Narrow Channels, Shallow water, Rocks. Oh My!!!! June 10 – June 11

Monday, June 10

We had a leisurely morning today since the lock we’ve decided to stay at is only 2 1/2 hours away. I took advantage of the internet service in Smith Falls to post the last blog while Tim took care of some provisioning. Smiths Falls is the largest town we have come to after passing Kingston. When we arrived a tribal festival of some kind was happening in the park, but by the time we got situated it was over. We had to settle for a cold brew at a local pub. Aww well. After chores this morning we took a short walk to the Rideau Museum. They had a nice exhibition, nothing fancy, but OK.

You need to know about the swans. We met a stately couple this morning as they foraged on a wooden dock near our mooring. Later we saw them preening themselves in the sunshine at the nearby park. They did not seemed bothered by us in the least. Quite unlike the geese living in our neighborhood in Texas who are ready to attack any one or anything that ventures near.

Just a side note here. We have been told that Canada is very dog friendly and while everyone we have met seems to like dogs, local establishments ( brew pubs and restaurants ) are not. Even when sitting outside on a patio, Maggie is not welcome. We’re hoping things will be different in Ottawa.

So now we have had our 4th locking of the day- Smiths Falls, Old Sly, Edmunds and Kilmarnock. The area we are cruising is quite shallow. I often hear Tim suck in his breath as I’m blogging. we’ve reached as low as 5′ 5″ and for a vessel that draws 5′, that’s a bit skinny. This area was flooded when the dams and locks were built. It is more rural than Rideau Lake was that we passed trough yesterday. As we look about we see low farm lands. The granite walls and islands have been replaced by marsh.

Wednesday, June 11

I had to stop my blog on Monday and it’s taken a day to get going again. You see, we had a bit of a mishap. Remember how I last mentioned the water getting shallow. Well what I didn’t say was that the bottom can be somewhat rocky, as in NOT soft. Unfortunately we discovered this the hard way. We decided that Merrickville would be our destination for the night. So many people told us that it was a pretty town with restaurants, bakeries, historical sites and power on the Parc dock. We were ready for some power ( $9.80/night isn’t a bad deal at all). Coming into Merrickville you stay to the right to get to the lock, heading left takes you to an area called “the Pond” where you can moor to a small dock. In making that turn to the left, the channel markers change. Now suddenly the reds were on our right again. To add to the confusions was trying to figure out where we should moor the boat. There was one dock with a boat on it, but the wall also looked we might be able to tie to it. Tim, Lisa and I were all looking at the situation trying to decide where we should head when the crunch and grinding noise occurred. While focused on the land, not one of us was focused on where we were in the water. A combination of current and just not watching the buoys allowed us to drift too far to the right and onto the shallow rocky edge. After Tim made a quick shift into neutral, I did a depth check with the boat hook and found rock on the starboard side to be about 4 feet down but we had plenty of water on port. Ok, so we are only partially stuck. Tim devised our plan of attack. We would put my kayak in the water and Tim and Lisa would set our spare plow anchor (Lisa says it weighs 1000 lbs.) on the back on the kayak. An anchor rode would run back to the windlass. I would paddle the anchor out to the designated spot, push it off the kayak and then Tim and Lisa would use the windlass to pull the bow of the boat to port and away from the rocks. Once I dumped the anchor overboard I paddled to the closest plastic red bouy and grabbed ahold to keep the strong current from pushing me away. Great plan and it worked to get the bow away from the rocks, but the stern was still stuck. I suggested step 2 be to drop our Rochna primary anchor to hold the bow in place, run the rode from the secondary plow to the stern of the boat and have Tim and Lisa pull with all they had to try to get the stern freed. While putting this plan into play, the guy on the boat that was at the dock joined the fun in his dinghy. Steve ( we became good buddies with him) was employed to push the stern while Tim and Lisa pulled the anchor rode and I paddled around watching. After giving it all they had, suddenly the stern was free and now the current took over. The Pond actually is a basin that dumps over the dam and there is a strong current as the water rushes north into the river. So we now had a boat that was freed from the rocks, two people on board hauling in a 1000 lb anchor and rode, a Good Samaritan (we later found out Steve is hard of hearing ) still pushing the boat with his dingy and me in a kayak yelling that the boat was about to hit the red bouy. Not only did the boat hit the buoy, it went over it. Thank goodness we had the Rochna down. Once I signaled Steve to stop pushing, the boat settled back on the anchor and the plastic bouy popped up on the starboard side where it belonged. Ok, time to get this boat on the dock.

Once we got the boat settle in at the dock and our hearts stopped racing, we employed step 3. This phase involved me slowly sliding into the Canadian water with the GoPro to survey the damage. The video showed a small chunk taken out and a flattened area on the prop but it looked a whole lot better than any of us expected. As of now, we don’t know the true extent of the damage. Once we leave Merrickville and get back on the Rideau, we’ll have a better idea.

Step 4 involved beer. After passing a Yuengling to our new best friend, Steve ( he thought it was Chinese beer) we all sat back on the deck to recoup. As Tim said, “. One day we’ll laugh about this, today is just not that day.”

We had thought we’d be heading out this morning but the weather gods are making that difficult. The forecast was for wind, but not honking like it is. We’ve decided to wait and see if the wind dies down. If not, we’re here for another night.

Meanwhile we have had some good news. The Parc Canada moorings at Carillon and St. Anne de Belleville near Montreal will open this weekend. Also the Chateau Montebello between Ottawa and Montreal is open. We need these stops if we are going to go to Montreal. The unfortunate news is that the outflow down the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario has been increased to the point that the authorities are calling it unsafe for pleasure boaters. So we will not be venturing into that body of water. We’ll still be able to go to Montreal, we just won’t be able to stay in the downtown marina.