed to more rural settings…9 locks and 40 miles later we arrive at Burritts Rapids. Lock #17…where we have planned to spend the night on a lock wall with electric and a restaurant. But evidently lots of others made that plan as well. The Captain from TRAVELER offers to let us raft to him as they are full and don’t want us below the lock on the blue line…after talking to the Lockmaster, they found a lonely spot. So up we go (which is what we wanted to do anyway)…and they made room for us on the opposite side from everyone else…and managed to find one plug for our electric. We are delighted…in the shade…across the canal from the party animals (hehehe)…Dakota can run a little. We relax and practice our social skills (though the boaters below the lock on the dock aren’t too happy with us because they let us go up…they’ll have to wait til morning.)  Clean up and it’s time to try Lock 17 Bistro. It is better than most.

On the walk back, we stop by the camp fire to chat with the locals…it’s good to be among those who speak English, hey. Hehehe…plaid clothing and “hey” …they are a different breed. Oh, and they HATE the Frenchies…they have other bad names for them. Next weekend starts the holiday time for those workers in Quebec…last two weeks of July most of the big companies shut down so the Frenchies can have vacation. We hope to be into the Trent-Severn by then…thus avoiding the rush of boaters that swarm the St Lawrence. We got to experience that rush on our last trip into Canada…once is enough.

Floyd soon has serious second thoughts about that evening cigar on the aft deck…yep, the national bird of Canada invades….Mosquitoes as big as your thumb…We can’t light the OFF lantern fast enough…and we hear them laughing. A quick change of plugs, we crank up the AC and battle for our lives inside for about an hour. Floyd even kept evidence of his kills…Dakota and I offered trash can burials. Soon we are ALL are out like the lights.  Tomorrow is another busy day. Since it is Saturday on the Rideau Canal, we expect to encounter lots of other boaters.

July 9….Short night…boaters behind us or someone in the park partied til the wee hours…makes it hard for us old folks to sleep…Cooler temps will make this slow rise more pleasant.

As we peeked out this morning, there came our PRINCE ARTHUR friends…with tips about this flight of eight…so Robbie and Floyd climbed the hill to visit the lockmaster. Stacy, Jazzy, Dakota and I watched another boat arrive…now there are four of us. Once we start, there will be no stopping….they tell us the UP process takes two hours. “Going up” group of four goes first today…we are told to always enter and leave the locks in the same order…we are first and port side…ready, set, go… No relaxing this morning… third cable from the door…fenders at the rub rail…but then fenders constantly need adjustment as often getting to the top of the lock wall leaves only inches of concrete separating us from grass…It is truly a fascinating set of old locks…I’d say there were thousands of tourists along the banks and at the top of the Wellington Street Bridge watching the operation. So today in Ottawa, we were part of the tourist attraction!

Sure enough, two hours later and we are at “our spot” in downtown Ottawa. PRINCE ARTHUR   joined us on the wall and requested some assistance lowering their mast in order to meet clearance requirements on the rest of the canal.   We were also able to share some Skipper Bob notes with them. They don’t plan to stay. We freshened up a bit and headed off in search of lunch and to see Parliament Hill as well as visit the largest open-air market in North America.  Hard boat work and playing tourist required a bit of a nap late afternoon.

We are planning to try the new “meat” tonight…”rosette escalope de boeuf”…looks like steak wrap/ London broil…The pork souvlaki last night was good so we have high hopes for this one as well.

Tomorrow we head west… hard to predict or make plans about how far or how fast we can go…too many locks and low bridges…our original goal was to go 40 miles a day…but who knows???  We do plan to make a stop for gas/pump out tomorrow…but there is no need to rush as the bridges and locks won’t operate before 9 AM.  In many ways, these Parks Canada folks are my kind of people!!!

July 8….breakfast and grocery shopping…we hope this is our last true French encounter…as today we cross out of Quebec province into Ontario… while it hasn’t been bad…it has certainly given personal experience to the phrase “strangers in a foreign land”.  Grocery shopping is our most interesting experience…fruits and veggies are lovely…meats are usually well displayed and labeled in both French and English…the rest is a crap shoot. Floyd says even the photos on the boxes are in French!!! LOL…we’ve decided to do without a few things…but basically we’ve figured it out. Plus we are really liking the exchange rate…80 cents American to the Canadian dollar…we win!!! Though gas sold by the liter at $1.50 takes it all back!!! I’m guessing that we’ll be spending lots of time tied to lock walls as we’ve already bought a seasonal mooring pass for that…and marina’s charge by the foot. And sometimes even at marina’s, there is no electric…I’m just hoping the temps stay cool…that’s why we’re here, of course.

The ride into Ottawa was uneventful and just like we like it…cool and sunny…smooth waters…except for boat wakes. Can I mention the three ferry boats crossing back and forth back and forth…timing on that was a little tricky, but Captain Floyd, once again, proved superior!!! Long pleasant hours of boredom…no moments of excitement or sheer terror!!!

We arrived at the Ottawa lock wall as planned…after closing …so we will spend the night on the blue line at the bottom of the flight of eight…yes, you heard me…eight locks…one leads to the other…up 80 feet into the heart of downtown Ottawa. Lock opens at 9:00 AM and depending on which way goes first…we plan to be on the lock wall at the top by noon. We’ll spend the rest of the day playing tourist then head on toward Kingston on Friday. We walked the lock and picked our mooring spot tonight after supper. All looks good….

