Sunday, July 1 - Day 58: We awoke in the “smooth as glass” anchorage in Morton Bay, and proceeded to pull up the anchor around 8am, trying to get going as soon as possible in order to meet up with another looper boat, Quest, heading our way south down the Rideau. We were supposed to meet them about 7 miles up the canal, so we had told them it would take us no longer than 2 hours to get there which turned out to be very optimistic. As the anchor chain broke the surface, we noticed that the chain was growing in diameter significantly with every foot. The anchor and chain had managed to collect several cubic feet of weeds and mud during the night. By the time Jim was able to cut, chop, pull, and spray off (with the water hose) enough of the chain to get the anchor close to the surface, the mass had grown to be 4 feet in diameter, with the anchor completely hidden somewhere in the middle of the glob of gook. So, getting away from the anchorage took a bit longer than we had expected.
Two miles up the canal we came to our first lock of the day, which was actually a 3 step lock (3 locks with one leading into the next one). Unfortunately, the lock chamber was already full with other boats when we arrived, and the lockmaster told us that it would be another hour & ½ before all of the boats could be raised up to the upper level, and then the water drained back down to our level to let us have our turn. (Being a relatively large boat compared to other boats that go up the Rideau means that we don’t fit into the locks with many other boats, since our beam pretty much takes up half of the width of the chamber). As predicted, about an hour and half later, the bottom lock gates swung open and we were allowed to enter. We finally did meet up with Quest around noon at one of the locks further up the canal, and enjoyed a quick lunch on their boat after tying up below the lock on the public wall. When we came up to the wall to tie up, we were assisted by the crew of Quest and a local boater who took my bow line and “secured” it to the cleat on the dock. Towards the end of our lunch, Carl (the skipper of Quest) jumped out of his chair on Quest’s aft deck, and screamed “your boat is not tied!!!!”. Jim looked back to see Rickshaw almost perpendicular to the dock, having been pushed away by the rush of water coming out of the lock chamber. Jim was able to climb aboard Rickshaw’s stern and start the engines, while Carl & the lockmaster grabbed the lines (just short of the bow line leaving the dock for good) and muscled Rickshaw back against the dock while Jim maneuvered the boat back into position with the engines. Lesson reinforced – always check the security of lines tied to the dock by others.
Belinda & I continue to refine our system for working together efficiently and through much trial and error are slowly working out the kinks. But, it has been verrrry frustrating for Belinda, especially since she doesn’t have the upper body strength or the arm length to make up for Jim as the boat driver being anywhere but smack against the wall and right up against the correct cable. In other words, a chimpanzee would be great as a line-handler. Another factor which makes this challenging for both is that our boat is very heavy, has very high freeboard above the lock walls at the top, and the lines that we have been working with are very heavy and beefy, therefore very difficult to throw, tie, wrap, etc.
Most of the rest of the day was spent going through more locks (8 more in total), snaking down very narrow streams, where we had less than a foot of water under our keel and had only 2 or 3 feet on either side of the boat before being in 2 feet of water, and crossing beautiful lakes. (We did, in fact, hit several hard objects in the middle of the channel throughout the day). At one point in a narrow channel, we came up to an approaching southbound sport cruiser (about 25 ft length) and weren’t sure that the channel was wide enough for us to pass without one of us pushing the other into the overhanging tree branches. One of the lakes we traversed was the 20 mile long Big Rideau Lake, which is a very popular summer recreation lake, surrounded by vacation cottages. It reminded us of lakes in the Arkansas Ozarks with its clarity and depths that were over 200 feet at times, and at others, were less than 10 feet.
Because of our delays earlier in the day, we were not able to make our intended stopover for the day, Smith’s Falls, but instead stopped at the Poonamalie Lock, which was at the end of one of those windy, remote, narrow channels. The grounds surrounding the lock were pristine, with manicured flowerbeds all around the lock, and in the middle of woods with lots of chirping birds. It seemed like we were in a state or national park which was in the middle of a wilderness. Unfortunately, we were not able to sit out on our aft deck too long because the mosquitoes came out in droves close to dusk so we were chased indoors for the rest of the night.
After a very frustrating day dealing with the locks, especially for Belinda, we decided to adjust our cruising plans a bit, and not take Rickshaw the remaining 100 miles to Ottawa, especially since the reputation of the upper Rideau is that it can be very shallow and weedy, and not as pretty as the lower part. So we checked out the train & bus schedules and found that Smith’s Falls, which was only a few miles further up the river, had both bus & train service into Ottawa. So, our new plan was to go beyond Smith’s Falls to Merrickville (which was supposed to be a really quaint little mill town), stay the night, and then return to Smith’s Falls on Wednesday, 7/3, so we could hop on the train on 7/4 to see Ottawa and let Rickshaw rest for a couple of days.
