Newboro Lock

Wednesday July 31, 2013
44 38.751 N
76 19.323 W

We enjoyed a relaxing evening last night. We were even treated to a lullaby provided by some  loons. It certainly was a pristine anchorage.

The morning was clear and calm. So I sucked in my tummy and donned my “shorty” and goggles and went over the side to check out our running gear and stabilizers. The water was clear and reasonably warm. Before I went in we installed the new swim ladder. It went on quite easily. Everything looked OK, so the vibration is still a mystery. 

Weed on the anchor 

Retrieving the anchor turned out to be a saga. Having clear river water turns out to be a mixed blessing. Because the water is clear the sunlight can penetrate the water and the result is weeds. Our anchor brought up enough weed to stall the windlass and pop the breaker. It took us an hour or so to clear the weeds off the anchor with boat hooks. That was a drag.

We eventually headed off and within a mile or so reached the Smiths Falls flight of locks, where we were held up for 2 hours or so. We did not make it to the top of the 4 locks till almost 1 PM!

The bloody locks close at 4:30 PM. We made it to Lock # (XXXX) by 4.15 and begged the guy to let us in even though we would not be done by 4:30 PM. There was a nice bulkhead above the lock so we decided to stay (since we had paid $400 for the priledge!) Dead calm night, met some people of the dock. We had made a whopping 13 miles for the day!