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| Parks abound along the Rideau Canal in downtown Ottawa. |
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| Nellie's 22.5'-high mast is down on its gallows. Good thing as many of the bridges we went under today are 22' high. |
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| Captain Dave told us that he and his boat have aspirations to take on the NW Passage. The plan is to go down the Atlantic Coast, though the Panama Canal, then up the Pacific Coast to Nome, Alaska. There they'll follow a Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker through the Passage. All told, about a 14,000 mile, open ocean journey in a 1960s boat designed for lake cruising... |
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| Clearly Nellie's ambitions are not as great as Dave's (see caption above). We went a whole 3-1/2 miles today from downtown Ottawa to Dow's Lake, Ottawa, Ontario. Heck, the journey wasn't even long enough to get us out of town. |
The pronunciation of Rideau--which means "curtain" in French--has driven me nuts. Reed-oh, for some reason just doesn't slip naturally off this anglophile's tongue. Anyway, here we are starting down the canal's 120 mile length. Our current one mile per day average seems about right considering how much there is to see and do. But, come November, we might be in trouble as this section of the canal is turned into one, long ice skating rink.
Tonight Nellie's safely tied to the docks on Dow's Lake in Ottawa, Ontario. DBH