Two miles up the canal we came to our first lock of the day, which was actually a 3 step lock (3 locks with one leading into the next one). Unfortunately, the lock chamber was already full with other boats when we arrived, and the lockmaster told us that it would be another hour & ½ before all of the boats could be raised up to the upper level, and then the water drained back down to our level to let us have our turn. (Being a relatively large boat compared to other boats that go up the Rideau means that we don’t fit into the locks with many other boats, since our beam pretty much takes up half of the width of the chamber). As predicted, about an hour and half later, the bottom lock gates swung open and we were allowed to enter. We finally did meet up with Quest around noon at one of the locks further up the canal, and enjoyed a quick lunch on their boat after tying up below the lock on the public wall. When we came up to the wall to tie up, we were assisted by the crew of Quest and a local boater who took my bow line and “secured” it to the cleat on the dock. Towards the end of our lunch, Carl (the skipper of Quest) jumped out of his chair on Quest’s aft deck, and screamed “your boat is not tied!!!!”. Jim looked back to see Rickshaw almost perpendicular to the dock, having been pushed away by the rush of water coming out of the lock chamber. Jim was able to climb aboard Rickshaw’s stern and start the engines, while Carl & the lockmaster grabbed the lines (just short of the bow line leaving the dock for good) and muscled Rickshaw back against the dock while Jim maneuvered the boat back into position with the engines. Lesson reinforced – always check the security of lines tied to the dock by others.
Belinda & I continue to refine our system for working together efficiently and through much trial and error are slowly working out the kinks. But, it has been verrrry frustrating for Belinda, especially since she doesn’t have the upper body strength or the arm length to make up for Jim as the boat driver being anywhere but smack against the wall and right up against the correct cable. In other words, a chimpanzee would be great as a line-handler. Another factor which makes this challenging for both is that our boat is very heavy, has very high freeboard above the lock walls at the top, and the lines that we have been working with are very heavy and beefy, therefore very difficult to throw, tie, wrap, etc.
Most of the rest of the day was spent going through more locks (8 more in total), snaking down very narrow streams, where we had less than a foot of water under our keel and had only 2 or 3 feet on either side of the boat before being in 2 feet of water, and crossing beautiful lakes. (We did, in fact, hit several hard objects in the middle of the channel throughout the day). At one point in a narrow channel, we came up to an approaching southbound sport cruiser (about 25 ft length) and weren’t sure that the channel was wide enough for us to pass without one of us pushing the other into the overhanging tree branches. One of the lakes we traversed was the 20 mile long Big Rideau Lake, which is a very popular summer recreation lake, surrounded by vacation cottages. It reminded us of lakes in the Arkansas Ozarks with its clarity and depths that were over 200 feet at times, and at others, were less than 10 feet.
Because of our delays earlier in the day, we were not able to make our intended stopover for the day, Smith’s Falls, but instead stopped at the Poonamalie Lock, which was at the end of one of those windy, remote, narrow channels. The grounds surrounding the lock were pristine, with manicured flowerbeds all around the lock, and in the middle of woods with lots of chirping birds. It seemed like we were in a state or national park which was in the middle of a wilderness. Unfortunately, we were not able to sit out on our aft deck too long because the mosquitoes came out in droves close to dusk so we were chased indoors for the rest of the night.
After a very frustrating day dealing with the locks, especially for Belinda, we decided to adjust our cruising plans a bit, and not take Rickshaw the remaining 100 miles to Ottawa, especially since the reputation of the upper Rideau is that it can be very shallow and weedy, and not as pretty as the lower part. So we checked out the train & bus schedules and found that Smith’s Falls, which was only a few miles further up the river, had both bus & train service into Ottawa. So, our new plan was to go beyond Smith’s Falls to Merrickville (which was supposed to be a really quaint little mill town), stay the night, and then return to Smith’s Falls on Wednesday, 7/3, so we could hop on the train on 7/4 to see Ottawa and let Rickshaw rest for a couple of days.
Jim on Rickshaw waiting to go through the Jones Falls Locks. There are three locks in a series due to the high elevation change.
Two of the lockmasters hand cranking the lock gates open. All of the lock gates and lock valves are operated by hand.
We spent the night here on the lock wall in Poonamali, Ontario.
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Belinda standing on a lock gate. Since it was Canada Day we both wore red as did most Canadians.
This is one of the locks gates in the flight of three locks at Jones Falls Locks.
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