Day 321: Monday, July 22, 2013

Port to Port: Atocas Bay to Ottawa, Canada

Underway: 6:18 am      Motor Off: 3:45 pm      Miles Traveled: 51      Stayed At: Lock Wall

First Things First: First time rafted three deep waiting at the lock wall for tomorrow mornings first lock thru; first laser light show.

Mile 51 to Mile 0: Today was a repeat of yesterday weatherwise. Absolutely beautiful travel weather. We had a little fog when we first got up but it burned off almost instantly after the sun came up. We left a little before Carina but we were soon a two boat caravan heading up the last 40 miles of our journey on the Ottawa River. We have been very pleasantly surprised by the lack of current – we average 5.5 mph all day. We were expecting 4.5 mph.

The Ottawa is fairly wide and deep making navigation easy. We ended up following Carina for the last part of the day since our chart package on the Ipad doesn’t have this section of the Ottawa River or the first section of the Rideau Canal. Not sure why. It hard to get lost, though, since there are buoys at important intersections and the depths are very consistent. Its just fun to follow your progress on the screen.

  The boat traffic picked up a little in the afternoon although nothing like Saturday and Sunday. Traveling during the week is a definite must if possible. We decided to keep going past our original stopping point and travel another 6 miles to the first lock to see if we could get in line for tomorrow morning. We lucked out and were able to raft up at the end of the blue line with Idylle, another smaller sailboat with a couple of retirees from Canada – Henry and Carol – on a 30 day boating adventure. We will go through the first 8 locks one right after the other – they are connected to each other in sequence. The locks will no doubt be full.

Click Here: Laser Light Show

I went for downtown to explore and wait for the laser light show they present each night using the Parliament building as a screen. By the time the show started at 10 pm, the huge grass courtyard was full of visitors enjoying a beautiful summer evening in Ottawa, Canada. It was worth the wait. (Cindy had was probably sleeping for an hour and a half by the time the show started). The entire Parliament building was used for a multimedia/laser light show on the history of Canada. I’ve never seen anything like it. I have a new appreciation for Canada and its history. Maybe Cindy will stay up past Looper Midnight and enjoy the encore performance.

We are planning to stay tomorrow to wander around Ottawa. The locks are right downtown in the shadow of the Parliament building so there should be lots to see. You never know what you’re going to discover in this uncharted territory.

Total Miles: 4,556