June 24
After our pumpout in Lachine, we began our slog back toward Ottawa. When we came down the Ottawa River, we had a 1-2 knot current in our favor. Our fat, slow boat averaged around 9.3 mph. Now coming back against the current we’re seeing speeds in the 7 mph. Ahh well, no big hurry.
Our pie in the sky hope was that we would be able to get a spot on the wall in St. Anne de Belleville before going through the lock. When we went through on our way to Montreal there was only one boat tied to the wall. Ha ha ha. Not so as we came through this time. This is a holiday weekend in Quebec, St. John the Baptist, so everyone is out and about. Of course the fact that it summer has finally arrived only adds to the festivities. So no, there was no way we were going to get a spot on the wall at St. Anne and even if we could, I’m not sure after seeing all the craziness that we would have wanted to. On to the lock we went. We were the first boat in the lock and then the parade began. Just when we thought they’d squeezed the last boat in, another came. This was a first for us, but the lock workers were pros and had everyone organized and secured.
Since Plan A was out, we went for Plan B. We tied to the bare wall above Carillon Lock as we headed east and so we knew what to expect- not much- and that was fine for us. Our biggest criterion is a place for Maggie to take care of business. Yes, she will use her astroturf if absolutely necessary, but it takes a whole lot of patience and cajoling to get her to finally relieve herself. I don’t mind crawling off the top of our boat to get her to grass if it makes her happy. No spoilage here.
Monday, June 24
It was a short run up to our next stop, Hawkesbury. But it was all against the current.. The closer we got to Hawkesbury where the river narrows and islands take up valuable space, the faster the current was and the slower we went. I posted a picture before of us flying through here at 12 mph, well we crawled through this time at barely 4 . Hawkesbury is a small town, but the free concrete dock was all we needed. Bathrooms were available during business hours. The current coming to the dock is quite strong and we wisely chose to nose in. There are plenty of pipes and some cleats to tie to. It was a quiet night.
Tuesday, June 25
We woke to a gentle rain and much cooler temps. Again we were in no rush to head out. 
We’re biding our time as we don’t want to get to Ottawa too soon. Our next crew, Ray and Karen Russell, come on Friday in Ottawa and we don’t want to overstay our welcome with Parks Canada. So tonight we will stay at the Harbor Host’s dock just off the river.
I wrote that last line before we hit bottom. Turning off the Ottawa River to our planned destination, we ran into a mud bottom. We had a choice of following the red buoys or trusting our charts. We chose wrong. The red buoys led us into 4′ waters. Luckily we were pretty leery heading in and Tim had throttled way back. In no time, he had us back out in deep water and we made a flash decision not to try it again. I made a quick call to Rockcliffe Marina to see if they could accommodate us for the night. We were already booked for Wednesday night there. They had space for us and would still be available to give us a hand docking when we arrived around 6pm.
It turns out that Rockcliffe was a great choice. Not fancy, many old wooden docks, but the brand new concrete one we stayed on was great. You can tell the owner is working hard to make it better. The other thing that made it so good was the restaurant. We were pooped and the onsite restaurant made a darn good burger at a very fare price. For two nights we enjoyed 50 amps, water to wash clothes and WiFi. It has been days since we have had decent WiFi and we are sucking it up. Thus- the blog is getting updated.
Now that we have WiFi, I’ll add some pics of Montreal that I couldn’t put in before. Enjoy!
