Len’s Cove Marina – Portland

Sunday, July 19

We awoke to another beautiful day after a quiet night. I said yesterday we spent the night alone but by first locking at 8:30 there were several boats that had come from the last lock, on the blue line ready to lock thru.

We were in no hurry so we waited for the museum in the old lock masters house to open at 9:00 and went over for a quick tour. Again they to a nice job of depicting life on the canal in the mid 1800s.

Then it was back to the boat and lock up through Chaffey’s Lock. From there we followed another narrow channel to Indian Lake. Just around the corner was Dorothy’s Fish Camp, it looks like you could fish from the balcony if you didn’t want to go out in the boat.

The landscape continues to be solid rock.

This picture is interesting for the little green sign above the 10kph sign. Your view is straight ahead for almost half a mile of narrow channel, but it is a dead end. As the sign indicates, just out of picture the canal makes a 110 degree turn to the right out into the open lake.

After several miles through the lake we came to the Newboro Lock. This is a short lift up to Upper Rideau Lake. The yellow sign on the right hand lock wall is a reminder that this is the last up lock. We are now at the high point in the system and will be going down from here to Ottawa. The skipper must remember that now red right is wrong, red left is correct.

We have again locked through with Best of Times; Mike leads the way out of the lock. Once out of the lock they turn off the main route to head for a marina at the west end of the lake in Westport.

We continue on to the Narrows Lock where we lock down for the first time on the Rideau. The Narrows is a very popular lock for road traffic and on Sunday there were lots of spectators. The main route runs some twelve miles to the other end of Big Rideau Lake put we are headed for a marina of the main route at the south side of Big Rideau. We have been locking thru with a local cruiser that is headed home to the same marina; he offers to lead the way.

The lake is large with many islands and has lots of water, but between some of the islands is foul ground, time to pay attention to the chart and make sure we are in the deep water. Along the way Diana got this picture of an interesting building on the point of this island.

Soon we were at Len’s Cove Marina in Portland. We had called and they said they would make room for us. We ended up on the outside of the end of their main dock. Len’s is a nice marina with slips, rental cabins and a nice marine store. They also have a pool, showers and a laundry. Diana made use of the laundry and we will shower in the morning.

The first order of business was lunch, since it was now 1:30 and we had not eaten we decide to walk to the far side of the marina to the Galley Restaurant, it was about a quarter mile and Diana was hungry. We sat on their second storey patio. We had a good lunch though Diana was a little cold; it had been sunny and warm on the dock so she didn’t bring a jacket. After we got to the patio a cloud blocked out the sun and there was a bit of a breeze.

The final picture is looking straight of the bow from where we are docked at an interesting home.