August 31 – Merrickville Haul Out
44°55′7″ N 75°50′5″ W

All good things must come to an end – and so it is for my adventures on Santosha this summer.

I was up early this morning to finish my pre-haul out chores. I wanted to get certain things done before the boat was out of the water & sitting on jackstands – simply because it is way easier getting stuff off the boat when it is on the dock compared to going up & down a ladder 10 or 20 times.

Photo below: cool mist on the water this morning – fall is in the air

All the remaining groceries are off the boat as well as my clothing, etc. Whatever is left on board can stay there for the winter.

Santosha was hauled out at 10:00am, the bottom power-washed & she was sitting on blocks & jackstands by noon.

Once that was done I went on back on board to shut off the batteries, seal up all the windows on the inside & put the winter window covers on the outside. All that remains to be done is to winterize the engine & the plumbing. I will be coming back this way around the end of September & will do those final tasks then.

I have also arranged for a mechanic to come & look at the bow thruster. Once the boat was out of the water I was able to get a better look at the unit & it appears that the motor needs to be rebuilt. I will have that work done over the winter & it will be ready to be reinstalled early next spring in lots of time before launching in June.

This summer has been amazing. Traveling the Rideau System has been on my “bucket list” for over 10 years & it was well worth the wait. Tons of fun with family & friends & I’m looking forward to traveling the Trent-Severn Waterway next summer.

Photo below: Aylings Boatyard office – a beautiful stone building.

My nephew Wayne came to pick me up in Merrickville & took me back to his place in Ottawa for an overnight stay in a “real” bed. I’ll take the train home to London tomorrow.

Cheers Everyone!

August 30 – Aylings Marina Merrickville
44°55′7″ N 75°50′5″ W

Wednesday night before I went to bed I had a number of visitors on the dock with me at Kilmarnock. About 20 people in 2 large canoes were portaging around the lock & they were paddling 150 kilometers non-stop from near Kingston to Ottawa as a fund raising event to send kids to camp.

The group hoped to be in Ottawa by 4:00 Thursday afternoon. You can find out more about their cause & to make a donation at this website: www.sth.gouldlake.ca

After all of that excitement I had a good night’s sleep & was up at 6:00am. I was underway by 7:30am & arrived at the upper lock in Merrickville just before 9:00.

The boatyard where I was going to have Santosha hauled out & stored for the winter was just a few hundred meters away from the 3rd & lowest lock in Merrickville.

I tied Santosha up at the waiting area & walked down to the boatyard. The owners told me that they could not haul me out today but they could look after me first thing Friday morning. They also had dock space available for me to tie up right away so I went down through the locks & over to the boatyard.

Photo below: Santosha going through the last set of locks for this season 🙁

Aylings Boatyard has been in business for over 20 years. The current owners used to live in London. They specialize in restoring wooden boats & have some beauties on their docks.

After admiring the boats moored I spent the rest of the day preparing Santosha for the haul out. I took the cover off the bimini & folded up the frame for winter storage. After that was done I cleaned the heads & drained all of the plumbing.

Photo below: Santosha with the bimini down for the winter.

That was a fair bit of work so I thought I would switch to disposing of the cold beer in the fridge. A great way to end the day!

Cheers!

August 29 – Kilmarnock Lock
44°53′3″ N 75°55′49″ W

I’ve got the “Bow Thruster Blues”

For the past several days I’ve noticed that my bow thruster has not been as effective as it has been in the past. This is an important part of the boat as it makes it a heck of a lot easier to maneuver when docking or positioning the boat when entering & exiting a lock.

I took the photo below last fall when I had Santosha hauled out for the winter in Goderich. The arrow shows the location of the bow thruster. The electric motor for it is under the bed in the forward cabin.

I had thought that the thruster was simply choked up with stringy weeds because parts of the Rideau River have a very heavy growth of them. The thruster is only about a foot below the waterline so when I was docked at The Narrows Lock on Tuesday I “dove down” on it to check it out and found that it was clean. So weeds are not the cause of the problem.

On Wednesday afternoon when I was entering the lock at Kilmarnock it would not work at all. Oh, oh. This is not good!

There are 3 possible causes of this problem (in order of easiest & least expensive to fix to most complicated & most expensive):

a) the battery for the thruster is dead & will no longer hold a charge – new battery required

b) the control switch for the thruster is faulty & needs to be replaced

c) the electric motor for the thruster has packed it in

If the cause of the problem is the battery or the control switch then the problem can be fixed relatively easily but if the electric motor has packed it in then that could be very expensive to fix or replace.

