Ottawa and the Rideau Canal
June 18, 2025
Yesterday we left Sorel and traveled to the start of the St. Lawrence Sea Way locks. We dropped anchor just before the start of the locks. It was a rocky anchorage due to the ferries and pleasure craft. A two-masted schooner named The Pride of Baltimore II anchored nearby. They are heading to the Great Lakes this summer for educational/charity work.
June 19, 2025
Anchor up at 7:30 and traveled to the first of two locks on the St. Lawrence Sea Way that opened at 9:00 and 11:00. In order to transit these locks, we had to make reservations on-line. We were one of four boats, including the Pride of Baltimore. We got to the first lock on time, but they were running late. We watched a tanker come through traveling east-bound. St. Lambert was the first lock and the second lock was St. Catherine. They were both commercial locks that the big ocean-going cargo ships transit; the locks were immense! Both locks were uneventful. After leaving the second lock, we crossed the St. Lawrence Sea Way and entered the Ottawa River. We traveled to another lock, Ste. Anne de Bellevue. While approaching the lock, we noticed that there was a nice little town with numerous restaurants. The lock attendants at Ste. Anne were older women who couldn’t have been any nicer and were curious about our trip asking all kinds of questions. After transiting the lock, we decided to stay on the dock to explore the town and have dinner. Since we paid for the National Parks Sticker, there was no additional cost to stay the night.
After much-needed showers, we took a walk around town and stopped at an Irish pub for a late lunch, early dinner. Everyone in the joint was speaking English. The waitress said most people here were Anglophone. She was curious about our Loop trip and is hoping someday to travel the US. We hope to be in Ottawa in two to three days.
June 19, 2025
Juneteenth is an American holiday, but celebrated here in Canada by Canadians with ties to the U.S. This morning, we pushed off the wall just outside the lock in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and started our journey up the Ottawa River and the lakes it runs through. Our boat was covered in Mayflies also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada.
It was an overcast day and very humid. There were a few sprinkles on and off during the day and a few times we thought the heavens would open up with a deluge of rain, but never did. Overall, it was an idyllic ride. The lakes were mirror-like for a good part of the morning.
Brian installed a fan in the nav station; it was great – offset the humidity.
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When we got close to our next lock; the Carillon Lock, we radioed the lock attendant and we’re told to tie up to the blue wall; the blue lines near a lock are for boaters waiting to transit a lock. We were at least 45 minutes early, so we tied up. The wait was actually an hour and a half; they were having trouble with the northern gate of the lock. Once we were directed into the lock, we tied up to a floating dock. It took a full hour plus between the tying up, the gate closing behind us, the water filling up the lock, then waiting for the gate to open, which wasn’t exactly cooperating at first. It was a 65-foot lift; impressive!! We were the only boat transiting, so we had the undivided attention of the two lovely young ladies who were attending the lines when we were getting ready to exit the lock. They wished us well on our journey.
About 2:00, we decided to stop at a free dock in Hawkesbury. At the moment we are the only boat here. Heidi got a chance to get out and sniff around and do her business. We took about a 10-minute walk to Hawkesbury center. It was good to stretch our legs. Back on board, Lauren prepared dinner while Brian transferred fuel from the port aft tank to port forward tank. We do this because the forward tank has a sight glass that tells how much fuel is in the tank and the aft tank fills faster when we have to refuel.
Tomorrow morning the winds are predicted to be about 20 knots, so it may be a challenge getting off the dock; hopefully, the trees may break some of it, but we may feel it once we are back on course.
Brian reading: The Guilty by David Baldacci
Lauren: Still on The People’s History of the U.S.
