Monday, June 29, 2009

Ottawa to Kingston via The Rideau Canal

The Rideau Canal is a chain of beautiful lakes, rivers, and canal cuts winding 126 miles from Ottawa to Kingston, Ontario at the head of Lake Ontario. The Canal was conceived in the wake of the War of 1812 as a war time supply route to Kingston and the Great Lakes allowing vessels to bypass the vulnerable St Lawrence. The Rideau Canal was completed in 1832 and consisted of 45 locks that operate today as originally constructed – often cranked by hand. The Canal relies on natural rivers, lakes and canal cuts to provide navigation with an available of water depth of 5 feet in some cuts. The many lakes are connected by very narrow cuts that are often no more than 20 or 30 feet wide, shallow, with rocks on either side. You really need to pay attention to stay off the often rocky bottom and avoid oncoming boat traffic. Another challenge on the Rideau is the underwater plants that can grow up to 8 feet high underwater - the water is clear so you can see them on the bottom. They can't really be avoided since you are often in 5 - 6 feet of water so the plants are just below the surface. However, we need to clean our sea strainers often as the plants get sucked into the water intakes. We took this picture of the plants on the canal - you may need to enlarge the picture to see the thick plants.
Leaving Ottawa, the locks raise via 31 locks to the summit at Newboro and then lowered via 14 locks to Kingston. The trip down the Rideau was as interesting as we have seen so far on the journey. The narrow lakes are dotted with many rocky islands with small cottages or fishing huts built on them. The shallow shores are full of waterlilies, and marsh…Beautiful beyond words!
We departed Ottawa on Wednesday morning and traveled almost 8 hours (but only 46 miles due to the 12 locks and 2 bridges) to Merrickville. The lock walls were full so we, along with “Carolyn Anne” stayed at a marina and walked the short distance into town for dinner. Pleasant evening after a long day!
On Thursday, we traveled a short day to Smith Falls and stayed at a town marina which provided a short walk to the local grocery store and Wal Mart for some supplies. We enjoyed a pleasant walk to the historic buildings, and the museum in town. On Friday, we arrived at the Narrows Lock just in time to tie up to the lock wall as a violent thunderstorm moved overhead. The picture to the left was taken as the storm passed over before "the bottom dropped out" - winds were gusting at 30+ mph with heavy rain and some hail. We stayed at the lock long enough for the storm to pass and then proceeded to the next lock. Friday evening was spent on the lock wall at the Newboro lock which is the summit of the canal – up top this point we have “locked up” the canal. With no homes or cottages nearby, this was a truly quiet evening… From here we will “lock down” at each lock to Kingston. While locking through at Jones Falls on Saturday morning, we were forced to wait 45 minutes for oncoming traffic and were able to tour the lock master's house (now a museum) built in the early 1880's along with an operating blacksmith shop. Saturday evening was spent at Upper Brewer lock and on the final day on the canal was also another short run to Kingston. We arrived at the Confederation Basin Marina shortly after lunch on Sunday. This marina is in the heart of downtown Kingston and we will spend the next few days touring the area. Canada Day is July 1st and we will be centrally located for all the festivities, including fireworks. The marina is filling up with many boats that travel here for Canada Day.
We spent 5 days traveling the 126 mile trip down the Rideau through numerous lakes and rivers from Ottawa and we have really enjoyed this part of the trip. We plan to depart on Thursday and should be in Trenton – for the beginning of the Trent Severn Waterway – on Friday. Our goal is to be in Fenelon Falls (Camaron Lake) on the Trent Severn by mid July to visit family and friends before proceeding into the Georgian Bay.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Ottawa

