July 7-8 on to Ottowa

The crew of BlueSkies spent the day of July 6th at the Chateau de Montebello. This is a massive log structure that rumored to have the highest, largest ceiling of any chateau in north America. Essentially, the chateau is the Grove Park Inn of Canada. It rained all day, but we still biked the trails on the grounds of the chateau. It was a laid back day of swimming and hot tubbing. This first pic is taken in front of the chateau.


We were underway early the morning of July 7th bound for Ottowa. It was freezing. We had to shed our summer clothes and put on whatever warmer clothing was available. The second pic shows Lu dressed for the weather. It is usually hot and humid, so we actually welcomed the cooler temps.

We arrived in Ottowa early, around 1pm but we did not moor until later in the afternoon. Arriving in Ottowa, the boater is faced with ascending 8 consecutive locks called the Staircase. It takes about one and a half hours to progress through the locks and we needed wait for boats to come down through the locks. The 3 pic is looking up the staircase and the 5 pic is looking down the locks to the Ottowa river, which is now 135 feet below us. The fourth pic show BlueSkies moored on the city wall where we spent 2 nights. We romped around Ottowa on July 8th. The architecture is magnificent. Many of the older buildings were constructed in the mid-1600’s. There is a European feel to this city, the capitol of Canada.