July 18-24
Jim and Wendy, Loopers, who we had met in Delaware City stopped by after lunch. In the afternoon we went for a walk by the Canoe museum but it was getting ready to close so we
didn’t go in. We ended up at Landsdowne mall and only bought a lemonade in the food court and then walked back. We had previously had our Kawartha Ice cream fix for the day, so no more of that.We decided to stay an additional night at Peterborough Marina,
On Tuesday we walked up to Lock 20, checked it out and then walked on to Lock 21- the lift lock.
We watched a boat get ready to go through
and then ran up the stairs and saw them arrive on top.We saw more red chairs, so another photo-op.
We then went to the visitor centre
and looked at the displays and the video on the making of the canal and another one on how the lift lock works.
On our return trip to the boat we stopped for lunch downtown and at the Boaters store.
On Wednesday we were at Lock 20 for the first lock through—we were in the lock with 3 other boats, one of which was a 52 foot Looper boat called Miss Ly. 
We then went a ½ mile to the lift lock, where only 3 of us went up. I timed the lift it took just 2 minutes and 17 seconds to rise 65 feet. Here’s the Captain tied off and watching us go up.
The lift lock works using only gravity and water and is like a see-saw. Once the boats go into the lower chamber it displaces it’s weight in water and therefore considered weightless. The upper chamber has an additional 30 cm or 144 tons of water added to it and it causes the chamber to descend, because of gravity. Thus the lower chamber rises up. Amazing.
Following the lift lock our group of 3 followed the waterway through the countryside, passing Trent University
and through an additional 4 locks- Nassau Mills, Otonabee, Douro, and Sawer Creek. We reached Lakefield Lock #26, and went through it at 2:00. Making our lock count 7 for the day. We decided to stay and the other boats went on further.
We walked into town and checked out the Canoe bar,
and the adjacent bakery Stuff’d that sold ice cream.
We then walked to the downtown and checked out the stores, Does this suit me?
Saw this store a few blocks away- not sure if it is associated with the Bakery- but similar names.
We stopped at Foodland for a few supplies. After supper, Andy returned to the Canoe pub for the Quiz night. He joined up with the fellow transients at Lock 26, 2 canoeists that were in pup tents and a couple in a runabout that were also tenting. Their quiz team name was the hillbillies, hobos and the rich guy. They had a respectable showing, but weren’t the winners.
On Thursday morning, Andy cooked Pancakes and Bacon for the Quiz team, before we all set off for different destinations. We left the lock wall at 9:30, as we were only going about 7 miles up to Lock 27 Young’s Point. 
We were through and tied up by 10:30. We checked out the Lockside Trading Company store- amazing store with furniture, clothes & gift ware, can you guess what we bought here?
It was a hot day, close to 30. For supper we opted to go to the Old bridge Inn for supper. It looked like we may get a rain storm, but only amounted to 15 drops of rain not enough to cool off.
On Friday morning we left the lock around 10, and went about 5 miles to Clear Lake. We had been offered the use of Jim and Wendy’s dock (Clear Lake Habour Hosts) for the night. They have a lovely place called Cougar Landing.
It was a windy day with some whitecaps, so it likely wouldn’t have been a good day for anchoring in Stoney Lake. Wendy and I went to Lakefield, which was about a 10 minute drive to pick up groceries in the afternoon. We had a lovely BBQ in the evening,
and Andy brought out his inland river charts to show Jim, as they have not done that part of the loop as yet. I tried to make friends with the cats, Martini and Daiquiri
On Saturday, we decided to stay another day. Jim and Wendy were hosting a BBQ for the area home owners association – we helped with setting up and clean up and lots of people from the area. I think there were over 60 people in attendance. It was another hot day, with a little bit of a breeze. Later in the afternoon the wind picked up and there was some chop on the lake.
Here’s the Lake early Sunday morning, 
Here’s Jim and Wendy’s Looper Boat Triple Threat , with 3 – 300 HP Mercury outboards.
Andy went for a swim at 7 am to check the props for weeds and nicks. We are in less than 5 feet of water here at Jim’s dock and the water is so clear, it shouldn’t take long to do an assessment. The water is also quite warm, as it’s been hot the last few days. All is good. We had planned to go to Buckhorn to have the boat pulled and the props checked, but we are likely going to cancel our booking.