At our last posting, we had just arrived in Ottawa through the Step Locks. This first picture is of “Still Busy” at the top of the 8 locks that was taken by a fellow boater as we arrived on Saturday afternoon. I realize we talk a lot about locks but the locks are an important part of the journey and the canal system that allows this passage around dams and rapids. The locks on the Rideau, including the 8 Step locks in Ottawa, were built in the early 1800’s and operate today as when they were built by the British. Parks Canada hires local college kids to work the locks during the summer and we are very impressed with how helpful and friendly they are.
Upon arriving in Ottawa, we tied up to the canal wall downtown. We were so impressed with Ottawa that we stayed on the canal wall for 4 nights. We could actually see the Parliament Buildings sitting from the back of our boat. We arrived on Saturday early afternoon and spent an enjoyable evening at the Byward Market area downtown – dinner, drinks, street performers, etc. Very festive! On Father’s Day we attended a festival honoring the Aboriginals (native Canadians) on the first day of “Indian Native Days”. We actually ate a bison burger and bannock –grilled bread - with blueberry jam. These first few pictures were taken at the festival. Jack received a call from Brent, Jackie, and Jen for Father’s Day wishes. Always great to hear from all the kids and grandkids.
On Monday we spent the day touring Parliament Buildings and were very impressed with the tours of the government buildings. This next picture was taken of the House of Commons not in session. We were both amazed with the Victorian Gothic Architecture of the Limestone buildings as well as the brief but robust history of this nation. During the tour of the government buildings, we took the elevator to the top of the Peace Tower overlooking Parliament and made this picture of “Still Busy” and another looper – “Carolyn Ann” – tied to the canal wall. (We will spend the next few days traveling with Joe and Punk from “Carolyn Anne”). We also toured a couple of museums in the city including “The Museum of Civilization” which recapped Canadian history since the Indians. This last picture of Ottawa is Jack and Pia at The Champlain Monument Hill with the Parliament Building in the background. In addition to the museums and government buildings, there was ample shopping and restaurants in the downtown area. Along with a couple of fellow loopers, we sat on the sidewalk beside the canal wall one evening for local cheese, fresh baked bread and drinks – try that in NYC. We would both highly recommend a trip to Ottawa for anyone that has the opportunity.
When we leave Ottawa, we will take the Rideau Canal – which is 126 miles and 44 locks – to Kingston on Lake Ontario where we will spend Canada Day on July 1st.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Rousses' Point to Ottawa

