We were underway from the park at the dam at Upper Jones Falls about 1010 and by 1110 we had explored a couple of possible anchorages in Sand Lake and had the anchor down in West Bay. At the far end in about 15 feet of water with heavy grass for great holding. We have learned that lots of grass is our friend when anchoring, even if it does mean more work the next day. Several nice bays we've checked for anchoring have a flat stone bottom with no grass or gravel for holding. I was told by a local boater that grass doesn't grow in over 20 feet of water; it won't grow in any bottom without silt/sand/gravel, either. So now we look for bays less than 15 feet deep where we can see grass reaching toward the surface! We spent a quiet day here watching loons (and hearing their calls) and fishing boats of all sorts plying the shores.
July 15, 2011 (Friday) we moved 3.5 SM to upper Davis Lock. John the lockmaster seems to be a legend on the Rideau for his friendliness and helpfulness. He will let boats stay on the blue line, with hydro (Canadian speak for electricity) at $10 per night on the upper docks. He obliged us by putting us on the blue line (normally reserved for boats that want to lock through) immediately above the lock door on the starboard side, so we had a nice view of the lock and the boats going through it. There are a number of shorter docks in the little pond behind the lock which John created with his own initiative, so the first night there were a total of 17 boats of various sizes at the lock. The Canadian couple in the beautiful 1933 wooden boat (Dave and Liz) were on one of the docks at the back side of the pond and we had a nice reunion with them over the next several days. Most of the boaters there seem to know each other, and many have cottages on the nearby lakes and come to the lock on weekends. By the time we left on Sunday at noon many boats had departed.
We anchored on Sunday night (July 17) in Stouts Bay on Newboro Lake. Again, we confirmed the advantage of anchoring in grass. When we first entered the small bay there were several other boats anchored in various places at the winward end of the lake, so we anchored in an open area between them. The bottom looked rather desolate on the depth sounder, and later in the afternoon when we watched the other boats depart we saw that their anchors came up completely free of any grass; the bottom was a granite shelf. We then decided it would be best to find some grass or at least a better holding bottom, so moved to a shallower area between an island and shore where the depth sounder seemed to show some grass. We anchored there, putting out over 100 feet of chain in 15 feet of water, and later, after two storms passed through during the late evening and about 0130 in the morning, realized that we had, in fact, anchored in a good bed of lake grass; the anchor held through the storms without a problem.
From Stouts Bay we cruised 9.0 SM to the public docks at Westport, also on Newboro Lake. All docks are part of town marina operation and the price was quite reasonable with hydro. The little town had a good grocery store, three ice cream stores, bakeries, and several restaurants. We ate ashore both nights we were
there, shopped, ate ice cream, and Bob had freshly baked cinnamon buns both mornings for breakfast! We departed Westport on Wednesday, July 20 heading for Big Rideau Lake where we hoped to get a spot at the park docks on Colonel By Island (Colonel By is the man who supervised and was instrumental in the construction of the Rideau Waterway/Canal which was completed in 1832). When we approached Colonel By Island it was apparent that the dock was full, so we explored three other anchorages only to discover that one had very poor holding, one was narrow and over 25 feet deep even close to shore, and the third had little to no swinging room with a number of electrical lines laid on the bottom reaching the various small islands. So we cruised past Colonel By Island again (nothing had changed and there was nothing available on the dock), and ended up on the southern side of the lake not too far from Portland in a very nice little Bay - Sheldons Bay. The bottom was only 10 feet in depth with plenty of grass. We laid out 75 feet and never budged, even though the wind during the next day got up to 20 mph at times. The lake had several nice homes (not cottages) overlooking the water with small boats of various kinds at the docks. It looked like a nice place to live (or at least spend the summer months).
Portland had a marina with diesel fuel, the first we have found since departing Kingston. Our next destination was Smith Falls where we hoped to get a spot in the basin between the two locks. We got to the marina shortly after it opened at 0830 and took on 102 gallons of fuel (the first fuel we've taken on since Oswego, New York) in our starboard tank (we've been using the starboard tank only since we discovered a slight leak about 2/3rds of the way up on the port tank earlier in the trip), pumped out the forward holding tank, and by 0945 on the 22nd of July we were heading to Smith Falls where we were able to get the last dock with hydro available! During the day more boats arrived looking for space, and somehow managed to fill up the park walls and still find hydro in some of the places. This is the beginning of the "Construction Holiday" when the construction trades in Quebec take two weeks off so the workers can go on vacation. Everyone seems to have a boat, and every boat takes to the waterways. Many keep their boats in Montreal, so they come through the Rideau Waterway from both directions (from the north and Ottowa, and from the south and Kingston) making a circular route that includes the St. Lawrence River. The lock walls and parks are filled, and it is going to be difficult to find a place to stay for the next couple of weeks without going into a marina. We're a little concerned about whether we will be able to stay on the wall in Ottawa - we won't know until we get there.
We're staying here at least into Sunday (July 24th) and with the hot weather we're experiencing we may stay longer in order to have air conditioning on the boat at night. Smith Falls is a great location with much to do. Yesterday we toured the Rideau Canal Museum and today we went to the Canadian Railway Museum (learned what a "dental car" was) and the Heritage House Museum. This morning Bob got a hair cut (after three months he was looking a bit shaggy) and Judy says he looks better now! The "downtown" area is less than a block away with an ice cream shop, a number of restaurants, Rexall Drug store, and even a movie theater. The basin, the area between the locks, is surrounded by a nice park with lots of boats and RVs - people swimming in the relatively warm water, and just sitting out under the trees talking or reading. We've had several nice discussions with a Canadian couple who come here every summer for a few days from a town near Ottawa; we've gotten some good advice from them about places to stop as we approach Ottawa.
Bob is getting more concerned about the loss of coolant in the engine which he's been unable to resolve, so he's going to talk with a boat yard in Merrickville about checking the engine to determine the source of the leak and making a repair. If that occurs, we will stay in the yard/marina for at least several days while repairs are made. We're hoping it is something less serious than a head or exhaust gasket!
For those of you who may be interested in learning a little about the Rideau Waterway/Canal, the best source of info is at Rideau-info.com. The area certainly has an interesting history, and the whole thing started with the War of 1812!
The weather is really hot - 94 degrees each day for the past 3 days and there hasn't been much rain for a number of weeks. Today for the first time we turned on the air conditioning late in the afternoon so we, and Julie and Khepera, could get away from the heat. The forecast is for more of the same for the next 3-4 days.
We should be in Ottawa within a week, if all goes well with the engine repairs.
Totals to date: 368H45M - 2374.5SM
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