Bonjour and Good Night

Wednesday August 08, Day 76: After the thunderstorms we are ready to head out from our little marina hideout on the Ottawa River to the luxury Chateau Montebello, and are faced with a wall of fog, which turns to mist…so off we go. Of course, the mist turns into fog again, and then drizzle, but there’s little traffic out there.

Arriving at the Chateau Montebello marina, we are, we have to admit, very impressed with the place and spend two days strolling about, swimming, dining al fresco, cocktails in the lobby, and what have you, just like they did in the thirties when the place was built.

After two days of lazily swanning about in the resort, we want to get to do what we’ve been missing for a while: anchoring out. And so a few hours further on up the river we find a lovely spot at Presquile in the Plaisance national park, and for the first time in ages the weather is perfect.

After our lovely time at anchor, we head for the next big thing, which is going to take the better part of a week: Ottawa, Ontario. First off, we travel upriver and stay for a night at a marina very close to the capital, ready for an early start the day after (Sunday Aug 12, Day 80).

Up early, we want to get to the dock at the bottom of the flight of 8 locks which will get us up to the Rideau Canal at Chateau Laurier, and which opens at 9:00, so we aim for 08:00 to get our place in line. We fire her up at just past 07:00 and leave dock in beautiful weather.

Once we’re tied up, and spoken to the lock staff, we find we’ll have to wait til 10:30 for the boats at the top of the locks to get down to the bottom, and then we’ll be on our way up, which will take and hour and a half. Not unexpected.

For four days we stay. We have folks on board – Kevin & Cory, Bruce, Phil and Pat, and Kathy – we dine out (the fish at LaPointe is highly recommended), we go walking everywhere and biking, too, we buy croissants and coffee, we see a fireworks display, we visit here, we visit there, and generally act like tourists in our own capital, because we are.

Day 84: Thursday August 16. Our time in the capital is up, and we will leave for the final sector of our summer trip: the 125 miles of the Rideau Waterway from Ottawa to Kingston. The day is gorgeous – no humidity, at last – and we tackle the four lock stations (8 locks)  in the 15 miles to Long Island, where we rediscover the serenity of the Ontario waterways.

Tomorrow we will move on to Burritts Rapids lock station, 25 miles upstream, with no locks in between.

Weather permitting.