July 7…Lock opens at 9:30…and we are third in line to go through…it’s just a 3’ lift…but seems to take forever…people getting off boats to buy ice…making change…buying permits and passes. This lock and really the rest of the locks we encounter will be part of the Canadian Parks System…just like the Champlain Locks. Much more friendly and willing to serve…we are ever so glad. The locks are small…and this one has four of us rafted inside by the time we get all settled. PRINCE ARTHUR is who we are rafted to and they speak English and travel at about our speed. We figure we’ll be seeing each other at the Carillion Lock twenty-six miles away at mid day. We quickly make friends and they decide to stay at the Montebello Marina with us tonight. Father Jack, son and DIL, Robert and Stacy , and little Jasmine (5^th grade)…they just bought this MONK trawler in Quebec City (three days ago) and are taking it home to Gore Bay, Ontario.

Carillion Lock is the biggest in all of Canada…65’ up…which is a pretty formidable view from the bottom…we have to wait about 20 minutes …but that just allows me time to get Dakota off for a little play/relief time…it all works! This is just the second time we’ve encountered a lock where the gate on the lower side is lifted over the entrance and vessels pass under it to lock through. It is very much like looking at the wrong side of a guillotine.  There is a small floating dock inside the lock…so it is even better than the floating bollards we are so use to… PRINCE ARTHUR, TUMBLEWEED are secure…then a couple of others come zipping around the corner and they come right in. Sixty-five feet of water takes some time….but the ride is smooth and easy. We have 30 more miles to go before the marina tonight. A couple of rain showers and howling wind …but we figure that is wind is made worse because we are headed into it.

We figure we’ll be seeing PRINCE ARTHUR  plenty for the next week or so…Jassy fell in love with Dakota…and they wear each other out at the marina…good timing…more storms moved in one at 10 ish…another at around 11…then temps cooled and we all slept really well!!!! It was a long day!

July 8…Wednesday…short trip up the hill to have breakfast and visit the grocery store…we head to Ottawa today. No locks til we get there and there is docking at the bottom and at the top…so either way we are good. 

July 6… out of the marina by 8…AIS shows no freighters coming or going from the lock area….Saint Lambert Lock…up 18 feet…we are there by 9…followed by three other boats…We’ve been warned to not use the credit card machine as if it doesn’t issue the receipt, you pay twice.  You use the special phone at the lock wall to call but the lockmaster says they are doing maintenance on the bridge and we’ll have to wait about an hour…oh, then just another 45 minutes or so…finally…almost 11 and we get into the lock. By this time there are five of us…we are rafted to a 39’ Meridian who speaks English…we are all secure and then here comes a sail boat, ever so slowly…so we wait for him.  This lock charges $30 …cash or charge…so once at the top we wait for everyone to settle up before going.  The next ten miles is in a canal around Montreal to another big commercial lock, St Catherine. We meet a big sea going freighter in the narrowest part (of course) and figure that he is the reason we finally got our lift…they needed the lock ready for him.  At St Catherine Lock, they are waiting for us…and the sail boat…up 32’ this time…and another $30. But it is Canadian money, which today is about 80 cents to the dollar. We go cheaper than they do.

We opt to go on another 23 miles into the mouth of the Richelieu River to the town of Saint Anne-de-Bellevue..There is a 3’ lock there and plenty of lock wall in this town for 35 boats. We find space on the town shore side and tie up…we are on a boardwalk that appears to be main street St Anne…lots of restaurants, people, boats, jet skis….and it is hot. No AC/electric tonight.  We get lots of advice from locals about where not to eat…Klondike!!! And according to them, the pubs at our end are among the best. We pick one…and then think why??? We fix better and cheaper on the boat. What were we thinking??? The party never stops…we are still hearing folks walk by at 3 AM…and it’s hot…not one of our better nights.

July 5…All is quiet at the marina…Floyd went off to solve the security gate key issue and check on the ferry. We could easily make the 11:30 ferry into Montreal, so that’s the plan. Once there finding the hop-on, hop-off bus was not so easy…we walked in circles for about an hour then decided to stop at an outdoor café for lunch/brunch and see if one went by us. Sure enough, every 15 minutes or so, one went by and stopped right at the corner…so we bought a ticket and rode. It was a delightful two hour tour narrated by Richard …Old Town, the Olympic area, a big park, Hippy fest, Jazz Fest, … we saw it all and really were not tempted to hop off. We thought that very unusual for us…we can always find something interesting to investigate. Montreal just didn’t seem to spark that in us. We checked out a couple of souvenir shops and came away empty. Somehow managed to walk right by the bakery…we are still trying to lose weight. (Floyd’s lost over 20 pounds to my 6…but the belly fat is melting away…) Floyd, on the other hand, finally found a liquor store. He bought consumable souvenirs…and now he’ll sleep better knowing his supply of Jack won’t run out.

Waiting for the ferry we noticed the pressurized water-boot demonstration…we have seen a couple now…the newest way to separate tourists from their money…we think Kelli could be a star at this…but she probably needs to wait until after this baby is born…

We were able to give our second day bus tour passes to a couple of young ones from NY…and arrived back at our marina around 5:30…where most of the boats around us had changed. We are now among the residents…guess they didn’t know the marina rented their slips when they weren’t here???? Hmmm, interesting!

Tomorrow we pass around Montreal with the large ocean going freighters…two large locks in a canal…and we are low man on the totem pole. Some we talk to say they wait up to 5 hours…and no going ashore…poor Dakota. And we are hoping the temps stay lower than predicted. We’ve studied the maps and charts…Skipper Bob book gave Captain Floyd another route over to St Ann de Bellevue…we’ll be on a wall in small town Canada tonight.