We are behind in our posting but have had a little difficulty getting a good connection for updating the blog and downloading pictures. Our last blog was one week ago as we were preparing to go through customs in Rousses’ Point, NY. As I am writing this, we are now – exactly one week since entering Canada – in Ottawa , the capital city of Canada. Below is a recap of our travels in the last week.
Leaving the Customs station at Rousses’ Point - the first picture - The Richelieu Canal , Chambly Canal, and Richelieu River is 70 miles (and 10 more locks) long leading to the St. Lawrence Seaway at Sorel. We cleared customs at 9:30 AM on June 13th and traveled 34 miles to a marina on the Richelieu River. This journey included 10 locks that are often hand cranked by the workers of Parks Canada. The picture to the right is Pia in the first lock on the Chambly. The last 3 locks on the route are 3 step down locks in succession leading to the Basin de Chambly. We cleared the final 3 locks at ~ 3 PM. Another long day!!! The next 3 pictures are of our journey in this canal system. As you proceed through the canal, local residents are riding bikes and following along the way and pontoon planes are landing on the water in front of you.
On Sunday, we departed the marina early – before 7 AM – headed to Sorel 34 miles away. The trip up the River was great with little traffic and great cruising weather. We cleared Saint Ours Lock early and arrived in Sorel around noon with intention of staying at a marina on the St Lawrence River but decided to continue down the St Lawrence on our way to Montreal since the weather was great and the commercial traffic would be minimal on a Sunday. Pia was able to find a marina down the River in Contrecoeur, Quebec. What a great little village! The picture to the left is "Still Busy" at the marina in Contrecoeur. We were able to walk into town for a visit and dinner in a local Pub but "stumbled" across a rally in progress (we thought it was a town carnival) of a local labor union protesting the hiring practices of a local business. We later found out that the protest was sponsored by the communist party of Canada. In spite of this, everyone was friendly and we enjoyed our time at the marina and in town.
On Monday, we departed Contrecoeur, returning to the St Lawrence, to Montreal, through the Canal de la Rive Sud - and 2 of the largest locks we have been in -(bypassing the rapids around Montreal) and arrived at the town dock of St Anne de Bellevue – an 80 mile trip from Sorel. We stayed at the town dock for 3 nights, and, on Wednesday, took the bus into Montreal and spent a great day touring this great city. Old town Montreal is like being in a small French village – everyone speaks French, the crepes were fattening, and the wine was bold but good. The next 3 pictures are as follows - Montreal from the waterway, Pia at one of the locks on the canal, and "Still Busy" tied to the town dock in St. Anne de Bellevue.
We departed St Anne early Thursday in heavy rain headed for Montebello to meet John, Sue, Doug, and Leslie aboard “Just Relax” and “Happy Clamz”. We haven’t seen these folks since Watertown, NY and it was great seeing them again as we head West on The Great Loop and they head East on the Down East Loop. A great evening of recounting our adventures since we split but sad as they departed early the next morning headed to St Anne and the St Lawrence. We will see John and Sue back in Charlotte when we return home for a visit in December and may actually join them in the Bahamas in January.
Montebello is famous for The Chateau Montebello, a “log cabin” built in the 1930’s and is now a Fairmount Hotel property of 230 rooms, spa, marina, pool, with many activities. The structure is actually built from logs brought from the west coast of Canada and gives a rustic appearance but is very plush. We had a charming lunch in the hotel and toured the gardens and waterfront surrounding the chateau.
Since entering Canada last Saturday, we have traveled 70 miles to Sorel, 80 miles to St Anne de Bellevue, and 45 miles to Montebello, including 15 more locks. This morning, we traveled 42 miles to Ottawa and will spend the next 3 – 4 days here before beginning The Rideau Canal to Kingston – a 126 mile trip from Ottawa. We continue to be amazed that, not only are we on this trip, we are making good progress and are on schedule to be in The Trent Savern Canal mid July for a visit with family and friends.

We are not real sure what we do when we finish the loop - return to Lake Norman or keep a boat on the coast for weekend use. If we choose the latter, we found the ideal house boat for our next great adventure.

When we arrived at the beginning of the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, we encountered one of our most memorable events - the 8 Step Locks from the bottom of the river, with the Canadian Parliament buildings on the port and Fairmont Chateau Laurier on the starboard side. These 8 succession locks provide a lift of 76 feet and take about an hour. While the workers are hand cranking the doors so you can pull from one lock to another, many tourists are walking beside the boat asking questions - where are you from, where are you going, how long does it take, etc. We actually met a family from Raleigh on vacation. I will enlarge these last two pictures of the step locks - from the bottom and at the top.
We are now tied to the docks in Ottawa on top of the locks and will be here for the next few days touring the city.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Once again, we are back on the water. Burlington to Rouses Point

We were overly optimistic thinking the fuel pump would be in on Tuesday and remained optimistic that it would be in on Wednesday. It finally arrived late morning on Thursday and was installed mid-afternoon. Importantly, the port engine started fine and is running smoothly again. A great sound. We intended to stay in Burlington 2 nights but, due to circumstances, stayed 4 nights. In spite of the engine problem and the cool, wet weather, we decided to make the most of our time.
Our timing was good - the annual Vermont Jazz Festival was in downtown Burlington while we were at the marina and we were within walking distance so we enjoyed the festivities during the day and in the evenings we were in town. We rented a car for one day and did some needed shopping and re provisioning (with the obligatory trip to West Marine). We also drove to Stowe, Vermont on Wednesday morning and visited this charming little ski village. While in Stowe, we were able to visit one of the few remaining covered bridges in Vermont. This first picture, of Pia posing with a bear (not real), is taken at a lodge in Stowe where Jack had attended a meeting over 10 years ago. This next picture is Jack at Emily's Covered Bridge north of Stowe. Although the day was cool and wet, we really enjoyed getting off the boat and seeing some of Vermont from the road.