I think the tentative plan is to move to an anchorage on Stoney Lake today. We are going out for supper with Jim and Wendy, somewhere across the lake, so they would pick us up at our boat.
This was followed by the Healey Falls combo lock 16/17.
We had planned to stop after the lock, and take pictures of the falls, however today there was no water going over the falls, as it was being diverted into the generator plant. So we continued on down the Trent River and went about 15 miles, there wasn’t much traffic in the locks, and we locked by ourselves, until we reached Lock 18 in Hastings, where we shared the lock with two pontoon boats.
The closest store is the LCBO, it probably only about 100 steps away – make me feel just like home where the MLCC is one of the closest stores to our house.
We turned off into the Otonabee River at 11:00 and followed it as it snaked along for about 20 miles leading us towards Peterborough. There was lots of boat traffic, and fields of gold
We reached lock 19 Scott Mills at 1:50 and locked right through as they were taking in boats as we approached.
We left at 11:00. Today was a very short travel day, as we only had to go about ½ mile to the Peterborough Marina, located in Little lake.
We tied up on the upper wall at 1:25. It’s been a hot day in the mid 30’s, lucky for us there is a convenience store nearby that sells double scoops of ice cream for $2.50. The owners of the store are originally from Transcona- small world.
this pub was next door, which we thought Dave, our neighbor would like.
We next went to the Suspension Bridge which is over the river. Here’s the view from the boat yesterday, and here we are on it today.
Margaret gave me a colouring book of flowers- I’ve already started colouring and it is calming! 
We were in about 8 feet of water and near a weed bed. Andy was able to find several Bass and Pickerel hiding in the weeds on Sunday night and he fished a little more on Monday morning before we left.
It was a great day
we passed by Belleville ended up stopping at 2:30 at Trent Port Marina for the night. 
The downtown is only a few blocks away I can see the Metro grocery store from the boat. We had fresh fish and asparagus cooked on the BBQ for supper tonight cooked by the Captain.
and were replaced by Brian and Muriel.
here’s the view from the 4th floor,
On Tuesday, we had planned to go to Westport in Upper Rideau Lake, however they did not have space available. It was another really hot day, so we anchored in a bay and 3 of us went for a swim. The swim was quite refreshing, however when I climbed back up onto the boat, my left knee was “clicking” and I could hardly put weight on it. Not good. I kept it up and put on a knee brace to stabilize it. We continued on to Newboro and went through the lock and tied up on the dock. Brian and Muriel trekked to town to see Kilborne’s country store, I wasn’t up for a walk. That night we had another great BBQ’d ribs supper, and played cards in the evening. I didn’t sleep that well as I couldn’t get comfortable because of my knee.
we then went on to Upper Brewers and made it there by 3:15. We were lucky enough to get a docking spot with power- which was a good thing as the temperature had climbed to 32 with humidity in upper 80’s. We turned on the AC to cool us down. This is the only lock with showers, and it was nice to feel clean again. My knee is still painful, but seems to be improving a little. Thank goodness for Brian and Muriel, they took over some of my duties, as I’m moving a little slow! In the evening we played cards.
We locked through Upper Brewers flight with 4 other boats- a houseboat and 3 smaller power boats and were through by 9:45. We continued on to Lower Brewers and were through by 10:30. Enroute to the Kingston Mills flight, 2 of the smaller boats that we had locked with passed us and the houseboat at full speed creating a huge wake which almost swamped us. Not very respectful of the safety of fellow boaters!! We made it through the flight by 1:30, there was some military exercises going on by the locks.
We made the 2:00 opening of the Kingston Lasalle Causeway and continued on to the Trident Yacht club. After tying up at 3:30 we had a goodbye drink with our crew mates Brian and Muriel, as they were leaving to go back to Bancroft. 
this was the first time that I had met Brian’s sister. I learned the difference between Pink and Blue roles from her, while Mike BBQ’d. We had a great evening up in the clubhouse and Brenda and Rob, who we had previously met at Trident joined us for dessert.
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
So once again we did 7 locks and traveled a total of 14.1 miles. We are now just 39.8 miles from Ottawa.
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.
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.
On Thursday morning, we left to do more exploring we went another 12 miles through the inside channel to the Thousand Islands bridge at stopped at Georgina Island for lunch.
