South to Kingston, Ontario

Day 17, Monday

What a beautiful day to cruise and we were traveling through some of the lovliest parts of the Rideau waterway. It was still part of the Canada Day weekend, so we encountered quite a bit of boat traffic,
but there was plenty of room for all of us.

Small islands and cottages dotted the lakes



A lone trumpeter swan greeted us as we approached Jones Falls

Micki and Steve on Endurance tied up to a boat in the lock

At Jones Falls there is a succession of 4 locks which bypass a big dam which was built in the 1820s, in fact the largest dam in North America until the Hoover dam was built much later.

Side by side in the lock with a 47foot boat named Blue Heron

They packed us in with 4 other boats and at each lock we took the same position as in the first one. The Canadian Park service has been doing this for many years and they are very organized in their procedures. The boat, Blue Heron, was also a looper and we had met them at the Spring Rendezvous in Norfolk and they had tied up near us several times since St. Anne so we were getting to know them a bit before we would go our separate ways after reaching Kingston.

We were one of 5 boats locking through the 4 steps down,
onlookers can walk across the V shaped gates while they are closed

We stayed at the bottom at a welcoming place called Kenney Hotel which had tie-ups for visitors. We toured the site of the old dam which is still in use. it is 60 feet high and an engineering marvel of its time. The  photo below just shows part of the almost full semi-circle.

Kenney Hotel at Jones Falls

Stone Arch Dam at Jones Falls

That is not water flowing over the falls, and I was a little disappointed not to see any actual water falls except the water flowing over the locks.

Captain's Log, Jul 02, 2012
Depart Westport 8:25 am
Arrive Jones Falls 2:15 pm
14.81 nautical miles
5 hr 40min travel time, 4.1 engine hours
Wx - AM - calm, clear - very nice, PM winds westerly, moderate 15-20 kts

Tuesday, July 03, 2012
One can hardly complain about being wakened by the sun at the crack of dawn when you can look out on calm waters with a light mist rising off them. Then, just to top things off, a loon calls in the distance. So on with the day. We left Jones Falls just after 8am, letting Lily sleep in. Lily has been doing very well as part of our crew, but we realize that we are getting a little dependent on the extra pair of hands, so we are going through the locks today with just the two of us handling the lines to be in practice for future boat trips.

We cruise on, with the red and green channel markers occasionally marking the way. For most of the trip the red would stay on our right and the green on left, which is easy when the two are together, but sometimes confusing when one is standing alone. Now to make things a little confusing, because we are “leaving” the main waterway, the opposite is true, with red on the left, green on the right. Mariners joke about how to remember this, with some improvising with Velcro tags to hold up a red triangle and a green square which they can switch when needed. We improvised our own colorful visual aid with our bottle of bright green Palmolive dish soap and our carton of cherry tomatoes placed on the right and left sides of the lower helm. Works for us!

You can barely make out the red marker on the left and the green on the right

Scene from the day - loon family with a chick off to the right

We traveled through Cranberry Lake and the River Styx and finally arrived at the last locks on the Rideau waterway, upper and lower Brewer, before reaching Kingston. We had a wait of about an hour and a half at the top of another run of 4 locks, because they were already locking some boats down. Lily was fascinated with a little sea gull who didn't seem shy at all. She lured it in with some crumbs, took at least a dozen photos and we picked her favorite one.

Lily's gull

After waiting for a half an hour for the drawbridge over the causeway leading into Kingston to open, we arrived at our overnight spot at the Confederation Marina, a very large facility with many transient boats. Besides our traveling partners, Micki and Steve, on Endurance, we were docked near Blue Heron, Moon River and a couple of other cruisers we had met along the way. We will stay for two nights and observe the Fourth but we may be too far from the U.S shore to see any pyrotechnics.

Lily catches the night scene in Kingston

Captain's Log, July 3, 2012
Depart Jones Falls 8:05 am
Arrive Kingston, 3:15 pm
23.58 nautical miles, 7:10 total time, 5.2 engine hours
Wx, calm, clear in theam, pm winds west 15-20 kts, rain after tying up to slip