Dreaming of little boats

On our away trip last weekend we visited a chandler's store in Peterborough, to buy some rope for our tie-down spot at Rockcliffe airport. Peterborough is a magnet for the boating fraternity in summer, a stop on the Trent-Severn Waterway, famous for its "lift lock." While we were in the chandlery, we made an impulse buy, coming away with a Small-Craft Nautical Chart / Carte marine pour embarcations (published by Fisheries and Oceans Canada) of the Ottawa end of the Rideau Canal: Ottawa to Smiths Falls, Chart 1512.

We are now dreaming of using it, but would have to know how to do so properly. The Becketts Landing to Smiths Falls section looks particularly complicated. As we were overflying the area on our way back to Ottawa yesterday I thought of this and took a couple of photos of the bends and bays in the Rideau River at Smiths Falls. From a mile above the river the view looks very like the charts. The water is not quite ready for navigation at present.

Kilmarnock Island in the middle distance

The Rideau River / Canal at Smiths Falls