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.