Dear Friends and Family - since wifi is expensive for us in Canada we can only upload the blog with all the pictures when we get free wifi at marinas. So we are uploading the blog in bulk when we can. This one covers 8 days. The Our Log and Track page has also been updated. Thanks for all the comments - we really enjoy reading them and knowing that you're following our trip.
July 6th, Friday - Day 63: Today was dedicated to getting caught up on reprovisioning our pantry and a few other boat chores before continuing our return trip down the Rideau, so there’s not much to report for this day.
July 7th, Saturday - Day 64: We departed our slip in Smith’s Falls at 8am and headed for the waiting area for the first lock which opened at 8:30. Our hope was to make it back to Kingston in less than 2 days, in order for us to stay on our rough schedule, and give us some time to go beyond Kingston and start our tour of the 1000 islands area in the St. Lawrence River. So, in order to make our objective, we had to push ourselves to put as many miles and locks behind us. Armed with brand-new, Belinda-sized docklines, we starting knocking off the locks with much more ease.
By the late afternoon, we targeted Morton Bay for our overnight stopover location, where we had anchored 7 days earlier. On the trip up the canal, we had anchored there and discovered massive amounts of vegetation on our anchor and chain when we pulled our anchor up. Assuming that this messy experience was just the result of picking the wrong spot in the bay, we chose another spot, dropped our anchor, and settled in for the night under dark, star-filled skies and a wind-less night.
July 8th, Sunday - Day 65: We awoke early, anxious to get underway in order to make it beyond Kingston and into the 1000 islands by the end of the day. When Jim stepped on the windlass (the winch that pulls up the anchor) switch, the chain started being captured by the windlass gypsy, and as it started coming up from the depths of the bay, revealed an absolutely huge ball of vegetation, including a 10 foot long tree branch (about 5 inches in diameter) completely captured and tied up by the anchor chain. After about a full hour of tugging and pulling and cutting, the tree branch was still very much secured to the anchor chain with little hope of being freed without either Jim or someone else working on it from below. Fortunately, we shared the bay with a fishing boat with three women fishing, who saw our dilemma and came over to see what, if anything, they could do to free us from our extra anchor that we had picked up overnight. By lowering the branch back into the water, it became somewhat buoyant and the chain was able to be unwrapped from the tree limb. Once underway, we proceeded at the fastest speed possible, given the narrow and shallow channels ahead, realizing that our destination beyond Kingston was in jeopardy with our late start. The last lock of the day was Kingston Mills, just north of Kingston, which we arrived at by 2pm, but since it is a 4 step lock, if we happened to get to the lock when it was closed, and even worse, if it had just started lowering boats down the
steps, we would be forced to wait an hour or longer, for all of the chambers to be filled (on the upbound side) or emptied (on the way down). We fortunately got there right before the gates closed and were able to squeeze in with several other boats for the ride down the steps. After exiting the Kingston Mills locks, we had less than an hour to make it to Kingston and through the lift bridge that opened at 3pm which we need to do because, following that opening, it didn’t open again until 6pm. We managed to make it to the bridge 10 minutes ahead of the 3pm opening and proceeded out of the Kingston harbor into Lake Ontario toward the 1000 islands without a clue as to where we would spend the night that night. We had several choices, since many of the islands are in the national park system and our annual pass entitled us to free overnight dockage. But the catch was that there had to be space for a boat of Rickshaw’s size and there had to enough depth up to the docks for us, which limited our choices significantly. After passing several islands that were either already full or were too small, we decided to push ahead to the closest town of any size on the Canadian side of the river, which was Ganonoque, and stay at the local marina there. Motoring up Bateau Channel, which hugs the Canadian shore, we were 5 miles from Ganonoque, when Jim noticed another DeFever parked at a