Ottawa July 4, 2008

Hello All:

We have been in Ottawa for the last few days. We anchored out across from downtown on Tuesday, July 1st, Canada Day. We rafted off with "Double SS" and "MoJo" and had a wonderful picnic dinner as we waited for the fireworks. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of boats, mostly well behaved. The fireworks were terrific. Much fun was had by all.

On Wednesday, we moved to the blue line and waited for the "flight" locks to open. We were able to crowd our three boats into the locks along with one more small one. It was a tight squeeze but we navigated them just fine. It took about 5 hours to go through. We all ended up sunburned and very hot. We had lots of spectators and conversations with people from all over the world as we locked through - really fun. We were glad to get settled on the lock wall on the up side of the locks.

We are right in down town Ottawa, handy for sight seeing and shopping but not very quiet or safe, as it turns out. Last night we attended a concert with Pinchas Zukerman conducting and playing Rachmaninov. Absolutely wonderful!!! However after a late evening drink at an Irish pub in the neighborhood, we walked back to the boat and found about 15 of Ottawa's lovely teenagers, doing with teens like to do. A little while later we discovered a boat floating down the canal that they had untied. Luckily there was nobody on board. We called the police and made our way across the canal and caught the boat and retied it up. The kids disbursed when the police arrived. Today, the Canadian National Park folks came by and assured us that this was only the second incident this year, a vast improvement over prior years. They see to be doing what can be done. For those of you coming this way, I would invest in a couple of feet of chain and a couple of padlocks and simply lock your boat to the lock wall. The kids would simply move on to an easier target.

We're leaving tomorrow morning and moving down the Rideau Canal towards Kingston, on the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Old stomping grounds for us as we spent weeks there last summer.

See you out there somewhere . . .
Rob & Ann