It was time to get outside and smell the roses!

Chelsea Harbor proved to be a small yacht basin just outside the hotel dinning room and just off the Thames River. The Thames is an estuary like the Bay of Fundy that separates New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with the highest tides in the world, and Cook Inlet in Alaska with the second highest tides in the world. We don't know how the Thames ranks in the world tide scale, but this means that it has huge tidal differentials. To keep enough water in this basin to float the boats at all times, they have a lock between the basin and the river.

Chelsea Harbor Lock This lock also serves as the outlet to the Thames for the boats moored in this basin. We never did see the lock with any water in it, in fact, we rarely saw the Thames with much water in it. If you keep your boat on the Thames, you must go with the tide, as did the mariners of old. Although just outside the Conrad dining room, this did not seem to be a marina for the hotel guests. The boats seemed to be long-term tenants at their moorings.

We took the path beside the lock to walk along the Thames.

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