July 4, 2012 Day
54 Total
miles to date 1071.3
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| Coming through the eight flight of locks at Ottawa |
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| Parliament overlooks our arrival at the Ottawa Locks |
The ride to Ottawa was a short 30 minutes and there we
were at the Ottawa locks. These are a set of eight continuous flight of locks
that raised us a total of 78 feet. We were in the locks with three other boats,
including Our Time. Tom and Linda from Raydiance were waiting for us since they had arrived two days
before us. Tom got on our boat to help us with the lines and Linda took
wonderful photos of our boats to document the occasion! We are so grateful to them! We appreciated
the extra hands. Normally we use one line to secure to the lock wall but with
these we used three! It took two hours
to lock through the eight locks, but we were rewarded with a fantastic view of
the Parliament building at the top. It is just a couple of blocks from here!
Another “small world” note – while we were in the locks a man riding by on his
bike noticed we are from Williamsburg – he is from Yorktown, which of course is
nearby and where we started the Loop!
We tied up on the lock wall with Raydiance and Our Time
and several other boats already here. We are now in the Rideau Canal. Ottawa is
the beautiful capital of Canada and we are just a short walk from Parliament
Hill, museums, memorials, hotels, restaurants and shopping. The ByWard Market
(Marche’) is very close to us and was established by Colonel By (builder of the
Rideau Canal) in 1826. It is one of the oldest and largest public market areas
in Canada and is still managed by the city. We found open market food stands,
restaurants, shops of all kinds, and people everywhere. This was a popular
place to be – day or night and we managed to go there twice the first day!
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| Two of us are smiling! |
Shortly after we were tied up at the dock wall, we
heard someone knocking on our boat and were surprised and delighted to see
Belinda and Jim (Rickshaw)! We had
not seen them since we left Waterford four weeks ago when they took the Erie
Canal west and we took the Champlain Canal north. They had continued on to
Smith Falls and took a 30 minute train ride to Ottawa. We had a great visit catching up with each
other! They will take the train back to Smith Falls tonight and then return to
Ottawa tomorrow for more sightseeing, so we hope to see them again.
After we got settled we walked a few blocks to pick up
brochures so we could plan our sightseeing for the next two days. We also
stopped at the National War Memorial and then headed to the ByWard Market. On the way back we noticed another boat had
arrived with an American flag do we walked down to see them and were happy to
see the AGLCA Looper flag! In fact they are Gold Loopers, having done the Loop
in 2006-07. We had a very nice visit with Sally & Greg on Odyssey.
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| Courtyard seating for dinner in the ByWard Market |
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| We bought Beavertails! |
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| Greg & Sally, Odyssey |
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| Tom & Linda, Raydiance |
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| Brooks & Sarah, Our Time |
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| Bill, Carried Away |
Raydiance, Our Time, and Odyssey joined us for a walk
down to the ByWard Market area to search for a restaurant for dinner. Linda had
seen an outdoor courtyard earlier that linked to several restaurants, so she
led the way. We were soon seated at an Italian restaurant in the courtyard and
had a relaxing meal. After dinner, we walked to a little stand known in Ottawa
for its Beavertails. They make pastries shaped like beavertails with many
choices for toppings. The line was rather long but Linda and I had to have one
because it is such a local treat! We stopped in a large bookstore, then headed
back to our boats. It was a good first day in Ottawa and the full moon just
topped it off!
We were sorry we could not celebrate our nation’s
Fourth of July. Many Canadians wished us a Happy Independence Day when they walked
past our boats. We proudly fly our flag!