Day 320: Sunday, July 21, 2013
Port to Port: Sainte Anne De Bellevue to Atocas Bay
Underway: 5:30 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 47/46 Stayed At: M
First Things First: First guillotine lock (main door was a huge steel panel that slid up on tracks instead of two doors swinging open).
Mile 97 to Mile 51: We just finished dinner of grilled pork loin, red potatoes, corn on the cob and applesauce. Cindy calls what we are doing fancy camping. I just might get used to this “fancy camping” stuff.
Can someone explain to me what defect in their DNA causes certain people to buy penis replacement boats (mini – cigarette boats) and abuse everyone around them. There were a number of them locking through yesterday with their huge, mufflerless engines and even louder crappy noise they consider music. They kept their music playing even in the lock while most people pointed at them and laughed. Worse yet, a couple of them parked for the evening near us and came back loud and drunk and blasted their music and engines at 12:30 am as everyone was trying to sleep. It is interesting that our two most negative experiences on this trip have to do with the same type of boaters. Enough ranting for this month. There probably won’t be many more of these idiots between here and the beginning of Lake Michigan.
We had a wonderful day today. The air was much cooler and less humid than the past few weeks and the sky was beautiful in the predawn light. We got going early again to make it to the first lock by 10 am. They had already loaded the chamber, though, with boats that were at the wall even earlier (we thought they opened at 10 am). Oh, well. We had time to wander up to the top of the lock and get a birds eye view of this work of engineering. The Carillon Lock on the Ottawa River raised us up 65 feet in one hop. (It replaced of series of 7 smaller locks). It took a little over two hours to get through this lock (our longest wait yet) but that was the only one today. We let all the power boats go by us and we had a nice cruise up the Ottawa River to our chosen anchorage. It was a little busy with power boat traffic (a perfect Sunday afternoon) but it quieted down after we got past a popular gathering spot where hundreds of boats were anchored.
Click Here: Time Lapse of Lock
After Carina got anchored, we tied up alongside for boat-tails and snacks before moving off to anchor nearby and make our wonderful dinner. Most of the other boats enjoying this large bay started heading home about 6 pm leaving this amazing anchorage all to our two boats. Like I said, I may just get used to this fancy camping and take a left instead of a right when we get back to the Mississippi River. Who knows.