Last week I made tentative arrangements for Santosha to be hauled out for the winter & stored at a boatyard near Merrickville. But I was not planning on doing that until around September 10 because I wanted to go back to Ottawa for a few more days of boating with Wayne & Scott & their families – plus my friend Bo was planning to come to Ottawa to spend a few days with me. Now all of those plans have to go on hold.

I am currently less than 2 hours away from Merrickville so I will go to the boatyard on Thursday & have a mechanic check out the thruster for me. If the problem cannot be easily fixed then I will have Santosha hauled out right away & placed into winter storage. This is not the way I wanted my boating season to end.

Stay tuned….

August 28 – The Narrows Lock
44°42′13″ N 76°17′40″ W

I spent August 24 & 25 at Upper Brewers lock & then headed to the Davis locks for August 26 & 27.

Davis: 44°33′47″ N 76°17′34″ W

Barely any cell phone signal at either location. Very quiet days for me. I cleaned up the boat inside & out & enjoyed the peace & quiet of each location.

There was not enough phone signal for blogging or surfing the web. Not much improvement in the signal here at The Narrows. Sorry, not enough signal for any photos.

The wind was very strong here at The Narrows today. I could barely get the boat into the lock. It was also really humid. However, the good news is that the wind was helping me cope with the heat & humidity.

Over the past few days I have met people from Germany, Australia, Brazil & South Africa who have come to Canada to charter a boat & cruise part of the Rideau System. It’s great to see that this part of our country has such international appeal. We should never take what we have for granted.

Tomorrow (August 29) I will head to Smiths Falls, pick up a few provisions & spend the night there. Hopefully the weather will be cooler.

Cheers!

August 24 – Kingston to Upper Brewers Lock
44°24′48″ N 76°18′46″ W

I was up early, had a light breakfast & left Kingston Confederation Basin Marina at 7:45am so I could catch the 8:00am opening of the bascule bridge.

Photo below: sunrise over the Martello Tower adjacent to the marina

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that it was Friday & the bridge does not open between from 7:00am to 9:00am to accommodate the weekday morning rush hour traffic. There was next to no wind so I just drifted for a while & then went for a slow cruise past Forth Henry to pass the time.

I was back in front of the bridge just before 9:00 & went through as soon as it opened. Next stop – the marina next to the bridge to get my waste holding tank pumped out – then on to Kingston Mills to “climb” the first set of locks.

Once inside the first lock the Lockmaster noticed that I was single handing so he offered to lend me one of his staff to go through the next 3 locks. A wise sailor never turns down an offer of help so I quickly accepted & one of his summer-student staff members hopped aboard as soon as Santosha was at safe boarding height.

It turned out that my temporary assistant was a student at St. Lawrence College in Kingston & that she was living in the same apartment building that our daughter Emily lived in when she was at St. Lawrence College 3 years ago. Small world, eh!

After exiting the locks at Kingston Mills I “surrendered” my assistant & continued heading north.

The next 2 locks (Lower & Upper Brewers) were about 2 hours away. I was getting hungry so I decided that I would stop for a late lunch after passing through the double locks at Upper Brewers. By the time I was on the dock it was almost 2:00pm.

Photo below: Upper Brewers Locks

For lunch I was eating pepperetts & chips & salsa that Brent had made a couple of days before. The salsa was delicious but spicy hot, so I decided to have a cold beer to cool my throat down. The first beer tasted so good the I decided to have another! Well, now that I’ve had a couple of drinks I can’t “drive” the boat any further so I quickly decided that I was moored at this location for the night. Now it’s afternoon nap time!

After a refreshing nap I went over to the Lockmaster’s office to pay for my electricity hookup & I discovered that this location has showers! Well, that sealed the deal. A beautiful, quiet location with electricity & showers – I’m here for 2 days for sure.

I finished the day & evening off by updating the Spanda Yoga website for Catherine & Valerie (http://spandaretreats.com/).

They don’t pay me anything for my IT services but they are very flexible with other forms of compensation such as free yoga classes & private yoga sessions but I haven’t taken advantage of that perk yet :). Maybe someday. Neither Catherine or Valerie are too worried about me abusing that perk.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I plan to sleep in late, maybe do some light housekeeping & defrost the refrigerator. But first I will work on emptying the beer cooler & napping. After all, summer’s almost over!

Cheers!