Well, the Wayward Explorers made it through the night without incident. They shared the public dock all night with just a few commercial vessels. Either they were allowed to stay overnight, or nobody bothered to care. Either way, they were happy to avoid going backward to find a good anchorage or paying for a slip at a marina.
The Explorers were up early, as they always are when they are a little nervous about what comes next. They were having trouble finding information about the locks at the beginning of the Rideau Canal. They knew it was a set of 8 locks, one right after another, stepping up and that it opened at 10:00, but that had no idea which direction would be allowed to pass first or how long the Explorers would wait if the other direction started first. As they had seen the preceding day, the dock they were supposed to park at, to indicate that they were requesting passage, was underwater and the only dock was the dock that was reserved for the water taxi and tours. Captain Mark kept trying to call on the radio with no answer. He called the main number for the Canada Parks department, but they could only confirm that no one would be there until 10:00, and they could not provide information on which direction would go first.
Captain Mark wanted to head over early and park at the water taxi dock as he researched and found the taxis didn’t start until 11:00. Sidekick Sue was her normal nervous rule-abiding self and didn’t want to park there in case a tour boat showed up (she got scolded by a passing tour boat driver when they had used the dock the day before). The two compromised to use the water taxi dock, but to wait until closer to 10:00. Since the day was dark and gloomy, it was doubtful that any tour boats would be leaving this morning anyway. So around 9:00, the Explorers cast off and motored back across the river to Ontario, putting Quebec in their rearview mirror (for the second time).
At 10:00 Captain Mark started trying to reach the locktenders on the radio again with no success. He could see a worker, running around to each lock door, probably removing the chains they had seen wrapped around the cranks. Captain Mark decided to try to talk to him, so they left the water taxi dock and hovered near the lock doors. The worker went about his business, clearly seeing the boat hovering, and at 10:15 finally came to the edge of the first lock door to yell that they were locking through the boat from above the locks first and it would take another 45 minutes to an hour. This meant the Explorers could either return to the water taxi dock (but the water taxi would be needing it soon), hover for up to an hour (no fun and wastes fuel) or drop anchor. Dropping anchor isn’t a huge deal, but the Wayward Explorer is not equipped with an electric windlass, so the process is manually intensive. Captain Mark has to lower it and raise it manually, and sometimes it takes a little while to dislodge it from the silt and muck at the bottom of the river. The area around the lock was also not a great place to anchor because it was pretty deep and the navigation charts showed a pipeline in the area. Still, it seemed like the best option at the time, so Sidekick Sue manned the helm while Captain Mark dropped the anchor away from where the charts showed the pipeline (hopefully they were right). The anchor held and the Explorers bobbed around until they could see the boat coming down in the second lock. Then, they went to work raising their anchor. Sidekick Sue does her best to maneuver the boat directly over the anchor so the anchor rode (rope and/or chain) is vertical while Captain Mark tries to crank it up. Wouldn’t you know, with the descending boat now in the first lock, the anchor was stuck. The Explorers were anxious because the lock will be opening for them soon, and also because , in the back of their minds, they know a pipeline is down there somewhere. After 2 attempts to move the boat forward so that the anchor is pulling from the reverse direction, it finally popped free. Embarrassment (or possible crisis) averted. For the hundredth time, the Explorers talk about investing in an electric windlass.
The locks in Ottawa are the most impressive set of locks yet. There are 8 successive locks, like stairs of water, climbing up a hill. Each lock lifts the boat about 10-12’. This is what allows the boats to bypass the Rideau Falls and continue on their journey. The next hour or so is busy for both Captain Mark and Sidekick Sue. They discuss a plan for making sure they each know what to do:
- Captain Mark enters the lock when the doors open and gets as close to the lock wall as possible.
- Sidekick Sue is in the stern (back) of the boat and yells “got a stern line” as she wraps a line around one of the fixed cables that runs down the side of the lock. She will cleat it off and yell “cleated”.
- Sidekick Sue moves to the bow (front) of the boat and yells “got the bow line” as she wraps a line around one of the fixed cables.
