Cruising in Your Own Bubble
Published: Sunday, June 6, 2021
By: Bruce Kemp
I want a palm tree, but in these COVID times I’ll settle for a good boat with folks I like who live within my bubble. At least that’s how it started out with my wife Laurie and our old friend Seann O’Donoughue and his sweetheart daughter Erin.
One of the nice things about a boat is that it’s a bubble most of us are willing to enter without fuss. Our particular bubble last spring was a 45-foot LeBoat charter cruiser on Canada’s historic Rideau Canal.
Our course would take us down the historic Rideau River from Smith’s Falls to Ottawa—a nice four-day return trip.
Before we headed north toward Canada’s capital city, we decided to make a small detour down to Big Rideau Lake and Rideau Ferry. There was nothing special for us there, but because we picked the boat up late in the afternoon, we wanted to make a short familiarization cruise to an overnight mooring without too much fuss.
This way we just transited two locks (Smith’s Falls Detached Lock and Poonamalie) to get up into Big Rideau before tying up at the town dock.
Laurie and I have cruised the Canal several times, but it remained on Seann’s bucket list. Seann and I have sailed together on everything from square-rigged training ships to Great Lakes freighters. He is a master mariner and a Great Lakes ship pilot.
This was also to be a graduation present for his daughter, Erin, who completed her final high school courses online (with flying colors) because of the pandemic.
These boats are luxurious. Our LeBoat Horizon 3 could accommodate up to eight passengers comfortably with good space in the main cabin for dining and cooking, a complete galley, an outside grill off the fly bridge, and comfortable seating and lounges all the way round.
Learning to drive a Horizon 3 is so easy and safe (despite its 45-foot length), people who charter one don’t need boating experience and are exempt from having the Canadian Safe Boater’s card. After a 45-minute check out with Sandy Crothers, LeBoat’s base operations manager, we were turned loose.
The boats are speed-governed to a maximum of six knots and surrounded by heavy neoprene fenders and a quarter inch steel shoe runs from stem to stern making them virtually bullet-proof.
There are two steering stations. One in the cabin saloon and the other is on the fly bridge where most of the navigating is done. Hydraulic steering makes guiding the boat less of an arm wrestle than a vessel like this might otherwise require. But the real joy is the thruster system.
All LeBoats feature a bow and stern thruster controlled by a four-axis joystick. With this system, you can manoeuvre before the three-bladed prop gets a proper bite and you can literally walk the boat sideways off a lock wall.
There is a lot of locking on the Rideau system with its 47 lifts and it's up to the boat’s crew to handle the lines at each one. All locks are equipped with vinyl covered slider cables for the mooring lines. We took turns, and it was simple enough to keep tension on the lines as we descended or ascended. You only need one cycle through a lock for everyone to master this skill.
Built in 1832, as a reaction to the War of 1812, the Rideau Canal is a slack water system of natural rivers, lakes, and man-made canals that runs 126 miles north from Kingston on Lake Ontario to the capital of Canada—Ottawa. It was designed by British army engineer Colonel John By and included four defensive blockhouses along the way.
Even though it was strategic in nature, it was never tested in that way. Over the years it became a commercial waterway, capable of handling ships up to 90 feet, to move industrial products from the interior towns of Eastern Ontario to the larger lake port of Kingston where the goods could be trans-shipped around the Lakes.
But the Rideau was plagued by the birth of the railroad age. As soon as a rail line was built from Montreal to western Canada, commercial traffic on the Canal began to decline.
Profits from the industrial age also proved to be the waterway’s saviour. Cottagers from the large Canadian cities and a lot of folks from the Northeastern United States flocked to the area to buy inexpensive vacation properties.
To get to this new holiday country, cottagers travelled by train to the railheads and then boarded pleasure boats to get to their summer homes.
Over the next 175 years, the Rideau Canal flowed along like the lazy river of song, but in 2005 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee took note of the waterway and declared it a World Heritage Site.
After spending an evening watching local kids do daredevil dives from the highway bridge at Rideau Ferry, we set out the next morning heading for Upper Nicholson’s Lock where we would overnight.
The temperatures were warm but not so hot you didn’t want to head out into the noon-day sun. We passed dozens of fishermen casting into the weeds for bass and pike. The Rideau is a fisherman’s paradise and you have to try hard not to catch anything.
This end of the system runs through low farmland with a sprinkling of villages like the historic limestone town of Merrickville.
At Merrickville, boat traffic can back up when the three flight locks are running full tilt. The Rideau Loop extends from Montreal to Ottawa, then down the Canal to Kingston where it picks up the St. Lawrence for the return to Montreal. In the summer months, you’ll see boats from as far away as Pensacola and Santa Barbara.
Our next destination was Upper Nicholson’s Lock where we tied up to the Blue Wall and took a hike along the Rideau Trail. Most of the technology in use today was designed by Col. By’s engineers and have, in most cases, worked so well that it has not been upgraded. One prime example is the swing bridge at Upper Nicholson’s. It is perfectly balanced and one lock keeper can swing the multi-ton car bridge by hand.
Below the Nicholson and Burritt’s Rapid locks, the homes along the Canal begin to change; more modern, upscale houses than farmsteads. As you travel Long Reach you get closer to Ottawa and pretty towns like Manotick.
Before long, we were right in the heart of the city with the Parliament buildings looming above us. This was our turnaround point. We stopped in Dow’s Lake to pump out our holding tanks and take on diesel and fresh water before tying up for our final night aboard at Black Rapid Lock.
Cruising the Rideau is a great and easy way to spend a few days or even weeks. You can do it in your own COVID bubble with your bubble friends even if the world is locked down. It gets even better when you can stroll through the towns and villages along the way to visit their shops and dine in their restaurants when the lockdowns are finally done.
About the Author:
Bruce Kemp is an award-winning writer and photojournalist who lives in Merrickville on the Rideau Canal in Ontario, Canada. He is also the author of The Fugitive’s Son, Weather Bomb 1913, and the recent The Whales of Lake Erie.
A version of this article appeared in the Launch Issue (May/June) 2021 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Beyond the Lakes, Canada, Destination, Inland Boating, Lifestyle, Rentals, Travel
