July 20 – Ottawa (Hartwell Locks)
45°23′0″ N 75°41′58″ W

I moved from the Marina at Dow’s Lake Pavilion to the overnight wall at the upper entrance to Hartwell Locks. These are the first set of locks as you leave Ottawa & head up the Rideau River. The locks are only about 1 nautical mile from the marina so it was a very short trip.

Photo above: Santosha tied up on the overnight walk at Hartwell Locks. Carleton University campus is on the other side of the canal.

My motivation for moving was primarily financial. It cost $70.00/day to stay at the marina & $0.00/day to tie up at the lock. There is no electricity at the lock & I can only stay at any lock for 2 days in a row but for those kind of savings I am happy to accept the minor inconvenience.

I washed the boat before I left the marina & then tackled some minor maintenance issues after I tied up at the lock.

Santosha has a bow thruster with controls at the upper & lower helm stations. The control at the lower station has not worked for a while so I decided to see if I could fix it.

The control panel is a sealed unit & the buttons under the touchpad were not moving. A new control unit is about $200 so I put a pinhole at the point above each button & soaked the area with WD-40. Eureka-it works again. Not sure if the remedy will last but it’s worth a try, eh?

Wayne & Cindy invited me for supper & a movie at their place – an invitation I simply could not turn down.

After supper Wayne made us flavored shaved ice drinks with his special machine. I could use one of those things on Santosha. It would be great for Margaritas!

I made a few calculations about the trip so far:

Goderich to Kingston:

593 NM – 105 hours travel time

Kingston to Ottawa:

170 NM* – 46 hours travel time

(*that includes 70 NM return trip from Smiths Falls to Jones Falls with Valerie & David)

Tomorrow I will tackle some more maintenance tasks & spend some time reading up on the history of the Rideau River & Canal System.

Cheers!