- Captain Mark shuts down the engine, and comes down from the flybridge to the stern. He uncleats the stern line and holds it.
- As water enters the lock, the Explorers each hold their lines to keep the boat close to the lock wall. When the water stops coming in and the next doors open, Sidekick Sue yells “doors opening”. That is Captain Mark’s cue to re-cleat the line, and return to the helm and restart the engine.
- Once Captain Mark is in the helm, he says “Ready” and Sidekick Sue pulls in the bow line and yells “bowline in”. This line is safer to remove first because Captain Mark has an operational bow thruster he can use if the bow starts to swing out.
- Sidekick Sue goes to the stern line, uncleats it, and pulls it in, yelling “stern line in”. This is Captain Mark’s cue that he is free from the wall and can move into the next lock as soon as the doors are fully open. Sidekick Sue stands at the stern with a boat hook to push off the wall if the boat is getting too close.
- Repeat 8 times.
It took slightly more than an hour to get through all 8 locks. The Explorers were happy to be the only vessel going up in the first round because they don’t have to worry about hitting other boats (or other boats hitting them), and it saves a lot of time when there aren’t multiple boats to get situated.
The boat ride was short today. The plan was to stay in Ottawa for the night on the free wall available through the Canada Parks pass. There was even an electric hookup and the Explorers splurged on a night of electric for $10, meaning they wouldn’t have to use the loud generator to cook and they didn’t have to turn on the inverter to run down the batteries (which was good because they weren’t running the engine long enough to get the batteries fully charged). The Explorers decided to have their dinner for lunch and just snack later, so they settled in to eat.
After dinner, they attempted to go to Tim Horton’s, have a snack, and enjoy the free internet to FINALLY get pictures uploaded. As it turned out, the Tim Horton’s they choose had terrible wi-fi. They moved to another, and still struck out. Not giving up easy, they sought out the public library and were give a username and password for the library internet. It was fast and it was free, but it was also getting close to the library closing time. Captain Mark went back to the boat to lower the small mast on the trawler because it was not going to fit under all the low bridges on the Rideau Canal, and to move the dinghy to the swim platform. Sidekick Sue set to work on gathering all of the pictures by day (they now had 8 days worth), picking out ones that seemed interesting, and trying to upload them to the blog site. She hit a snag when she realized the new iPhones save pictures in a new format (.HEIC) that isn’t understood by WordPress. She googled how to convert them and converted each picture to .JPG one by one, using the Windows photo viewer (as her Google search suggested). When she then tried to upload them (again), WordPress still wouldn’t take them. Somehow it did not recognize them as true .JPG files. Arghhh! She did a little more thinking and decided to try using Microsoft Paint to convert the files. She did a test this time BEFORE converting EVERY file, and it worked. Unfortunately, time was running out and the library was closing, so Sidekick Sue had to return to the boat with only one day’s worth of pictures uploaded to the blog and the library was not reopening until 1:00 PM the next day (long after their departure).
Back at the boat, the Explorers decided to pick up a few more bags of groceries. They found a Loblaws within a mile walk (neither had seen a Loblaws in decades and didn’t know they still existed). They splurged on a bottle of Pinot Grigio, even though they rarely drink wine. As they walked back, they wondered if the library internet could be used from outside the building. Captain Mark decided to walk back and check, he needed to try to find ice for the cooler anyway. Sidekick Sue set to work converting all the pictures using Microsoft Paint this time. They both finished around the same time and both reported success (except for finding ice). The plan was for Sidekick Sue to get up early in the morning and go sit outside the library building and finish uploading pictures. They popped open the wine and remarked that they had actually seen quite a lot of Ottawa during their foraging for lock information, their shopping, and their quest for free internet. They had seen the Canal Historic Site (of course), Parliament Hill, and lots of beautiful sculptures and architecture. They both agreed they would like to come back, by boat or by land sometime. They battened down the hatches (they had been warned several times throughout the day that downtown Ottawa has it’s share of petty crime) and retired for the night.
