June 27, 2016

After a relaxing evening,We left the wall around 9 am and continued down the canal towards Merrickville, we arrived there at about 10 and tied up on the blue wall.  Andy talked to the lock master and told him that we wanted to walk around town and would be back around noon to go through.  We went to the Friends of the Rideau Canal store as well as the museum.  We then checked out a number of stores on the main street and bought essentials like fudge and chips as well as a variety of mustards.  We locked through the 3 Merrickville locks and were out by 1:05,   This was followed by a lock at Clowes and a pair of locks at Nicholson.    We then went through the  Burritts Rapids lock

and tied up at the wall below the lock. We went across to the Lock 17 bistro for refreshments, as it was another blistering hot day.So once again we did 7 locks and traveled a total of 14.1 miles.  We are now just 39.8 miles from Ottawa.

June 28-30

Tuesday was a short lockless day, we went about 9 miles and arrived at Pirate Cove marina at 12:45.  We were about 5 miles from Kemptville, the service manager took Andy in on a beer run. In the afternoon, we went for a swim in their pool, which was quite refreshing and then relaxed. On Wednesday, we departed about 9 and headed back out on the canal the first 15 miles were lockless.

We then went through the Long Island flight of 3 at 12:05, the final lock in the flight #14, is the only original lock that remains.

We then passed through  the Black Rapids lock and the Hogs Back Lock. 

We arrived at the Hartwell lock, and stayed near the top, until about 4:00, as we wanted to stay on the blue dock at the bottom for the night, and this was only possible if we were there last.   Across the canal was this weed wacker.So a day with 7 locks and 26 miles.  We are now only 4.2 miles from downtown Ottawa.

On Thursday, we left at about 8:20 and proceeded down the canal, we had to wait for the Pretoria Vertical lift which didn’t open until 9.  There were already 9 other boats waiting when we got there.We had heard that some boats had been waiting since the night before, and many had come at 6 a.m.  The boats were waiting, to get through and get to the docks near downtown with Hydro.  It wasn’t a problem as there were 20 spots with power, and boats coming up the 8 step lock from the Ottawa River were restricted by the 9 a.m. opening of the locks.   We ended up being between the Mackenzie and Laurier bridges with Confederation Park on one side and National Defense/Shaw Centre on the other.Brian and Muriel came in the afternoon from Bancroft, and stayed for supper, they will be joining us on July 2^nd for the return trip down the Rideau to Kingston/Gananoque.We are likely not going to do the last 8 locks down to the Ottawa River, as we would only be going down and then returning  which would be a 2 hour trip down, waiting on the blue line and then another 2 hours to come back up.  Here’s a view of others  in the first 3 locks.

July 1^st

We had hoped to see the changing of the guard this morning, but too many people in the security lineup to get on to parliament hill.

We went to Major Park and enjoyed some of the activities there.    I went through the GFO display, send a message to the athletes in RIO,  and played trivia.  We then watched the 21 gun salute followed by the snowbirds fly over. We then met up with Veronique and her friends and brought them down to the canal to see the boat.Saw this sign and had to add it to the blog.  My husband wants to move to Ottawa now, because of the boating opportunities here.Here’s the view of the boat from the Laurier bridge.

Here’s our group prior to going out for supper.We went to Dunns for supper, which wasn’t the best experience- we made a complaint to the restaurant and the health dept.We wandered back down to Parliament hill to watch some of the entertainment, but there was still long lineups for security.  By the time we decided to get into line, the skies had opened again and  there was the 2nd thunderstorm of the day.  Here’s some people seeking shelter under a bridge.We watched the fireworks from the boat at 10, as  there was still light rain.  The show lasted 15 minutes.Since we missed the changing of the guard, we plan to go to parliament hill on Saturday before  we leave.