Day 6-7: The River Styx Leads to Hell...and Kingston. Either One Ain't a Bad Place to Be.

After a hot night in Jones Falls with no fan to to keep the heat away we woke up early but had to wait as the boats below were being locked up first. After about 45 minutes it was our turn to head down. We were 6 boats in total, so there was lots of rafting off other boats for the journey to Kingston. After Jones falls you go through more beautiful lakes such as whitefish and cranberry lake. You also pass Seeleys bay if  you need a town stop with a grocery store only a short walk from the public docks. 

View down Brewers locks...likely some relation to beer

    

More 'I can't believe we all fit through here'

Swinging bridge, looking for love 

I'm happier than I look.

Salad anyone?

Slightly annoyed that we are using their road 

Eventually we made our way through the brewer locks and entered, in my opinion the worst stretch of the Rideau canal – the river Styx. Clearly this lake was made by some serious damning and flooding as it is filled with dead heads and the marked channel was at times dropping below 4 feet on the depth finder. To your left as you are heading by you see a large prison complex. Add to this the     

wind was fierce in our face driving up decent size waves. Fun times. Clearly the boaters in our group were not enjoying the experience and they opened up and went on plane. Seeing  as the channel was so narrow they zoomed past us giving us huge wakes and knocking off  and breaking our new water jug. Sad times. (Boating karma side note, the first boater to open up had engine trouble by the next lock and limped along the rest of the day).

Prison on the river Styx...no witty commentary needed 

After this stretch we entered Colonol By lake and motored our way through the chop to the last lock of the canal – Kingston Mills. We stopped here up on the lake last year and had a good stay and swim but today our goal was Kingston so we sat and waited while boats below locked up the 4 locks and through the swing bridge. If you hit these locks at the wrong time expect a good hour wait time.

After getting through we chugged down the Cataraqui river, under the 401 highway and into Kingston. By now the wind and waves were pretty fierce and we banged our way into our slip at Kingston marina. No damage, just a lot of frayed nerves by the end of this day. We treated ourselves too nice dinner in downtown Kingston at Woodenheads pizza and even Roan remarked that it was the
best pizza he ever had. 

Hard to describe the feeling of driving under the 401. Two different worlds colliding

   

Day 7

By this time Roan was a little sick of the boat and so his aunt Fei  and uncle Chris drove down with their two boys to pick him and take him home for a few days for some fun time. With no kid we decided to hang out and enjoy Kingston for another night and since it was my birthday we had another night of eating out. Our stay at Kingston marina was reasonable enough. They have gas and showers but no wifi. Which seems to be the bane of my existence this boating trip. At any rate it felt good to finish the canal and we were excited about the prospect of entering bigger water and unknown territory.

Lake Ontario skies over Kingston