Quebec, Canada

The St Lawrence River

Wednesday, 18 June – Sorel to Montreal, QC – 43 mi., 2202 cum mi.

Nice sunrise, then it clouded up, but it was calm (thankfully), 57 degrees. Sky cleared up later in the day, but it was chilly. The trip to Montreal was all upstream, in a rather strong three-knot current, five knots for the last two miles. There were some homes along the river, but most of the shore was
industrial, with huge boats carrying cargo.
We got out of the large ship channel into the small boat channel and
enjoyed  some scenic small side river scenery. The Montreal skyline was almost as dramatic as that of New York. Huge container vessels in the water, and an     amusement park on the island near

the ports. We docked at the Port d’Escale Marina. Adjacent to old town, we were close to everything. We started biking to the Atwater Market.  Biking on the streets got old quickly. We found we were
really in the way of all the cars. We met a really nice guy named Norm on his bike,

and he showed us the bike path to the market and back to the marina. It was right along the Lachine Canal. Nice. We found the market for fresh bread and vegetables and a nearby grocery store for some wine, filling our paniers with our bounty.
We found other loopers - the Dawn Treader, with Dave and Jan and Tony and Jan. We stayed in Montreal for another day to enjoy breakfast, lunch (at Schwartz’s – an institution in Montreal), a cool marine shop where we bought both the charts we needed and some extra fenders to protect the boat in the

coming locks, and dinner with our Dawn Treader friends. At the dock, we realized we were next door to the science museum that we took our grandchildren to just a few months ago.

Thursday, 20 June – Montreal to Point aux Anglais, QC – 44 mi., 2246 cum mi.

Beautiful day, 60 degrees. We pulled out of Old Port Montreal into the strong current of the St Lawrence, this time going downstream. Then around the island and upstream in the south channel toward the St Lambert Lock. This is a Federal lock, so our Parks Canada season pass didn’t work here. We had to pay the $30 lock fee and and call in from a phone booth at the lock entrance. We had to wait two hours at their floating dock for passage.

That gave us a chance to meet other folks who showed up, like Dominique and Marie who were on a weeklong getaway after leaving their three children at grandma’s.

And a sailboat with three very French-speaking sailors. When we entered the lock, we were the largest boat, so we held the bow and stern lines at the wall, and the other two boats rafted up to our boat.

St Lambert lock took us up 17 ft. The next lock was St Catherine which took us up 30 ft with the same procedure, only this time we did not need to wait, but we did have to pay another $30 fee. This is the St Lawrence Seaway, and it carries huge commercial vessels. We left the seaway into Lake St Louis, following the meandering channel markers. Another lock, only one ft elevation at St Anne de Bellevue took us into Lac Des Deux Montagnes (lake of the two mountains).
Although we didn’t stop, the town of St Anne had tie up docks, and they were busy with folks enjoying the outdoor restaurants along the water. We docked at Pointe aux Anglais, after hitting a rock in their approach channel. The restaurant had just opened today, and on Thursday ladies eat for half price. We met the chef and his wife, who spend the winter running a French restaurant in Hollywood Florida.

The Ottawa River

Friday, 21 June – Pointe aux Anglais to Montebello, QC – 42 mi., 2288 cum mi.

Beautiful sunny day, calm, 71 degrees.  Felt some vibration, so we must have damaged a prop in the shallow channel yesterday. The highlight of our morning was the huge Carillon lock that was already
open for upstream traffic. 65 ft up, a million liters per min gravity fed water, 200 ton guillotine door, built in the 1960’s replacing 7 locks built in the 1800’s. Three lock attendants helped us tie up to a floating dock inside the lock. So easy!

