From the locks at Perth, after I solo-ed the dinghy down through the locks, we headed on Sunday to Colonel By Island, where Russ had read that there were mooring balls. It turned out to be a pretty popular spot – and by the time David and I arrived all the moorings were taken, so we dropped the hook a little outside the mooring field. I prepared waffles on Highwind, while Jax cooked her breakfast specialty of “corny eggs” (she even made some without the eggs for me!), and we hopped in the dinghy over to InQuest for a lovely brunch. After that we took the dinghy’s over to the island and did a “2 mile” hike around the island. After we returned to the boats, I decided that I wanted to do a little swim and thought that maybe I would swim over to InQuest from Highwind. Due to there being a lot of boating activity in the area, David hopped in the dinghy to accompany me for safety and then when I arrived at InQuest Russ jumped in the water with me for a while.
In the evening we played some board games while it rained and produced a most excellent rainbow!
We had such a good time on the hook here, that for our next stop we decided we wanted to try for another anchorage on the next lake after one lock. However, after each of us attempting and failing at setting an anchor a couple of times (pulling up mountains of weed each time to be cleaned off the chain and anchor) in two different bays, we gave up and headed to the next lock wall. This turned out to be another lovely park, which was actually quite busy. After my work day, I pulled out the pole and set it up across from the lock.
The next few days were a series of morning locks with stays on anchor or lock walls. One one of the days I had a string of morning meetings, so Russ and Jax boarded Highwind to crew for David up a set of 4 step locks, and then walked back down and brought InQuest up afterwards! We are so grateful for their willingness to adjust to our week-day working cruising schedule and for their help when I’m unable to assist David; it’s been such a wonderful summer so far cruising together!
From Moton Bay, after a very narrow entrance expertly navigated by David, but entirely missed by me as I was in a meeting, we took an evening dinghy to a local restaurant that turned out to be a little bit disappointing. We were surrounded by some good places for cliff jumping, but the weather just didn’t cooperate to be warm enough for post-work swimming. August 3rd was David and my’s 10 year anniversary, which we celebrated while on the hook. I had bought some nice steaks from our Costco run, so we fired up the grill and had a wonderful meal! David might be annoyed whenever I make him take a selfie where LOVE is in the background, but I think it’s worth it to be able to create collages like this!! 🙂
My friend Liana, who lives in Kingston, had been following our progress and recommended some hiking in the area near to us, so on Friday morning, I blocked off my calendar and we dinghied to shore to do a short but steep hike up to an amazing viewpoint.
We completed the final locks on the Rideau canal on Saturday morning and arrived at Kingston!
