Tues Aug 30: The Rideau Canal to Black Rapids Lock 13 free wall

** The most important thing that needs to be said here is that we are now the proud parents of a 25-year-old Claire!!! Happy Birthday to the best human - we are so fortunate to be along for the ride. 💝 **

I’m a superstitious person, and when I went to take a pic of our Looper flag in front of the Ottawa locks, only to find that our AGLCA flag, indeed the whole flag holder, had fallen off, I was immediately unnerved. It seemed a signal of some kind. And not a good one. (Dear Reader-I tell you in confidence … it WAS a sign)

Here we go-entering our 3rd canal system of the year-Rideau (pronounced Rid-doe), full speed ahead and the devil take the hindmost, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Like good little canawlers, we are waiting at the bottom on the blue line.This system does not have a radio, so you wait on the blue line until someone notices you.

 

 

The first 31 locks on the Rideau will be lifting us up until Upper Rideau Lake, and then 14 locks will drop us back down to Kingston/Lake Ontario.

While we waited Rick took down the Quebec flag. We are officially in Ontario now. No more pesky French.

We thought we might have to wait while they locked boats down, which can take up to an hour or more, but there was no one at the top waiting so right at 9am the lock master (mistresses in this case) came down to talk to us and verify our park pass. Then her crew started the laborious process of opening the first gate.  I was really glad it was too early for the crowd of tourists that we saw yesterday-I hate an audience.  (WELL …. read on…)

I shook off my gloom and worry and we started up. This system has hanging cables, and so was quite a bit more work then we had anticipated.  The water came into the lock in a less controlled way then some of the other systems, and we worked pretty hard to keep the boat steady and off the wall.

 

 

 

We are working hard, but they are working even harder.  This is the lock-master.

By about the 4th chamber we had it down to a science and looked around to discover that the tourists were out in full force.  As the boat rose up out of each chamber many feet came into view, followed by legs and then upper bodies and then faces and cameras.  So. Many. Cameras. It’s very disconcerting to know that we will be forever in the home movies of strangers.  Also, had we known so many people would be staring we might have done the dishes, or worn clean underwear… Rick, of course, was in his element and was taking questions! ‘No, it’s not a tourist boat that you can get on-it’s our house’ ‘Yes, that does say Florida’ ‘We are doing a thing called the Great Loop’ 'Yes, we are so lucky' 'YES - we really did come from FL'

Can you see the crowd above on the bridge? The whole thing was like my worst nightmare.

I am happy to wave at and talk to children, so that is what I did. I felt like I was on a Disney parade float. I got so flustered that I lost focus coming out of the final lock and the rear of the boat picked up a nice new ding. 😡 I KNEW I shoulda stayed in bed.

We had intended to stay on the canal wall at the top of the locks. And see some more of Ottawa.  But there wasn’t power, the area felt a little seedy and we just weren’t feeling it-so after a quick grocery run we headed on down the canal.

I had invited this little peanut to come visit us on the wall as they really wanted to see the inside of the boat. So after we tied up we gave a little tour.  It was a nice way to cheer up after my locking mistake.

The outskirts of Ottawa were very pretty.

 

It made me giggle that they put markers in a canal-like we were going to get lost! (Wait until tomorrow when the laugh is on us…and not in a good way. In literature we call this FORESHADOWING.......  duh duh dun {dramatic music})

A depth of at least 5’ is promised in the pool (the water between the locks) but there are so many weeds the depth gauge can neither confirm nor deny.

Here the parks dept not only locked us up, but also moved a piece of road just for us.

At this lock Rick said ‘hey-looks like you have a leak’ and the lock master said ‘yes-we have a lovely water feature in our lock just for you’ .  Dad humor -the same all over the world. 🙄

Finally, at the top of Lock 13 it was time to call it a day.  There are 45 locks in this system, but they come in groups so they will go quickly.  As of today we’ve really already done 1/4 of them! Between that cheerful news, and the fact that we got the last power pole on the wall , we were in reasonably good spirits by dinner.  Then the universe gave us an amazing rainbow, as frosting!!

Good night!