The next picture is "Still Busy" at the Burlington Community Docks as we departed on Friday morning - the weather was wet, wet, wet but cleared as we made our way up Lake Champlain. We departed Burlington on Friday morning for out 40 mile trip to Rouses Point, NY at the top of the lake. This is the last stop before entering Canada and we can actually now see Canada from our marina. Tomorrow morning, we will leave the marina and make the 2 mile trip to the Canadian Customs pier. We should be in Canada for at least the next 6 weeks and look forward to seeing this country from the water. Upon arriving at the marina, we walked into "town". This is a picture of Pia on main street in Rouses Point and "Still Busy" tied to the dock at Lighthouse Marina (if you look closely you can see Jack on the aft deck waving).
It is hard to believe that it was only 2 months ago when we left Charleston to begin our great adventure. We have passed through numerous states, waterways, canals, bays, rivers, locks, and cultural regions in the US and are about to enter another country. The trip so far has been beyond our expectations and we fully expect Canada to reach this same level. We look forward to continuing the journey and keeping everyone up to date on our travels. We are not getting a lot of comments on the blog but do get emails from friends about the postings, particularly the pictures. We continue to encourage everyone to send comments either on the blog or on email. Keep in mind that we cannot respond to comments left on the blog but we do read them all.

Monday, June 8, 2009

The 6th Great Lake

Lake Champlain is one of the most beautiful views from any direction - looking north, south, east or west. As we travel north on the lake, NY state and the Adirondack mountains are on our port side and the beautiful state of Vermont is on our starboard side. Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the discovery of The Lake, Champlain has served as a highway and battleground for the armies and navies of several wars. Two places on the lake - Whitehall at the end of the NY canal system and Vergennes where we visited - claim to be the birthplace of the US Navy. As mentioned in the previous post, our intention was to stay in Whitehall overnight but we decided to make it a long day and arrive in Westport early. Turns out this was a great decision. We arrived at the marina around 5 PM on Thursday and quickly realized that the boating season in the central/north part of Champlain doesn't really begin until mid June. The marina was still "preparing" for the launch of the season but the facilities were adequate. We were their 2nd transient of the season. On Thursday evening, after a long day, we had dinner on the boat along with a well needed nights rest. Friday was a great weather day and we spent most of the day on the boat cleaning and completing a long list of projects. On Friday evening, we walked - about a mile - into Westport and had dinner at the only evening restaurant in town which was located
in a small hotel. On Saturday morning, at the urging of everyone we spoke with, Pia was up at 5 AM to take pictures of the sunrise over the mountains of Vermont. I will download a few of these pictures but will tell you that the pictures do not do the view justice! Absolutely Stunning views!!! This final picture of Westport is "Still Busy" in the slip we stayed at for 2 nights.

We left Westport on Saturday morning and decided to make a side trip to a small town in Vermont named Vergennes which is 8 miles off the Lake up Otter Creek. The trip to the entrance of Otter Creek was about 10 miles and we traveled on the NY side of the Lake. Again, the views from the water are great. This next picture is the entrance to Otter Creek as we picked up a passenger along for the ride (you may need to enlarge and look on top of the light). The entrance to the creek was VERY shallow with a narrow channel but once we were in the creek, our depth was more than adequate at 8 - 12 feet until we arrived at the Vergennes town docks. So made the 8 mile trip and came around the curve on the creek to see the waterfalls beside the town dock. This was actually our view as we were tied to the dock. In the Revolutionary War, the colonists build the Saratoga at this very spot and entered the Lake through Otter Creek to prevent the British from using this passage to New York. We launched the dingy to get closer to the falls and explore the creek. This is a picture of Jack driving the dingy with "Still Busy" tied to the town dock.