dock on Howe Island, which is one of the larger islands in the 1000 islands archipelago. He picked up the binoculars to try to see the name (in case we might happen to know them), and saw that it was a 41 DeFever but didn’t recognize the boat, Cop’er Tub. The dock was kind of interesting because running 40 feet off of the dock parallel to the shore was a series of inflatable pool floats depicting various animals like turtles, dinosaurs, etc., tied together and forming some sort of silly-looking channel or shoal marking. Up on the hillside, in front of a very impressive home, was a sign that said “Keeler’s Landing”. We then noticed that there were 4 people on the dock waving their arms and yelling at us to come closer. By that time we had almost past by the menagerie of pool animals, so we made a u-turn and went back to see what all of the commotion was about. The people on the dock appeared to be waving us in, encouraging us to come and park at their dock. When we arrived at the dock to see what they wanted, we discovered that the owners of the house on the shore, who owned the dock, were former DeFever 44 owners (Frank & Ruth Keeler) who had sold their beloved DeFever that they had owned for almost 20 years, loved to talk to DeFever owners and had a “open dock” policy of letting other DeFever owners park at their dock for free. The owners of the DeFever 41 (Jim & Mary Cole) were dear friends of theirs from Syracuse who were visiting them. We visited until after 11 that night, hearing all of Frank’s and Ruth’s cruising stories of their life on their DeFever around the loop in the 90’s and for many years in the Bahamas. They seemed so excited to meet other DeFever owners and went way out of their way to make us feel welcome, including giving us detailed suggestions about where to go in the 1000 islands, and offering to loan us charts that we were missing. It was incredible.
July 9th, Monday - Day 66: Because of our experience with checking into Canada in Kingston, we definitely wanted to avoid taking Rickshaw back to the US (to see that part of the 1000 islands) and then coming back into Canada. One of the must-see destinations in the 1000 islands is Boldt Castle, on Heart Island, on the US side. Boldt Castle was built in the early 20th century by George Boldt, the roprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, as a valentine’s present to his wife. His desire was to create a replica of a Bavarian castle on the St. Lawrence for his wife, but, tragically, she died before it was completed, and he abandoned the project, and left the unfinished castle to the harsh elements. Several years ago, it was purchased by the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority, who has been slowly bringing it back to where it was before work stopped, and beyond to full completion. Typical of the Keeler’s generosity, Frank offered us his pickup truck to use to drive into Ganonoque to catch the tour boat that would take us on a 3 hour boat cruise throughout the 1000 islands, plus a 2 hour stopover at Boldt Castle. That night, back at Keeler’s Landing, Frank and Ruth invited us up to their home for a wonderful dinner and more tales of the cruising life.
July 10th, Tuesday - Day 67: After absorbing the local knowledge of the 1000 islands from the Keeler’s, we pulled away from their dock and continued down the St. Lawrence, meandering among the many, many islands, past small 800 sf cottages that consumed small postage stamp sized islands, and massive homes with boathouses bigger than most homes and waterfalls, fountains and manicured lawns on larger islands. After cruising by several possible overnight stopover sites, we settled on a small island, Georgina Island, just south of Rockport, Ontario, which was about 18 miles further down the river from the Keelers. Georgina Island is one of the many islands owned by Parks Canada, and is essentially a wild, no frills, natural park with several small inlets and coves available for boaters and campers to stay at overnight – for free, with the annual pass. After docking, we jumped off of Rickshaw, and hiked the perimeter of the island, then returned back to the boat, and dropped Ricky-Dink (our dinghy) into the water and went exploring up and down both sides of the St. Lawrence River for several miles, pulling as close as we dared to the impressive home and sheer rock cliffs that line the river. Upon our return to Rickshaw, we went for a short swim in the crystal clear waters of the Georgina lagoon, and feasted on hamburgers on the aftdeck.
