Part 13 - Long Island
After leaving Merrickville, we would have our biggest day of travel on the Rideau – 31.5 miles. Most of the locks that we would go through did not have mooring sites available, so we kept going until we really needed to stop. More about that later on.
We locked through Clowes, Nicholsons, and Burritts Rapids. When we were at Burritts Rapids it looked like there was a boater's convention going on. The place was packed, with some of the boats rafted up. We saw the 4 French boats again, and they cheered when we locked through. We were hoping to be able to reach the wall in Ottawa before those 4 showed up, thinking that space would be limited. So we were happy to see that they were tied up and happily partying. Maybe we would be able to stay ahead of them.
We experienced low water depths in the lock cuts, but when we were out in the Rideau River, we had good water most of the time. We just had to go SO slow, which created a hidden problem I will talk about later on.
Eye level worker
This stretch of the river took us by several communities that had associated infrastructure and businesses such as busy marinas associated with them. A bridge under construction was the first big construction project we had seen since leaving Kingston. The bridge wasn't part of the canal system; it was part of the road transportation.
All together now
One community had a huge rowing club on the river bank. There were several different types of rowing vessels out on the river, but this one caught my attention. Notice how all the paddler boys are on one knee, and the rudder boy is standing up. There were some of the same kind of boats with only one or two people racing each other all around us like water insects.
Near to our hearts
We can sniff out ice cream on land or sea. The name of the boat, Ice Cream Float, is just too cute and so appropriate. He tooted his horn at us, and you should have seen the look on their faces when we answered back with ours!
A few miles ahead of Long Island lock, Eddie went down in the engine room to do one of his engine room checks. He noticed that the exhaust elbow was extremely hot, well above an acceptable level and he found out that the Shop Vac hose that had been touching it was completely melted. Now I must say that there had been a melted plastic odor for several days, but the source could not be found. Having found it, and now knowing what caused it, was concern for alarm. So, we decided to tell the lockmaster that we would lock through the 3 locks and tie up on the dock below them to try to figure out what our problem was. At least it looked like a great place to be stuck.
FLUKE trying to recover at Long Island
The heating issue had to be related to reduced water being available for cooling the exhaust gas. However, the same water is used to cool the engine, and our engine had not been experiencing an overheating problem, or so we thought according to the temperature gauge.
So, we checked the strainer which is where the water gets “cleaned” of debris before it is sent to the engine heat exchanger. It had some organic debris in it, but not enough to justify reduced water flow.
So, the W & E Marine Maintenance Co. decided the problem had to be in the elbow, perhaps a crack. That meant disassembling the whole big thing which took the entire following morning, and it is hard, physical work because of how tight the hoses are and how tightly they and the elbow are crammed into their positions. Upon internal inspection, the hoses and elbows were clean, and had no cracks. That meant the obstruction had to be before that area too.
So, the next, and what should have been the FIRST place to look, was on the outside of FLUKE, where the water comes into the boat. Eddie, a.k.a. Lloyd Bridges, jumped into the water to look at the intake strainer. Sure enough, it was covered with aquatic debris. After cleaning that off and letting the water flow freely into the boat with the hose disconnected before the strainer, a big, disgusting plug of organic debris popped out. Poor FLUKE had been running with COPD for who knows how long. We were lucky that she did not suffer permanent damage to any systems. That was truly a Sea Stooges blunder on our part since we knew we were running through deep weeds a lot of the time and should have expected trouble of some sort.
In retrospect, as part of the crew break down analysis discussion, we figure that the engine didn't show the effects of low water because we were going so slow, at low RPMs for such long periods of time, it lessened the strain on the engine. Had we had a exhaust temperature gauge on the elbow, we would have been alerted much sooner. So now we know to monitor that area more closely, and are contemplating installing a gauge.
A Rideau scow
We sure were surprised to see this maintenance scow come through the lock to drop off some planking for dock repairs. Long Island Lock has a canal maintenance yard in one section of the huge property (the largest in acreage that we have seen); we walked by it and could see floats, markers, and other canal supplies. This was the only time in 3 weeks of canal travel that we ever saw a maintenance vessel, and it was just by its home base.
The Karwartha Voyageur, that cruise ship I featured in the Narrows blog, came through, locking up. It takes so long for them to get through the 3 locks, many of the passengers get off and walk around. Several of them came over to FLUKE to talk to us about their trip and ask us about ours. When they, and everyone else, sees we are from Florida, they all ask the same question: How long did it take you to get here? If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that is not easy to answer, and it always generates many more questions.
A day boater with his two little girls and a dog came through the lock to tie up and let them all get out and run around. He couldn't get his engine started because his battery was dead. Out of desperation, in his best English (he was French), he asked if we could help. Ever ready Eddie has supplied FLUKE with a customized set of 20' long jumper cables (he made them) so we had the guy back up his boat to our stern, and we could just get the cables stretched to make the two end connections for a successful jump. FLUKE always tries to be a goodwill ambassador.
Ski chair
We took a long walk over the top of the dam to Nicholl's island, on the opposite side of the river to where we were docked. I think once upon a time, it used to be just a few weekend seasonal fishing cottages, but now there are several cute, upscale homes. This unique chair made from snow skis was sitting in front of one of the dwellings, a clever recycling idea!
We're not always in a fog
When it was time to depart, the fog wasn't bad enough to keep us from leaving the dock early. We had a big day planned since we would be making the final stretch into Ottawa, only 14 miles ahead. The 4 French boats never had passed us, so we hoped there would be space for us.
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