Day 7, 9 July 2016: Montebello

Today we began our journey up the Ottawa River to the capital of Canada, Ottawa. We journeyed through the Carillon lock, unique for its ‘guillotine’ gate at the end. Connie says it was a wonderful sight. I wouldn’t know, as I was locked in my cabin.

Yes, the excitement of the day was when the knob of our cabin door stopped working, with the latch in the engaged position. The handle just went around and around and around…. I banged on the door and yelled ‘Help!’, and opened the window and called to crew on the platform attached to the boat in the lock, all to no avail. I finally sat down and read my book (A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini — highly recommend) until Connie arrived. She couldn’t open the door from the outside, but she was able to summon the Purser, Laurie, who then summoned the Chief Engineer. He first taught us to turn the deadbolt a little further to the left, which released the knob latch — for safety purposes. Who knew? Is this a locksmithy thing in Canada? He was unable to fix the knob with anything from the ship’s stores, but the deadbolt technique would work.

Then we got to the outside of the door. The key didn’t turn the lock that extra bit away from the doorjamb. My genius sister, however, discovered that turning the deadbolt and pulling the door toward you allowed that little bit of turn in the deadbolt that opened the door. The Purser was a little skeptical, and would clearly have been more comfortable moving us to a different cabin, but for just one more night, Connie and I vetoed that idea.

We cruised until about 3PM, when we docked at Montebello for the night (the Canadian Empress doesn’t sail at night). The excursion was to Parc Omega Wildlife Park. Connie and I were hoping to sit this one out, given that riding a school bus in the rain wasn’t high on our bucket list, but Mom wanted to go, so I went along.

Happy thing! I’m still not sure whether this is a preserve for animals that can’t be in the wild or what, but it was a drive through with many different animals indigenous to Canada. The more dangerous ones like bears and wolves were separated from the road by wire fencing, but the deer family — white-tail, moose, elk, reindeer, etc., walked right up to the bus. Of course, they knew that tourists come bearing carrots, and they wanted lunch!

Back on board, we dressed for the ‘Celebration Dinner’. Oh boy. The First Mate sat at our table, and he clearly would rather be on deck. He was charming, nonetheless. Afterward, there was a band with dancing. Connie and I hung out on the aft deck where it was MUCH cooler than in the Salon. The Captain and his Mate held Wheelhouse tours, which was fun. We called it an early night however, as packing, gathering receipts, settling bar bills and a modicum of sleep awaited us.