The river carried big boats, including cruise ships. We cruised up the Ottawa River to the Chateau Montebello resort and marina.
Awesome place! Largest log cabin in the world. Reminded me of some of the US national park lodges. Built as a private mansion, it is now a Fairmont hotel. As marina guests, we had access to the whole complex, including the outdoor pool, the indoor pool, and the hot tubs. And we did take advantage of the facilities.  Our daughter Pam and her family met us at the resort and for the weekend. We ate dinner at the outdoor BBQ
buffet the chefs prepared, with lobster, steak, and every imaginable seafood, vegetable, and dessert treat. Delicious! Afterward, we
returned to the pool, closing it at 10 PM. At the end of a busy day, we were “good tired.”

Saturday, 22 June – Montebello to Gatineau, QC – 42 mi., 2330 cum mi.

Cloudy, sprinkling, 69 degrees. The rain continued all day, in stark contrast to the last couple of sunny cruising days. Pam and Chloe joined us to cruise up the Ottawa River toward Ottawa and the turn off to the Rideau Canal.  Andy and Sam drove to our next marina. The vibration was obvious and worrisome, but we kept it subdued by running the engines at low rpm. We docked at the Gatineau Marina where they were having their quarterly members party. The theme was steak night, and they had a DJ who spun discs most of the night. I found someone in a wet suit, so I hired him to check out the props, shafts, and rudder. The starboard prop was bent a little, but “not too bad.” Sounds like it was repairable, perhaps at Kingston Marina where we planned to spend a couple of days anyway. 

The Richelieu River

Monday, 16 June – Chambly to Sorel, QC – 41 mi., 2159 cum mi.

Mostly cloudy, 67 degrees, although the sun peeked out once in a while. So glad it stopped raining! From the Chambly Basin to the St Lawrence River, the Richelieu River flows north, so we were “going with the flow” today. Maneuvering through narrow bridge channels was a little different with the current pushing us along.

 The river was actually pretty nice – rural, but populated with nice waterfront homes and spired churches.

 We passed three cable ferries, big enough for at most two vehicles.
And the St Ours lock was a pleasant surprise. We tied to a floating dock inside the lock, with help from a lock tender (Hanna), and by the time she recorded our boat information, we were down five feet and the door was open to leave – painless.

We passed through a railroad swing bridge that marked the eastern most point on the great loop. We actually went a bit further east down the St Lawrence about a mile to get to the Marina de Sorel.
The rural scenery of the Richelieu changed dramatically to heavily industrial as we approached the St Lawrence. The wind also picked up quite a bit, so fueling and docking were challenging – that’s an understatement. Integrity pulled in just after us, tried to approach the fuel dock, and got blown away. They decided to continue upstream and upwind to Montreal. We were assigned the only remaining slip with just enough room for our 40 ft boat along a row of bigger boats. The neighboring boaters gathered on the dock to watch us come in with a strong cross wind (maybe with the intention of pushing us away from their boats), but we made it to the dock without incident. We ate dinner at a neighboring restaurant and enjoyed a nice sunset.

To Canada and the Chambly Canal

To Canada and the Chambly Canal

7-12 June - Burlington, VT

We enjoyed visiting with our daughter and her family, taking in the Burlington Discovers Jazz festivities, strolling down Church Street, peeking into shops, and watching the street performers. We also caught up with provisions. 

We kept the boat at the Community Boathouse for three rainy days, then, on a beautiful Sunday, took a family luncheon cruise north to Mallets Bay, leaving the boat at the Moorings for the rest of the rainy week.  Mallets Bay is the sailing center of Champlain, with three marinas supporting lots of sailboats. To get into the bay, you need to cruise through a tiny break in the rock wall formed when they put the railroad through. The old railroad bed is now a bike path.

  Spending the week here gave us a chance to take care of some business at our condo at Sugarbush as well. We planned our entry
into Canada and the locks on the Chambly Canal. Our grandchildren, Sam and Chloe, decided they would like to join us for a couple of days, so they were working out a plan with their parents on how that might happen.

Thursday, 13 June – Colchester, VT to Rouses Point, NY – 37 mi., 2087 cum mi.

