August 14 – Lock 8, Ottawa
45°25′36″ N 75°41′56″ W

We left Montebello at 9:30am & headed up river to Ottawa. We were making much better speed against the current than I thought we would. Traveling, with the current to Montreal a few days ago we frequently made over 8 knots so I figured we would lose 2-3 knots in speed coming back but we managed to maintain 6.5 knots most of the time.

Ed looked after the helm while I prepared lunch & we ate underway. I tried my best to interest him in one of my famous Spam special sandwiches but he declined. Oh well, all the more for me!

Photo above: The Prime Minister’s residence. I would have like to stopped to say hello but the PM’s place is one of the few on the river that has no dock. 🙂

Photo below: Ed checks out the view of the Parliament Buildings as we approached the lock entrance.

We arrived at the lower lock in Ottawa at 4:00pm but unfortunately that was too late in the day to travel up the locks so we had to spend the night on the dock. That was disappointing but at least we had a nice place to tie up & the view was fantastic.

Photo above: the Chateau Laurier Hotel.

Photo below: Sunset over Hull, Quebec

Lots of tourists were walking by & we even had requests to take people on sightseeing tours. Maybe that’s something I should consider. Hmmmm, I wonder if Catherine would be interested in a bigger boat? I’d better sleep on that first.

Cheers!