From Montreal to Ottawa

         We left the city on Saturday morning (June 17) at 0700, intending to get to the St. Lamberts Lock at 0800, an hour before our scheduled opening.  This is the first of two large commercial-size locks on the St. Lawrence as we make our way from Montreal to the St. Anne de Bellevue canal, the beginning of the river pathway to Ottawa.  These big locks give precedence to the large container ships that move to and from the great lakes, and it is not uncommon for pleasure craft to wait several hours beyond their lock-through time.  Both the St. Lamberts and the Ste. Catherine Locks have floating docks to tie up and wait.  It’s a pretty smooth operation - you make your reservation online the day before, you arrive an hour prior to your reservation time (they notify you at 0700 the day of your lockage), you tie up at the dock and call on the dedicated phone at the dock that you are there, and you wait.  They’ll announce  when they’re ready for you on the loudspeaker, and a large electronic sign board lets you know the approximate time of your lockage.  For us, it was 0945, not too bad of a wait.  We were one of four vessels in the lock, and there must have been room for twenty more.  Once through, we headed straight to the next lock, where a ship was exiting, and the lock was ready to receive the four of us.  

That done, our major worry of the day was over.  We headed on over to the town of St. Anne de Bellevue, which guards the entrance lock to the canal leading to the Ottawa River.  This is a cute little town.  The seawall before the lock is lined with restaurants and the downtown is just on the other side of them.  We tied up for the night, made friends with the lockmaster - all these locktenders are very friendly and welcoming - and set off to explore the town. 
            We happened upon a thrift store and set about combing through it for things we didn’t know we needed.  Dan has been planning to sew up a couple of flags, and he found some material that in a previous life were a bedspread and blouses, as well as remnants of someone else’s projects.  

        The next morning we walked the bridge across the river to the town on the other side and found a large grocery store, purchased what we could carry, and walked back to the boat to untie and lock through.  It was another drizzly day - the weather had been gray and showery since we left Montreal - and though we would rather all was sunny and warm, this weather is good help for the people fighting the forest fires in these provinces and it keeps the smoke down.  

We arrived at the Carillon Lock - Canada’s tallest lock - around mid-afternoon.  We debated locking through and hunkering down on the other end, but decided to stay put here.  The Canadian Coast Guard auxilliary were performing inspections and they politely asked if we would agree to one. While I chatted with two of them about everything from cats to cooking, the CO went through her checklist with Dan and he ran around showing her yes we had lifejackets, here are the flares, there is the floatation rope, the horn works, the lights work, etc.  The only thing we didn’t have was a throwable life ring, but despite its absence, we passed inspection and received a sticker and several souvenirs like a whistle and key chain.  They thanked us for the experience and the CO even gave us her phone number in case we had any questions.  So different from the US!  

On Monday morning, we entered the Carillon Lock.  This one has a guillotine door, and lifts you up 60 feet.  Again, the locktenders stood on the dock beside us the whole time, chatting away: telling us all about the marvels of the mechanics of the lock and asking lots of questions about our time on the boat and the Great Loop.  We really love the Canadians.  

The sun finally came out just after noon as we traveled the Ottawa River between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.  Dan put up the mast and I admired the scenery.  Lots of farmland here, everything is very peaceful and pastoral.  We anchored off the Clarence Islands late afternoon.  Ottawa tomorrow...