We visited with Brian and Anne, who were tied up there. Andy gave them some advice on places to see in the North Channel. We also saw this island for sale- call if you are interested.
We were then on the move again, we were told either Camelot of Endymion had good docks to tie up to , so we proceeded west in search of Camelot. Bur there was no room in Camelot- as one dock had a couple of house boats and the large dock was being repaired, so we went on to Endymion, which is ¼ miles from the Canada-US border. We had a choice of mooring balls or fixed docks. We decided on the fixed docks and Larry and Diane helped us tie up.
We then proceeded up 4 miles to the first set of locks at Kingston Mills, this was a flight of four locks and we were through by 16:40. Some of the equipment used at the locks used to open the gates and the doors is original, and creates Parks jobs for students.
We had to go another 10 miles to our next lock at Lower Brewers and were through it by 18:05. At times the water was around 5 feet, lots of trees and we came upon this farm with cows.
Andy made pancakes Saturday morning, and we left by 9. The locking hours are 9-7 on weekends, We went through 7 locks Friday and up about 80 feet in 15 miles. We arrived at the Swing bridge at 9:36 and the Jones Falls flight of 3 at 11:15, we were through the last Jones Fall lock by 12:20. We continued on and went through the Davis Lock and Sand Lake followed by Chaffeys Lock and Opinicon Lake. We then went through Newboro Lake and arrived at the lock. There was no space on the upper side so we stayed below the lock. For the day we went through 6 locks and rose 79 feet. We walked into town and checked out Kilborne’s Country store- amazing it had food, nice clothing, shoes, furniture, kitchen ware and furniture, It likely had other stuff too- I don’t think I went into all the rooms. We then stopped outside and had ice cream.
Our next stop was the Stirling Lodge where we had supper. Three of us had fish and chips, and Andy must have caught a bug—because all he wanted to do when he got back to the boat was fish. Here he is with one of his new friends.
On Sunday, we were awoken to the sound of boats- as there was a Bass tournament on the lake starting at 7am.
We went through the Newboro lock at 9 with 4 other boats,
we then passed through upper Rideau lake,
after crossing it we went through the narrows lock, which was our first lock on our downhill journey to Ottawa. After the lock we entered Big Rideau Lake, which is the largest lake on the canal. There were some very nice cottages/ houses on this lake,
Our last lock was Kilmarnock at mileage 53.9,
and we decided to call it quits for the day. We had a little rope mishap, that made this a requirement. I had been complaining for days that it was too hot, so once we were pulled through this lock, I got to go swimming under the boat to untangle a rope which was twisted around the prop. Quite refreshing, except that I was in swamp water rather than a lake.
We are the only ones at this lock for the night, and it’s a nice rural setting
with a couple of bull frogs providing some noise. Today’s total 9 locks and 33 .2 miles, we only have 53 miles until Ottawa.
and was entertained by the baby ducks, which were curious as to what he was doing, and kept swimming by the boat.
We also saw this boat being taken on a sea trials- they are made here at the Kingston marina by Metalcraft which is known for their fire boats, this may be for some other type of fire fight.
Saw this painted on the side of a building along the canal.
We were out of the Oswego canal and into Lake Ontario by 8:45. The water was almost like glass.
Here’s the lighthouse in the harbor and Fort Ontario from the water.
and here is the lighthouse on the tip of nine mile point.
The wind turbines were on Wolfe Island I think.
After they left we went to the Iron Duke pub for supper.
Following supper we were invited to their boat for Strawberry shortcake. We had a tour of their Great Harbour 37- amazing kitchen with a full 36 inch side by side fridge and granite counter tops. The engine room was also well designed and accessible. We met other loopers Janice and Dave from Willy Nilly who were also on the dock. Andy had brought his charts and once again shared his knowledge of Georgian Bay and the North Channel.
The lockmaster was running late, and didn’t answer our calls until about 8:10. We were Lock 5 by 8:25, the ropes at this lock were the worst yet green and slimy! We went another 3 miles to Lock 6, and was through it before 9:00. Lock 7 was only another ½ mile down the canal and we were through it by 9:20. We had opted to tie up at the free dock on the north side of the lock and were secured by 9:25.
We went in search of lunch at the Oswego Tea company, which was just up the embankment from the canal.
Here’s a view of Lake Ontario from the top of the Fort.