We had a great evening in Vergennes. We walked into town, had dinner, viewed the small city, and attended a jazz pianist - Fred Barnes - in concert in the Vergennes Opera House which is located above the police station and city hall. We returned to the boat after the concert and had this view of the moon rising over the falls sitting on the aft deck of the boat. A perfect ending to a great day!
On Sunday morning we untied around 9 for the "easy" trip to Burlington. After the 8 mile trip back into the Lake, Burlington is less than 15 or so more miles. The departure was smooth, sunny day, no wind, and calm lake. Here is a picture of the Garmin measuring our depth in the middle of the lake - in the lower left corner the depth reads 430 feet deep! Everything was smooth until - HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM. The port engine sputtered and shut down in the middle of the lake. Good thing we have 2 engines! We thought it could be water in the fuel so Jack changed the fuel filter as Pia continued the trip using the starboard engine. We still could not get the engine started so we were able to make it to Burlington and are now at a marina. Yesterday - Monday - we were able to get a mechanic to come out and the problem may be one of the low pressure fuel pumps. A replacement was ordered on Monday and will hopefully be here today. To add to the misery, today is 55 degrees and raining in Burlington so we have arranged for a rental car and will do some shopping and sight seeing. If we can get the filter on today, we will leave Burlington tomorrow and should be in Canada in a couple of days. Guess we have to take the bad days (not very many) with the good days. We look forward to seeing Burlington and also look forward to hearing the port engine run smoothly. On the bright side, here is a picture of the sunset at our marina in Burlington on Sunday night - not too hard to take.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Mechanicville to Westport, NY on Lake Champlain

On Wednesday we left Mechanicville for the 28 mile run to Fort Edward. This stretch of the canal system includes 5 more locks #3 - #7. So far, we have seen fairly consistent depth in the canal of 10 - 15+ feet but welcome the calm weather as shown in the first picture as we departed our free dock. The locks were dug to create a bypass beside the dam so commercial and pleasure boats can travel from The Hudson River to Lake Champlain. As we departed one of the locks, we were quite surprised at how close we came to the dam beside the lock. Fortunately, the 28 mile trip was uneventful until we were informed at Lock 6 that we could not access the town dock in Fort Edward due to dredging and we would need to travel beyond Lock 7 today. We were able to use some floating docks beyond lock 7 instead of continuing up the canal. This next picture is us tied up to the dock - not electricity or water - but adequate for us for one night. We walked into Fort Edward and discovered a local restaurant with quite a history. The Anvil Restaurant has served this community as a number of canal and farming businesses including as a blacksmith shop and the building was over 200 years old. In fact, according to local legend, one of the original owners was still living there as a "friendly" ghost that plays tricks on the staff. Everyone in the restaurant had a ghost story to add but we did not see him! Very disappointing. Here is a picture taken of us at the bar in the restaurant in the afternoon. We enjoyed the place and the people so much, we returned in the evening for dinner.

On Thursday morning, we left Fort Edward for Whitehall, NY - another 24 mile run. The weather has warmed overnight and Jack took this next picture as we prepared to leave early morning. Hopefully, you can see the fog as it lifts from the calm water. Another picture you may find amusing, we saw this house for sale before we reached Whitehall - can't understand why there were no takers - it is waterfront. Take note of the For Sales sign on the front.
So far, all the locks have raised us anywhere from 12 - 20 feet. At lock 9 we began the steady locking down and arrived in Whitehall around noon. This is a picture of Whitehall as we approached the lock and, based on the early arrival and the looks of the town, decided to continue on to Westport, NY on Lake Champlain - another 49 miles and a total of 73 miles today. We were quite taken by the views on Lake Champlain and will provide more pictures on the next posting. Lake Champlain has to be one of the most beautiful places we have seen and we look forward to spending some time in the coming week exploring this 120 mile long lake. What we have seen so far is breathtaking! Here are 3 closing pictures of this day on the lake, the first of a mountain view as we approached the Lake, the 2nd looking toward Westport Marina with the Adirondack Mountains in NY State in the background, and the final picture is from our marina looking across the Lake at the mountains in Vermont.