July 11th, Wednesday - Day 68: We awoke early (in Canada, the days are really long with the sun coming up at 5 and staying up until 9pm). One of the tradeoffs of sleeping on our boat with the windows open to feel the cool night air is that our cabin is very bright, very early in the morning. We noticed that another looper boat had arrived in our lagoon that morning, a small, sleek trawler named Irish Wake, with a couple from New Brunswick, Canada on board. We visited with them for a short while then said goodbye and untied our dock lines and headed back to the Keeler’s because Belinda had offered to fix dinner for Frank, Ruth, Jim & Mary as partial repayment of their warm generosity, featuring her specialty dish, Shrimp Creole, with a special dessert treat of Bananas Foster. Upon returning to Keeler’s Landing, Belinda eagerly received three more Belinda-sized dock lines that Jim (from Cop’er Tub) had very generously picked up for us at West Marine earlier that day. The six of us feasted on our aft-deck and swapped more tales, before calling it a night when the mosquitoes discovered us and tried to make us their dinner for the night.
July 12th, Thursday - Day 69: We said our goodbyes to our new-found friends, Frank & Ruth Keeler and Jim & Mary Cole, at Keeler’s Landing, and headed southwest down the St. Lawrence toward the start of the Trent-Severn Waterway, 60 miles away. After passing by Kingston, we meandered through the narrow channel in the Bay of Quinte, which is on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and pushed toward Trenton, Ontario, which prides itself as being the “Gateway to the Trent-Severn Waterway”. Instead of continuing all of the way to Trenton, where we would have to pay for a marina, we opted to stop about 5pm at a nice bay 12 miles short of Trenton, where we dropped our anchor in a small cove with a couple of other boats, had a short swim, then enjoyed dinner on the aft-deck. About 10pm, we went back outside to look at the stars, and noticed a 20 ft. ski boat 50 yards away from us sitting in total darkness. We had seen this boat earlier in the evening with about 6 people on it, including a small child. We could tell by the voices earlier, and the conversation that carried across the soundless anchorage, that there was a bit of drinking, and every now and then, thought we caught a whiff of pot in the air, so we knew that they had been having a good time. Now we could hear some discussion about the boat having a dead battery, and since the boat was obviously not one that you would normally sleep aboard, especially with a small child, we called out across the water to ask if they needed any help. But were told “no thanks”. About that time, we saw a couple of flashlights bouncing around in the woods heading down the shore line in the direction of the boat. We finally concluded that 2 of the people on the boat had swam to shore a few hours earlier (about 60 yards), gone somewhere, somehow, and got a battery, and were now swimming across the black lagoon towing some sort of float with the battery. We flooded the situation with our spotlight, watching the couple and their floating battery finally reach the ski-boat. Ten minutes later, the ski boat started and the lights came on. The drunk Canucks were certainly resourceful in resolving their situation.
July 13, Friday - Day 70: We awoke at the absolutely still anchorage and saw that the ski boat had gone back home, pulled up our anchor, and headed the remaining 12 miles to Trenton. After tying up at the local marina, we spent the day catching up on boat chores. Since Trenton is at the very beginning of the Trent-Severn, it sees a lot of boats stop here on their way up the Trent-Severn, either as a short summer trip or as part of the Great Loop. We met a couple of other boats, one being a trailerable skiboat from Louisiana that had been towed up to the Chesapeake. They had come up to Ontario on their small boat, and were going to do the Trent-Severn, before putting the boat back on the trailer in Michigan and returning back home to Shreveport.
July 7th, Saturday - Day 64: We departed our slip in Smith’s Falls at 8am and headed for the waiting area for the first lock which opened at 8:30. Our hope was to make it back to Kingston in less than 2 days, in order for us to stay on our rough schedule, and give us some time to go beyond Kingston and start our tour of the 1000 islands area in the St. Lawrence River. So, in order to make our objective, we had to push ourselves to put as many miles and locks behind us. Armed with brand-new, Belinda-sized docklines, we starting knocking off the locks with much more ease.
By the late afternoon, we targeted Morton Bay for our overnight stopover location, where we had anchored 7 days earlier. On the trip up the canal, we had anchored there and discovered massive amounts of vegetation on our anchor and chain when we pulled our anchor up. Assuming that this messy experience was just the result of picking the wrong spot in the bay, we chose another spot, dropped our anchor, and settled in for the night under dark, star-filled skies and a wind-less night.
