We were up early and out of the slip before 8 am. The weather was cold and wet early in the morning, so lining up at the blue line and waiting, wasn’t the greatest source of entertainment especially at that time in the morning. As the morning progressed and we passed through a few locks, the weather improved
until it turned into a fairly nice day. We were with three other boats when locking through until reaching a buoy that directed us into the Tay Canal - a feeder canal off of the Rideau Canal. The Tay Canal was completed 175 years ago two years 
after the Rideau was completed. The canal (first three pictures) is very narrow in places and shallow most of the nine miles as it bends and turns through the wilderness. A few times when we were moving at idl
e we had tree branches rubbing on the boat! Barb and I passed through two additional locks on the Tay before reaching the town of Perth.Perth turned out to be a wonderful little town of 6,000 people. It has repeatedly been voted the most beautiful town in Canada. It’s very old, well maintained and has a proud heritage associated with it. One gentleman told me that the town was so relaxed that it takes 7½ hours to watch 60 minutes.
Perth maintains a three slip public dock with electricity that is integrated into a city park / camping ground about a ten minute walk from town. We decided to stay as we were the only boat here until late in the day when o
ne additional boat showed up. We walked around the town enjoyed a fine lunch then returned to the boat to lower our dinghy (picture on right is going into Perth on the dinghy) and take a ride into town under a few low bridges that our boat wouldn’t fit under and find an ice cream parlor!Tomorrow we will depart early as it will take one and a half hours to retrace our wake to the first lock that will open at 8:30 am. Hopefully we can get into the Rideau and move closer to Kingston.