June 20, 2025
Last night the wind gusts were up to 40 knots and the waves had us tight against the dock. We had a burst of rain come through and since our hatch to the bedroom was open, the end of the bed got a bit wet. This morning, the winds were 20+ knots, but we were able to get off the dock without incident. In fact, it went way smoother than anticipated. We left Hawkesbury at 7:20 and headed to Ottawa. We traveled 50.8 miles; took us 8 hours and 25 minutes with an average speed of 6.1 knots; a long day. The first two hours of travel we thought for sure we would have heavy rains as the skies were black with low hanging clouds. But they eventually gave way to sunny skies, though the winds never abated until we almost finished for the day. We’ve been surprised that we haven’t seen any other Loopers and most pleasure craft are traveling in the opposite direction of us. We did get waked today; a yacht came way too close and didn’t slow down at all. Lauren brought the bow into his wake so that we weren’t rockin’ & rollin’; rather inconsiderate of the captain especially since we were in a fairly wide river that was plenty deep enough on the outer edges. He should have slowed way down when passing so close or moved much further away from us and still slowed down. Brian did reach out to the captain on the VHS, but as expected, no response. We cruised pass a very large metal marker – very unusual looking.
We dropped anchor in the river flowing through Ottawa City. We can see the Prime Minister’s home and Parliament.
After dropping anchor, Lauren prepared a sausage, onion and pepper dinner served over rice. While that was cooking, she got out the vacuum; she was rather antsy.
Tomorrow morning we will bring up the anchor before 8, travel under two bridges and hopefully get a space on the blue line at the wall just before we enter our first lock of the day; there will be 7 locks to get through all close together. We will then be on the Rideau Canal System; this has been one of Brian’s many goals on this trip; to be able to travel the Rideau. We will be traveling this canal for about a week.
June 21, 2025
This morning when we got up, we noticed three boats that were anchored close to the bridge; we assumed they were going to transit the canal system, so we pulled up anchor at 6:15 and moseyed over under two bridges to the canal dock wall. There were two boats already on the wall. First, we were going to tie up behind the second boat, but realized that the wall had a painted red line, which meant a no-go. If you wanted to enter the canal, you had to be on the blue line. We successfully navigated between the two boats. I believe it was the first time that we had inched our way between two boats and tied up to a wall; there was about 56 feet between the two boats and our boat is 53 feet in total length which includes our dinghy and pulput. There was absolutely no issues in squeezing in between the two, we were so proud of ourselves. Lauren was really pleased with our successful docking. We met both boat owners, aft and forward; they gave us detailed info as to what lines to use and how the process went with navigating the locks. This lock was different from previous locks. This one we had to put a line around their cable that hung on the side of the lock chamber from top to bottom.
Since we’ve started our cruising, we’ve encountered several types of locks. Some we’ve had to use the lines that were provided by the lock tenders (usually so gross that you had to use gloves); another method was that the attendants would throw lines from the top of the walls down on your boat for you to hold onto while the lock either fills or empties. We’ve also encountered floating docks where the lock tenders sometimes tied our lines to the floating docks (our favorite). We’ve encountered floating docks where we’ve had to tie up our own lines.
Today we had a flight of seven locks; one right after the other. It took us about 2 and half hours to ascend all of them. At the top of the locks, we were in downtown Ottawa right next to the Parliament and Senate buildings. We will be staying here for a couple of days to explore the city.
Early this afternoon, we took a walk around a portion of the city just to get our bearings. There are a lot of homeless people on the streets. One of the homeless wanted Brian’s hat and tried to take it off of his head; said he would trade for it – what he had to trade we had no idea. After returning to the boat, fed Heidi and took her for a walk and both of us crashed for a bit. Early evening we went to an Irish Pub for dinner; both of our meals were excellent – Ivan, our waiter was loquacious. While we were eating, we got to watch the crowds go by. One of Lauren’s favorite activities is people watching; so it was a perfect ending to the day. Back on the boat, making plans. We will go to the Canadian Museum of Nature tomorrow – looking forward to it.