July 8th, Sunday - Day 65: We awoke early, anxious to get underway in order to make it beyond Kingston and into the 1000 islands by the end of the day. When Jim stepped on the windlass (the winch that pulls up the anchor) switch, the chain started being captured by the windlass gypsy, and as it started coming up from the depths of the bay, revealed an absolutely huge ball of vegetation, including a 10 foot long tree branch (about 5 inches in diameter) completely captured and tied up by the anchor chain. After about a full hour of tugging and pulling and cutting, the tree branch was still very much secured to the anchor chain with little hope of being freed without either Jim or someone else working on it from below. Fortunately, we shared the bay with a fishing boat with three women fishing, who saw our dilemma and came over to see what, if anything, they could do to free us from our extra anchor that we had picked up overnight. By lowering the branch back into the water, it became somewhat buoyant and the chain was able to be unwrapped from the tree limb. Once underway, we proceeded at the fastest speed possible, given the narrow and shallow channels ahead, realizing that our destination beyond Kingston was in jeopardy with our late start. The last lock of the day was Kingston Mills, just north of Kingston, which we arrived at by 2pm, but since it is a 4 step lock, if we happened to get to the lock when it was closed, and even worse, if it had just started lowering boats down the
steps, we would be forced to wait an hour or longer, for all of the chambers to be filled (on the upbound side) or emptied (on the way down). We fortunately got there right before the gates closed and were able to squeeze in with several other boats for the ride down the steps. After exiting the Kingston Mills locks, we had less than an hour to make it to Kingston and through the lift bridge that opened at 3pm which we need to do because, following that opening, it didn’t open again until 6pm. We managed to make it to the bridge 10 minutes ahead of the 3pm opening and proceeded out of the Kingston harbor into Lake Ontario toward the 1000 islands without a clue as to where we would spend the night that night. We had several choices, since many of the islands are in the national park system and our annual pass entitled us to free overnight dockage. But the catch was that there had to be space for a boat of Rickshaw’s size and there had to enough depth up to the docks for us, which limited our choices significantly. After passing several islands that were either already full or were too small, we decided to push ahead to the closest town of any size on the Canadian side of the river, which was Ganonoque, and stay at the local marina there. Motoring up Bateau Channel, which hugs the Canadian shore, we were 5 miles from Ganonoque, when Jim noticed another DeFever parked at a dock on Howe Island, which is one of the larger islands in the 1000 islands archipelago. He picked up the binoculars to try to see the name (in case we might happen to know them), and saw that it was a 41 DeFever but didn’t recognize the boat, Cop’er Tub. The dock was kind of interesting because running 40 feet off of the dock parallel to the shore was a series of inflatable pool floats depicting various animals like turtles, dinosaurs, etc., tied together and forming some sort of silly-looking channel or shoal marking. Up on the hillside, in front of a very impressive home, was a sign that said “Keeler’s Landing”. We then noticed that there were 4 people on the dock waving their arms and yelling at us to come closer. By that time we had almost past by the menagerie of pool animals, so we made a u-turn and went back to see what all of the commotion was about. The people on the dock appeared to be waving us in, encouraging us to come and park at their dock. When we arrived at the dock to see what they wanted, we discovered that the owners of the house on the shore, who owned the dock, were former DeFever 44 owners (Frank & Ruth Keeler) who had sold their beloved DeFever that they had owned for almost 20 years, loved to talk to DeFever owners and had a “open dock” policy of letting other DeFever owners park at their dock for free. The owners of the DeFever 41 (Jim & Mary Cole) were dear friends of theirs from Syracuse who were visiting them. We visited until after 11 that night, hearing all of Frank’s and Ruth’s cruising stories of their life on their DeFever around the loop in the 90’s and for many years in the Bahamas. They seemed so excited to meet other DeFever owners and went way out of their way to make us feel welcome, including giving us detailed suggestions about where to go in the 1000 islands, and offering to loan us charts that we were missing. It was incredible.