Beautiful, calm day, 63 degrees. We took advantage of the break in the weather and headed north toward the Canadian border. The lake was calm and a pleasure to cruise.  We passed the ferries

crossing between VT and NY. We were passed by flocks of geese headed home. Soon we saw another trawler headed north, following a very similar path, eventually getting in front of us. We followed them all the way to Rouses Point and to the Gaines Marina, where we finally found the charts we needed to take us to Montreal. The trawler was a Nordic Tug, Humbug, with Peter and

Carolyn Beers, who we met at the Norfolk rendezvous and who graciously shared wine and cheese with us as we compared our plans for the next few days.  We biked to dinner at Angelo’s, then finalized plans to accept our new crew members in the morning.

Friday, 14 June – Rouses Point, NY to St. Jean, QC – 19 mi., 2106 cum mi.

Pam delivered Sam and Chloe and their gear and documents. We enjoyed breakfast before leaving the dock to head north. Pam helped with the dock lines.

We could see her waving at us from the bridge as we passed by the fort approaching the Canadian border. The Canadian border station was so small and unassuming that, if we were not looking for it and
did not know we had to stop there, we would have passed it by. Two border agents helped us tie up to the dock, checked our documents, asked a few questions, and wished us well. That was easy! We were on our way in a few minutes to follow the red and green markers that, much like the ICW, guided us
through the remaining portion of Lake Champlain and up the Richelieu River. Suddenly my chart plotter crapped out – or I thought it did. Half way up the river, I lost all navigational details. I called Jeppesen, maker of the chips I purchased, thinking it may be a bad chip. But it turns out they had no data for that part of the river, meaning what I had was as good as it gets. So glad we found the paper charts – I almost didn’t buy them, since they were so expensive at the marina. Well worth it to get us to our next stop at La Nautique

St Jean, just at the bottom of the Chambly Canal. We walked around
town near the water, checking out the first low bridge for which we would need to request an opening, and exploring nearby Fort St Jean, also on the water.

Saturday, 15 June – St Jean to Chambly, QC – 12 mi., 2118 cum mi.

Beautiful day, 73 degrees. We slept in, since the locks did not open until 9 AM. We met Yves, a really nice Canadian fellow who gave us important local knowledge about the canal, like it would take us about five hours to get through the locks. This was useful information, since the harbormaster at the marina said two hours and blogs on line talked about 6-8 hours, so we were a little uncertain about the

day’s journey.  The canal was built to take boats around the rapids on the Richelieu River. The tow path is now a bike path. We approached the first bridge and hailed channel 68 for an opening. With an accent, but in perfect English, we heard he would open in two minutes. And it did. A little further down the canal was the first lock. We saw Clewless II in the lock tied up on the starboard side, so we tied up on the port side behind him. Here we purchased a season pass from the Canadian Park Service. The sticker should get us through all the locks in Canada. We followed Clewless II all the way up the way up the narrow 12-mile canal, going through all the locks together. Turns out it took us 4.5 hours to get through 9 locks (that they cranked open by hand) and 9
low bridges (that had to be cranked open by hand). The last three locks at Chambly were the most dramatic, really close together and
dropping us down a steep hill into the Chambly Basin.  The lock tenders were very helpful, tossing us

bow and stern lines. Sam held the stern, Charli held the bow, and Chloe adjusted the fenders as the water level changed.  Nice to have a good crew on board.  We docked at Marina de Chambly for
two days. We visited Fort Chambly, finding a wedding party getting their pictures taken. The fort flies a white flag, since, after 50 years of fortification and despite rebuilding the original wooden fort with masonry to better withstand artillery, they lost it to the brits in the
1700’s. And we saw some other loopers. Dawn Treader came through the locks, and Loop Dreams  (from Dallas) and Integrity (from St Pete) pulled into the marina. We met these folks at the Norfolk rendezvous. Pam and Andy came to celebrate Father’s Day brunch at the Fourquet Fourchette restaurant and Unibroue beer garden. Unibroue makes some of my favorite beer, so this was a special treat. The Clarks went home to VT, but they were making plans to join us again soon.