7/24/10 day 11

Well we left Montreal at 10am and headed to the Ottawa River. We had to go thru 2 locks on the Saint Lawerence seaway each costing $25.00. We arrived at the first lock just in time as it was opening, in the Canadian locks big boats go in first and they throw u down lines in r case as we were being raised and u secure to the wall. Then the smaller boats come in and tie off to the bigger boats. Since we just made the lock as they were loading we tied off to a boat a little smaller than ours. This worked out well for us as we did not have to handle the wall lines. We got a lot of info from the people we were tied to . They told us about a free town wall in the town of Saint Anne de Bellevue just before the first lock for the Ottawa river. The next lock we went against the wall and had two boats tied alongside us. Sure is work keeping the boats against the wall. After that lock the other 9 boats left us in their wakes as we only cruise at 10 mph. Nice ride up the river sunshine and a nice breeze. As we got closer to the canal or cut off for the Ottawa river things started to look awful dark and to top it off the gps and charts were a little confusing. The chart and gps wanted to send us up the river to Lake Ontario which was not our plan. After a trip up a marked waterway lead us to a shallow dead end and not the lock for Ottawa Linda finally convinced me to ask for directions, u know it is a man thing about asking and admitting u may not know where u r. We (Lin) flagged down a party boat and got the directions we needed, some how we went by the opening to the bay. They should come and see how us New Yorkers mark a turn Erie canal left Champlain straight ahead. We were finally on the right track when another storm hit s not as bad as the other one but when u are looking for a windmill to make the turn into the bay it is not pleasant. Everything eventually work out and we headed in this narrow open to the wall and lock. Real nice place, wall was almost full with weekend people but we managed to side into a spot. Oh by the way before Lin flagged down a fishing boat which had a couple in it. Well turns out the girl was really getting a tan and had all to do to get her cloths on before we got to them. She did manage to get her top on and threw her shorts over her. Just a little added tidbit for the day.