July 9th, Monday - Day 66: Because of our experience with checking into Canada in Kingston, we definitely wanted to avoid taking Rickshaw back to the US (to see that part of the 1000 islands) and then coming back into Canada. One of the must-see destinations in the 1000 islands is Boldt Castle, on Heart Island, on the US side. Boldt Castle was built in the early 20th century by George Boldt, the roprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, as a valentine’s present to his wife. His desire was to create a replica of a Bavarian castle on the St. Lawrence for his wife, but, tragically, she died before it was completed, and he abandoned the project, and left the unfinished castle to the harsh elements. Several years ago, it was purchased by the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority, who has been slowly bringing it back to where it was before work stopped, and beyond to full completion. Typical of the Keeler’s generosity, Frank offered us his pickup truck to use to drive into Ganonoque to catch the tour boat that would take us on a 3 hour boat cruise throughout the 1000 islands, plus a 2 hour stopover at Boldt Castle. That night, back at Keeler’s Landing, Frank and Ruth invited us up to their home for a wonderful dinner and more tales of the cruising life.
July 10th, Tuesday - Day 67: After absorbing the local knowledge of the 1000 islands from the Keeler’s, we pulled away from their dock and continued down the St. Lawrence, meandering among the many, many islands, past small 800 sf cottages that consumed small postage stamp sized islands, and massive homes with boathouses bigger than most homes and waterfalls, fountains and manicured lawns on larger islands. After cruising by several possible overnight stopover sites, we settled on a small island, Georgina Island, just south of Rockport, Ontario, which was about 18 miles further down the river from the Keelers. Georgina Island is one of the many islands owned by Parks Canada, and is essentially a wild, no frills, natural park with several small inlets and coves available for boaters and campers to stay at overnight – for free, with the annual pass. After docking, we jumped off of Rickshaw, and hiked the perimeter of the island, then returned back to the boat, and dropped Ricky-Dink (our dinghy) into the water and went exploring up and down both sides of the St. Lawrence River for several miles, pulling as close as we dared to the impressive home and sheer rock cliffs that line the river. Upon our return to Rickshaw, we went for a short swim in the crystal clear waters of the Georgina lagoon, and feasted on hamburgers on the aftdeck.
July 11th, Wednesday - Day 68: We awoke early (in Canada, the days are really long with the sun coming up at 5 and staying up until 9pm). One of the tradeoffs of sleeping on our boat with the windows open to feel the cool night air is that our cabin is very bright, very early in the morning. We noticed that another looper boat had arrived in our lagoon that morning, a small, sleek trawler named Irish Wake, with a couple from New Brunswick, Canada on board. We visited with them for a short while then said goodbye and untied our dock lines and headed back to the Keeler’s because Belinda had offered to fix dinner for Frank, Ruth, Jim & Mary as partial repayment of their warm generosity, featuring her specialty dish, Shrimp Creole, with a special dessert treat of Bananas Foster. Upon returning to Keeler’s Landing, Belinda eagerly received three more Belinda-sized dock lines that Jim (from Cop’er Tub) had very generously picked up for us at West Marine earlier that day. The six of us feasted on our aft-deck and swapped more tales, before calling it a night when the mosquitoes discovered us and tried to make us their dinner for the night.
