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.