Newboro (2013-07-17)

After a nice night at Poonamalie we had a leisurely morning and continued on our way at 0900.   The channel leaving Poonamalie was very narrow.  I wouldn't want to meet another large boat there.

A very narrow channel leaving Poonamalie

We soon found ourselves on the Lower Rideau Lake, and let Otto the autopilot do the driving for a while.  I know, not very original.  Everyone calls their autopilot "Otto".  We were thinking we would start referring to it as "the chauffeur".  Yeah, that has a nice ring to it... :-)

We saw this house on the Big Rideau.  It has a big "C" on the roof.  With my sense of humour, I hesitate to speculate on what the "C" might stand for...

Not sure what the "C" is all about...

I was watching the chart as we passed by the anchorage that we stayed at last year, Nobles Bay.  Perhaps we'll find ourselves back up this way again and we'll spend some more time there.
 

Nobles Bay - bypassed this time

 Lots of cool sights.  How about this for a stairway down to the water.  Never let it be said that something as trivial as a 100 foot cliff stopped someone from getting to the water...

You wouldn't want to miss the steps...

 We stopped at the Narrows Lock for lunch.  What a very pretty spot.

Lunch break at the Narrows Lock

As we were leaving the Narrows we decided to check the marine weather forecast on the VHF and found out that the thunder storms that were supposed to make a late afternoon appearance were going to be early!

We high-tailed it across the Upper Rideau Lake.  It was pretty breezy on the Lower and Big Rideau Lakes, but it was starting to get very windy by the time we hit the Upper Rideau Lake.  Fortunately the next lock, Newboro, is quite sheltered.  Unfortunately, the approach to Newboro is via another narrow channel, but we lucked out again and didn't meet any other boats.

Another narrow channel - this one entering Newboro

 With the impending bad weather, we decided to call it a day at Newboro. 

In before the storm

 We managed to fit in a quick swim in Newboro Lake and got the boat all buttoned up just before the sky opened up on us.

Much more enjoyable when buttoned up and watching from the salon

 The storm passed fairly quickly, so afterward we decided to take a walk to a store we had heard about that was near the Newboro lock, named "Kilborn's on the Rideau".  It was a very cool store, and just seemed to go on and on.  They had a lot of high end clothes and specialty foods, but they also had a few gag gifts.

Funny item at Kilborn's

 As we left Kilborn's we looked up and saw another storm coming in.  We had to scoot back to the boat pretty quickly.

Being chased back to the boat

We managed to get back to the boat before the second storm hit.  As I'm writing this we're watching the third rain storm rage around us, while we sit secure and dry inside the boat.  I suspect we'll have a few more storms roll through before the night is done.