July 12th, Thursday - Day 69: We said our goodbyes to our new-found friends, Frank & Ruth Keeler and Jim & Mary Cole, at Keeler’s Landing, and headed southwest down the St. Lawrence toward the start of the Trent-Severn Waterway, 60 miles away. After passing by Kingston, we meandered through the narrow channel in the Bay of Quinte, which is on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and pushed toward Trenton, Ontario, which prides itself as being the “Gateway to the Trent-Severn Waterway”. Instead of continuing all of the way to Trenton, where we would have to pay for a marina, we opted to stop about 5pm at a nice bay 12 miles short of Trenton, where we dropped our anchor in a small cove with a couple of other boats, had a short swim, then enjoyed dinner on the aft-deck. About 10pm, we went back outside to look at the stars, and noticed a 20 ft. ski boat 50 yards away from us sitting in total darkness. We had seen this boat earlier in the evening with about 6 people on it, including a small child. We could tell by the voices earlier, and the conversation that carried across the soundless anchorage, that there was a bit of drinking, and every now and then, thought we caught a whiff of pot in the air, so we knew that they had been having a good time. Now we could hear some discussion about the boat having a dead battery, and since the boat was obviously not one that you would normally sleep aboard, especially with a small child, we called out across the water to ask if they needed any help. But were told “no thanks”. About that time, we saw a couple of flashlights bouncing around in the woods heading down the shore line in the direction of the boat. We finally concluded that 2 of the people on the boat had swam to shore a few hours earlier (about 60 yards), gone somewhere, somehow, and got a battery, and were now swimming across the black lagoon towing some sort of float with the battery. We flooded the situation with our spotlight, watching the couple and their floating battery finally reach the ski-boat. Ten minutes later, the ski boat started and the lights came on. The drunk Canucks were certainly resourceful in resolving their situation.
July 13, Friday - Day 70: We awoke at the absolutely still anchorage and saw that the ski boat had gone back home, pulled up our anchor, and headed the remaining 12 miles to Trenton. After tying up at the local marina, we spent the day catching up on boat chores. Since Trenton is at the very beginning of the Trent-Severn, it sees a lot of boats stop here on their way up the Trent-Severn, either as a short summer trip or as part of the Great Loop. We met a couple of other boats, one being a trailerable skiboat from Louisiana that had been towed up to the Chesapeake. They had come up to Ontario on their small boat, and were going to do the Trent-Severn, before putting the boat back on the trailer in Michigan and returning back home to Shreveport.
 The mass of grass with a 10 foot log underneath it all with the anchor chain wrapped around it. It took over an hour to clear this mess.  Over this lock was a swing bridge. What we didn't know until after it was time to swing the bridge to let us out, was that the bridge swings in - towards us. It came within 5 feet of our fly bridge.  Rickshaw and Cop'er Tub sitting at the Keeler Landing dock. Cop'er Tub is owned by Jim a retired police officer.  We are cruising the Thousand Islands in a 1982 pick up! Actually we are the first vehicle on a three car cable ferry. Thanks, Ruth & Frank for loaning us your truck to get to the tour boat.  Belinda on the third floor of the entry hall with the stain glass dome ceiling. Beautiful!  The trail map on Georgina Island. It took 50 minutes to do the complete loop. Lots of hills but the view from the island was beautiful.  A statue of St. Lawrence on top of a cliff along the river. St. Lawrence is the patron saint of chefs since St. Lawrence was executed on a gridiron.  One of the larger homes in the Thousand Islands with a water fall. There is one section that is known as Millionare Alley. Many are owned by old money from New York. |  On the Big Rideau River, which is part of the Rideau Canal, our depth meter read 338 feet!  Keeler's Landing! The sign is on the stairs from dock to the beautiful house that overlooks Bateau Channel on the north side of Howe Island  The pool toys that mark the shoal off Keeler Landing. Since the river was still we could see the thick vegetation growing on the bottom that gave us so much trouble in Morton Bay.  Boldt Castle from the water. The grounds are beautiful.  Jim outside the power house. This mini castle houses the engines that generate power for the castle.  The view from the trail on Georgina Island overlooking other islands in the Thousand Islands. There are actually over 1800 islands in the archipelago.  These boys are jumping from the one of the many cliff walls along the St. Lawrence River.  One of the one cottage islands in the Thousand Islands. Most had lots of trees so you could barely see the cottage, but this one was the smallest island we saw with a cottage.  This map covers our track east from Kingston through the western end of the Thousand Islands then arcoss the Bay of Quinte to Trenton. A toltal of 178 miles. |
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