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July 9, 2012  Day 59                                    Total miles to date  1129.5

We departed Merrickville at 7:30 with Odyssey and followed the Rideau Canal through more narrow and shallow water.  We went through five more locks today and then reached Smith Falls before lunch. We thought about docking here for a few hours just to tour museums, but after we toured the Rideau Canal Museum and the Railroad Museum, we decided just to stay put for the rest of the day and depart on Tuesday. The lock wall empties into a basin and is surrounded by a park with shade trees, and picnic tables.  It was a much cooler day so we only needed to open the windows on the boat to be comfortable. 

Joyce and Sally walked to a grocery store and as usual bought more than they wanted to carry in their bags.  While they were gone, Bill took advantage of Greg’s experience and advice about boating in the North Channel and Georgian Bay and marked our charts accordingly with Greg’s help!

We had a light dinner on board and a relaxing evening.  We are still planning our route for tomorrow!  It will probably be a few days before we can post again. We will update photos when we can get a stronger connection.