July 16 – Smiths Falls to Merrickville
55′5″ N 75°49′57″ W
After spending a relaxing night at Kenny Hotel in Jones Falls we headed back to the boat in Smiths Falls. En route we took a slight side trip to Chaffeys Lock & had breakfast at the Opinicon Lodge. Very nice! For sure we will come back there sometime to stay for a night or two.
Upon arriving back in Smiths Falls we stopped at the local grocery store for a few provisions & then boarded Santosha & resumed our boating adventure to Ottawa.
Photo above: the shoreline landscape along this part of the Rideau River is predominantly wetlands.
Photo above: entrance to a narrow channel cut before one on the locks en route to Merrickville.
Photo above: preparing to exit a lock after we have been lowered. Wait for both doors to open!
We were aiming for the Parks Canada overnight docks in Merrickville but unfortunately they were all full when we got there at 3:00pm.
The lockmaster kindly offered to let us stay on the “blue line”* wall for the night but we chose to continue on through the next 3 locks in the town & then tie up for the night at the overnight section of the dock.
(The “blue line”* is the area in front of each lock where boats are normally allowed to only tie up for very short periods of time while they are waiting their turn to go through the locks.)
We found a very nice spot at the foot of the 3rd lock & tied up there for the night. Unfortunately there was no wind at all & it was extremely hot & muggy. I set up the Honda generator so we could at least run some electric fans. They helped a little bit but they were too small & we couldn’t leave the generator running all night.
I looked on line to try to find a store in the area with a 20 inch box fan but everyone in the Ottawa-Smith Falls area was sold out! Heat waves create big demands for electric fans & air conditioners & winter snowstorms create a demand for snowblowers!
Tomorrow I would be on a mission to find a store with a box fan. I want that particular type of fan because we can place it in the forward hatch & use it to draw cool air in or to push out the hot air inside the boat.
Cheers!