June 22, 2025
Lauren was up about 1:30 am ‘cause she could hear something going on outside. She walked all around the boat trying to decipher which direction the noise was coming from. Finally, she saw about 20 young people walking along the street. She said they were so loud; sounded like howler monkeys in a forest; most or all of the group seemed rather inebriated and trying to talk over each other, hence the yelling and screaming. Thankfully, they didn’t turn and walk along the water’s edge. This morning we woke to an already humid, oppressive day. After a hearty breakfast, we took a walk of just under a mile to the Canadian Museum of Nature. We spent several hours strolling through all four flours of exhibits; and it was air-conditioned. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at a diner for lunch and a much-needed break to get off of our feet. Once back on board, Lauren started one of two loads of laundry. Brian took Heidi out for a break and then he went to a grocery store to buy fresh produce. Back on board we both just layed low and read; it was too dang hot and humid to be out and about. Tomorrow morning we leave our dock wall and head up the Rideau River.
June 23, 2025
This morning we pushed off the dock wall in Ottawa about 8:45 and slowly ambled to our first bridge of the day. The bridge was scheduled to open at 9, but the bridge attendant was letting all the commuter traffic use the bridge. We tied up to the dock to wait our turn to pass. Once through we took our time up the Rideau River and Canal system. We traveled under numerous bridges (some were swing bridges – needing to wait for an opening) and six locks. There is a speed limit on the canal, so we slogged along with two other boats all morning and early afternoon. When we decided we had had enough travel for the day, we turned towards Mahogany Harbor and dropped anchor. We were told that going into the harbor was narrow and shallow (5ft) in one area; we draw about 4.7. So we crawled in and we did bump, but got right off – felt like we hit a log instead of sandbar. We are surrounded by homes that all have docks and numerous aquatic paraphernalia; rafts, wakeboards, tubes, small lake boats, kayaks, etc. and throw in swimmers. The trip today was so hot and humid; felt like we were melting. As soon as our anchor was down, we took a dip in the harbor – refreshing! Even put Heidi in her life vest and dipped her in the water; she did better than expected. There were quite a few people on the water staying cool; a few came close and said “hello”.
Brian reading: The Winner by David Baldacci
June 24, 2025
Pulled up anchor in Mahagony Harbor and headed back onto the Rideau Canal. Other than 4 kayakers, we saw no one most of the day. Even though parts of the Rideau look wide, you really have to stay in the channel as the sides are too shallow for us. As we moseyed along, we checked out various waterfront properties; quite the variety of dwellings and the landscaped (some) yards were rather varied. We navigated several bridges; a couple of swing bridges and seven locks. After our first lock, we joined another boat in the remaining locks along the way. Brian thought the name (Solitude) and boat looked familiar. We had actually met these Platinum Loopers (Conrad and Amy) in Half Moon Bay on the Hudson River in New York. Lauren couldn’t remember their names at first, but she remembered that they had already transited the Loop twice and on this trip they were trying to figure where a good place is to retire to. During the last lock, Lauren got the attention of Conrad and asked about their trip. He said they were going to travel the Trent Severn, then onto the Erie Canal and then back down around to New Berne, NC for the winter. As we were rising up in our last lock of the day, Brian noticed town docks and asked one of the attendants about them; free dockage and there was also electricity on them; may need that for the a/c tonight. We were the only boat on the dock. We cleaned up; another hot sticky day and walked to the downtown for a bite to eat. Lauren’s fish tacos were bland and the soft shell was too difficult to chew, so she was rather disappointed in her meal. Brian had a hamburger that was tasty but over-cooked. As we were eating our meals, a nasty little thunderstorm came through. Of course, we had the hatch and a few windows open so Heidi didn’t roast. The sun came out just as we were leaving the restaurant, so we high-tailed it back to the boat to do a mop up. We were surprised that nothing came through the hatch, but our aft deck looked like someone had hosed it down. Since the sun was shining, we both grabbed absorbent cloths and wiped down the entire boat. Just as we were finishing up, two boats came to the dock; one is a Looper – hopefully, we will have an opportunity to chat with them. Not 15 minutes later, another front came through, same as before but with much higher winds. Lauren went out and re-wiped the whole boat down again and then gave Heidi a cleaning and herself another shower; and since she was in there, why not pull up the teak grate in the shower and scrub that and the basin.
This evening we did a final slow walk around town as the humidity had not abated and tomorrow we will be on our way again.
Hope all is well and stay safe out there