Winding down the Rideau to Smiths Falls

Lock in Kilmarnock

As we wound down the Rideau Canal from Burritt's Rapids the countryside became our backdrop for the day. Much of the Rideau, in this part of Ontario, is through lands tied together by man made canals or small rivers. It didn't leave much room for error trying to navigate through the narrow channels and keeping Out To See III from wandering. Much of the waterways are full of weeds and algae and this caused our props to get covered again. Captain Paul had to stop and reverse the engines often to clean them from the debris on the two props.

Today we traveled through 12 locks. Many of them being double or triple lifts. At the second lock we were with three other boats, all of us large. They put our boat on the starboard side with another 40 footer in front of us. We were like sardines in a can along that wall. Jan sat at our bow with a pole to keep our boat separated from the aft of the one in front of us. It got close but our crew managed to keep everyone safe from bumping each other.

After leaving the locks in Upper Nicholson's we continued to Merrickville where it seemed to be like merging onto the 401 highway. There were three locks in Merrickville and again, it was a full lockage. When we arrived at the top of the locks we saw a vibrant small town and lots of boats. Many were staying there for the day but we kept going with our goal of arriving in Smiths Falls by mid afternoon still achievable.

Along the route we saw many interesting things on the water, the shoreline or in trees and we wanted to post them on our blog.

When we arrived in Smiths Falls we passed through Lock 29a which is a strange name for a Lock. There were 4 locks in this town. On one end of town were the original 3 locks that Colonel By had built, and on the other end was a single lock. The triple set of locks were built to overcome a large waterfall that was in the town. In 1973 it was decided to remove the triple locks and build one large new one making it easier and faster to navigate. After some controversy, it was decided to leave the old triple locks as a Heritage site and make a new canal and larger lock. Hence it became known as Lock 29a. Locks 28, 29 and 30 are not in use anymore.

Lock 29a in Smiths Falls

While in Smiths Falls, we had a visit from Craig Dick. He's the son of long time friends. It's been a while since we last saw Craig and catching up with him was so much fun.

After dinner we were sitting in the park where we were docked and a group of kids were being sought by police. They appeared to be stoned on something but were in bad shape. Captain took some photos of them being arrested and attended to by paramedics and some of the accused friends did not take that lightly and threatened the Captain. They finally left but we were concerned that they could return and be malicious. They didn’t want pictures or video, of their friends being posted online.

Theses kids were stoned

The Hallman Experience: Careful when taking pictures of stoned kids getting arrested, as they tend to retaliate when a "90" year old man that's not their father, and shouldn't look at them like that, takes pictures... out of the mouths of babes.. stoned babies!

Solution: nod and smile at the belligerent little shites!

Alls well that ends well