On Sunday morning, we began our ascent up the Rideau Canal - the canal built under the direction of British General John By in 1832 to ensure that Kingston Ontario had an adequate military supply line should the Americans decide to attack Canada again (War of 1812 redux that never came). The canal was never used for this purpose - but has survived nearly intact from that time period (with a few modernizations) and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The locks are all for the most part manually operated by Parks Canada staff - that is, cranking by hand the gears that open and shut the lock gates and the sluices. This is a big change from the Erie Canal that benefited from early 20th century modernization and installation of hydraulic controls. Luckily, Salty is just small enough to take full advantage of the 125.5 mile Rideau Waterway trek from Ottawa to Kingston on the northern shore of Lake Ontario.
The first step as noted in the previous post was to climb the Ottawa or Giant’s Staircase (Locks 1-8) between the Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier. Our gracious harbor host from Gatineau's Marina de Hull surprised us by showing up and taking pictures of Salty's ascent.
The Salty Dog climbing the Ottawa Giant’s Staircase.
It took nearly two and a half hours to make the ascent of 79 feet. The chambers were fairly shallow making positioning of Salty a bit of an effort at first as the pod drives were less effective with so little depth but we quickly adapted our routine for stabilizing the boat and tying up. The climb was not without some drama however. A brand new 20-foot speed boat (newly minted boaters at the helm) with some wakeboard attachment was along with us for the climb and somehow got its equipment entangled with cables on the side of lock chamber and was nearly swamped and pulled under. You can't take your eye off the ball in a lock. After some desperate screaming by the couple aboard the boat, quick action by the Parks Canada staff prevented a calamity. The Sunday morning gawkers - and there were nearly a hundred onlookers lining the canal - were rewarded with some excitement, commotion, a satisfactory rescue and denouement of a potentially dangerous situation.
Once through with the drama of the Ottawa Locks we came into the Rideau Canal that later joins the Rideau River. The canal is lined with cycling and running paths in a strip of park on both sides making for a pleasant journey through Ottawa. The Pretoria Lift Bridge was the first obstacle one mile past the Locks.
Rideau Canal coursing through Ottawa; Pretoria Lift Bridge
The trip to Manotick was a full day - nearly 9 hours - a lot of it taken up by up-locking in the face of building winds from the south. We proceeded through a series of locks - at mile 4 after the Ottawa Locks, the Hartwell Locks 9 & 10 (up 21 feet); at mile 5, the Hogs Back Locks 11 & 12 (up 14 feet); at mile 9, the Black Rapids Lock 13 (up 9 feet), and at mile 14, the Long Island Locks 14, 15 & 16 (up 25 feet). Sixteen locks and 9 hours later - we were 148 feet higher than in the morning. It all makes you admire the patience of our forebears.
Hartwell Lock 9; Hartwell Lock 10 (note changes in height); Hogsback Locks 11 & 12
Black Rapids Lock 13; Long Island Locks 14, 15 & 16 (ad seriatim)
At the end of the day, we arrived at our destination, Hurst Marina, to attend to some engine maintenance and checkup that we had postponed since Clayton NY.
