Tues Sept 6: Smiths Falls to Colonel By Island Parks Canada dock

Houston, we have progress - Capt Rick was able to put his shirt on this morning without help!! What a nice anniversary present, for us both!

I bought these for our anniversary-happy 30th to us! Everyone, all together now, ...  AWWWWWWW...

 

We smoothly transited Lock 31 to exit Smith Falls, in spite of angst on the part of Rick, who was sure the wind would give us trouble.  I'm actually happy to see him working up his blood pressure - it means he is feeling better! Coming out of the lock things got REALLY narrow, and he said 'man, I hope we don't have to pass anyone in this channel'.  Can you guess what happened BECAUSE HE SAID THAT???? Yup, we had to pass someone. And not just anyone - an unnecessarily wide barge, who had to take some things off its sides so we could get by.  Without running into the rocky side.  (As we have recently ALL learned - rocks = BAD). Rick, heroically, made it look easy.

At the Poonamalie Lockstation the two lock attendants were busy rescuing baby turtles, who get stuck inside the locks and can't climb the steep slippery walls.  (Some locks even have small floating pieces of wood tethered to the banks so the turtles have something to climb onto.) They said they had rescued 130 this season, and with Rick's sharp eyes and my excellent net skills we made it 131!

Quick shout-out to 'Rick's Balls', which have gotten quite the workout in locks this year.  They have been scraped, squished, dragged, deflated/inflated and manhandled - - - and have never let us down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming out of the channel we entered Lower Rideau Lake, and then Big Rideau Lake.  It was a nice change from narrow enclosed channels, and started to look very much like the Thousand Islands area.  Which makes sense because both are part of the Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, dontcha know. The Shield stretches north from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half of Canada and most of Greenland.  It also stretches into the US - that's what the Adirondack Mts are made of! 

Parks Canada maintains a series of island docks, here and in the 1000 Islands, and with our Parks Pass we can dock for 'free' (let us not forget that we did have to pay for the pass itself). It was a lovely, serene remote-feeling location, with 2 other quiet boats. It is also the only place we have ever been waked BY A PLANE! Just after we tied up a float plane used the lake as a runway and took off. Pretty cool - that’s a First World way to get to your island home.

This is the first place the water has been clear and clean (its unnerving to see the bottom given that we are so skittish about rocks), and we had hoped to swim.  But post-Labor Day has not only gotten rid of the weekday boaters, it has also gotten rid of warm weather, and the water was judged too cold. Even by Rick.

There wasn't much to Colonel By Island, but we did the quick 2-mile hike, and then played a rousing game of horseshoes (using the park's equipment).

 

 Our neighbors, who we enjoyed talking to, did swim - and fish!  Someday Rick might fish??? He did go so far as to look up the price of a license.

 

We fell asleep to the cry and coo of the loons.  We had seen these birds along the way, but didn't know what they were.  The second we heard them cry it was unmistakable. It gives you the same feeling as a train whistle in the distance - haunting and a bit melancholy...