July 18 – Wednesday
We moved to the blue line to be in position for the first locking at 08:30 and were able to enter lock #29A in second position. The lock masters put the larger boats into the lock first and against the walls and then position the smaller ones around the larger and often have smaller ones raft 3 across. The boat put into the lock ahead of us was a really big (40-45’ lg. x 16’ wide house boat) that had only two New England fellows aboard. The boat didn’t seem to handle very well and was all over the lock before it could be secured to the wall. I believe it had a single, under-powered I/O drive. It had kind of a home-made appearance with an aluminum hull and a rough finished fiberglass cube with a bunch of storm windows, as the top side, or cabin or whatever you call it on a houseboat. I guess “house”. There was also a continuous bumper made of wood 2 x 10s that went around the entire perimeter of the vessel. I didn’t measure them, but could have – once, when it got within 3’ of our port quarter because the guy at the stern let his rope slip off the lock cable. You could see the steering station at the front, behind a large flat picture window right next to a pull-out sofa bed that wasn’t made-up (just 2 guys aboard, remember), and on the back was a nice patio porch with wrought iron railing across the entire width. On the roof was another big area and there was a full size gas grill like the one we have at home. The piece de resistance (a bit of French picked up from the local navy) was a sliding board located at one of the back corners, and went from the roof patio right into the water after twisting 90 degrees. We followed the houseboat thru 4 additional locks and at the last, we asked if we could exit ahead of them as there were no more locks before our planned stop. We put as much distance between FLIGHT and the floating condo as the speed limit would allow.

About 12:00 we arrived in the basin above the locks at Merrickville, a very nice historic village. We lucked onto a spot along the concrete wall next to a dam that supply’s flow to a small hydro-electric generating plant. We had to tie to some weird hook things and the post of a guard rail, but there was a 30A outlet for “hydro” hookup. In Canada, electricity is referred to as “hydro”.

Polly fixed a nice lunch of chicken wraps and I had some of my new-found treat – jalapeno flavored Pringles chips. I hope we can get them back home. After lunch we strolled around town and then watched several lock-ups full of small boats. Before we left the lock, I (RCB) got to help crank open the gate and was amazed how little effort it required. These large and thick wooden doors weigh a couple of tons but are so balanced on their hinges that it amazed me.
We had dinner aboard, just as the thunderstorms began and watched a Brit comedy on DVD. We agreed that if it is raining tomorrow, we would hang out another day in Merrickville.