The Adventures of Monk's Vineyard - The Great Loop and Beyond: July 20, Day 37

The day started with a quick run to the Golden Marina to get a pumpout. SUCCESS ! ! ! ! Even the lady that helped with the pumpout noted that it was really full. It had been over a week. With that chore taken care of we cruised up the Ottawa River. It was a nice day with 0% chance of rain in the forecast.

We had plans to stop at the Montebello Chateau. It is billed as the world’s largest log house. According to the guidebooks you can stop at the marina associated with the Chateau and stay a few hours for free. We pulled in and chose what we thought would be an appropriate spot, tied up and went into the office to make sure we were okay where we had parked. Well, it turns out it was NOT okay. They indicated they were full up and we would have to move. They did tell us we could park over by the fuel dock, but it was a tiny spot in the corner with lots of boats coming and going. We decided it wasn’t worth the effort as we had looked at the pictures Integrity had posted and saw great similarities between the Chateau and Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park where we have stayed several times. (If any of our readers are interested in seeing pictures, check out the Integrity link for Day 85.)

We pressed on up the river and decided we would anchor overnight somewhere close to Ottawa. We tried anchoring at Kettle Island, but without success. The anchor would not hold. This next part comes under the heading of "Things Don't Always Go According to Plan". When Linda brought the anchor up it did a “flip flop” as it was settling in and jammed the clutch …. Which meant it wouldn’t go in or out. Linda went up to drive and Gerry came down to the deck to try and fix it. He got out the handy dandy winch handle to release it and the anchor immediately fed out …. All the way to the nylon rode … we had about 300 feet of rode and chain that had to be brought in. With that finally accomplished we looked for another place to anchor and went around the Island to Upper Duck. There we found a spot with good holding and settled in for the night. It is right beside what appears to be a popular swimming hole, bike/walking trail, and a small launch ramp where people were putting in kayaks.

We had a beautiful sunset that we took a hundred pictures of – maybe one will be able to do it justice.

It has been one of the warmest, sunniest days we have had … and with just a slight breeze. Hopefully, we will have many more of these. We talked to both Harmonie II and Sterling Lady and got their inputs on Ottawa – great place, no problem with security, etc. Tomorrow we plan to make the short run to Ottawa and start the Rideau Canal. We will do the Flight of 8 and then spend a few days exploring Ottawa.

The Ottawa River

Montebello Chateau

Another view of Montebello

Ferries crossing from Cumberland, Ontario to Masson, Quebec

The ferry dock -- this was a very busy area. There were 6 ferries operating at the same time. Usually 2 loading (1 on either side) 2 leaving the docks and 2 arriving at the opposite docks. You really had to pay attention while driving through here --That's why Linda was driving :)