We'd stopped at this small side trip off the Rideau, the Tay Canal, because we'd met some boaters a few days ago coming the other way on the Rideau that suggested doing a dinghy trip up the river all the way into Perth. So why not? It's Saturday and we haven't had a good dinghy adventure in a while.

We decided to take our dinghy all together, since our dinghy usually is able to plane with 4 people, so we headed out while there was still light rain going, and were the only boat in the two locks we had to take up the start of the canal. The lock peeps were amused, but this is apparently a semi-regular thing for people to do.

After getting out of the tight start of the canal, we tried going on plane, to find out that the dinghy couldn't do it with all of us on board. We're not sure if it's because of the fresh water (you sit lower in fresh than salt water), the dying dinghy battery, the recently-replaced fuel fitting with a Sierra (aftermarket) one, or any of a bunch of other things, but in any event, it couldn't do it. So we settled in for a slow hour-long journey at hull speed up the canal into Perth. But the company was good, so it worked out.

In the town, it turned out to be pretty cute. It was originally settled for military reasons, like virtually everything in this part of Ontario, and then turned into a civilian town as it expanded when the Rideau was built nearby. The Tay Canal itself was even a privately-funded project, which turned out to be a huge debacle as it wasn't really deep enough for transport ships of any appreciable size to make it through, so it lost a ton of money and exchanged hands a few times until it was finally appropriated by the government.

We wandered around the town a bit, but had already missed the farmer's market, so we found our usual haunt, a microbrewery, and had some beer and snacks while the rain finished up. While there, we found that there was mini golf only a few blocks away and so next we walked over to do that. It was a simple course but surprisingly entertaining because of the terrain oddities. Team Highwind crushed it, which is what's really important.

We finished up our town trip by going to a German restaurant, Maximillion, and had some delicious Schnitzels (Inquest had veggie sausage platters), stuffing ourselves thoroughly.

We took off from Perth well after the locks had already closed, for our slow hour-long journey back to the locks. But the sun was going down and it was quite pretty in the golden hour.

We tied up the dinghy just outside the innermost lock and walked back to the big boats, pretty pooped for the night.