We arrived in Ottawa, Ontario on Thursday afternoon.  Ottawa is the Capitol of Canada and Canada Day is Sunday, July 1.  We won't be staying for the holiday since we are moored on the Rideau Canal which runs through the center of town.  It's a great location central to everything.  A big display of fireworks is planned for Sunday night as the grand finale.  Striper is terrified of them so we plan to leave Ottawa and return Tuesday to rent a car and pick up Betsy and the cherubs.  Internet connectivity is spotty at best.  I'll try to recap.

As I write this early Saturday morning, our friend telephoned to say there are 170,000 people without power in South Jersey due to a major storm last night with hurricane force winds.  We've reached the family and everyone is okay.  Ralph is reading the Atlantic City Press on line which was posted at 2:00 AM Saturday.

Back to Ottawa.  We arrived at the foot of the Ottawa Flight of Eight, a/k/a the By Locks.  This is a series of 8 locks linked together.  We arrived at the lock at 3:30 and tied up.  We were scheduled for the last ascension of the day (which takes 90 minutes)  north into the Rideau Canal scheduled for 4:00 PM.   We walked to the top and were chatting with our friends on "Crow's Nest" when Ralph noticed a large bridge that we'd need to go under.  He asked the lockmaster the bridge height -- 24' -- not good, we are 27' with the mast and antennas.  We raced down the hill and started taking the mast down at 3:50.  The first lock opened for us at 4:07 -- taking off the boom and taking down the mast in 17 minutes is a record for us -- it usually takes at least 1/2 hour. 

The ascension was quite interesting but very tiring and it was 90 degrees.  We had lots of discussions with people all along the lock walls with questions about us and the boat and the locks.  Here are some pix:

A view of the Flight of Eight Locks from the bridge, Ottawa, Canada

Entering Lock 1 Flight of Eight Locks

Locks are hand cranked

Inside the lock

Hooray!   Entering Lock 8 -- it's 90 degrees --whew!!

The fixed 24' bridge leading to the Rideau Canal in the center of Ottawa