Last of the Pics; Montreal to Sodus BayAugust

Here are the pics of the last leg of our trip.  If you are interested, look for one more Blog entry, we will publish soon, summarizing the whole trip with some numbers,names, and what we learned.

August 9th, on the way to Montreal.  The wake looks scarier than it actually is.

August 10th, Old City, Montreal

Poutine bar.  We passed on the Poutine (fries with gravy and cheese curds), but the melted Brie with pistachios was delicious.  Washed down with Canadian 9% beer.

August 11th On our way downriver and Grace finds this storm on our radar.  Discretion being the better part of valor, we headed for the Lachine Marina to wait it out. We tried were unable to publish a video of the storm. It was a intense!

The calm after the storm.  Lachine Marina, the largest marina in Quebec.  500 slips and it isn't even noted on the Richardson's Chart Book.

August 12th, The Seaway Locks had a lot more traffic.

The Northern St. Lawrence has a definite 1000 Islands feel.

Beauharnois Lock

All the Seaway Locks are 30 foot rise.

Ran into one of our new class of destroyers.

Note how the superstructure hides the weapons and communication gear.  The sailors all waved when they saw our flag.

Craig Quay Marina.  Skinny water, small slips, and BIG diesel prices.

August 13th: Any of you 1000 Island boaters who are familiar with the weather fore`cast "From Kingston to Cornwall"...Here it is.  Cornwall Bridge.  The only other stretch where the current slowed us down to 4.5-5 knots.

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Bigger city than we thought.  The "No Frills" grocery gave us a new appreciation for Wegmans.

August 14th.  Jack and Dot brought the family here on vacation when I was 11.

The floating bollards.

Massena Golf Course.  I think I see one of Phil Powers' missing balls.

The entrance to Iroquois Marina is an abandoned canal.

August 14th-15th.  Iroquois Marina, home to "Beaver Fever".  We stepped our mast here, and got wine, liquor, and Giardia (I'll explain later).

August 16th, Ogdensburg, nuff said.

Prescott, Ontario

For all you boaters, the notorious "Prescott Coast Guard Radio".

Brockville Park Islands

Singer Castle, Jorstadt Island.  Built by the sewing machine family.

More wind generator components.  The Province of Ontario is being sued by the company they hired to erect these things.  They pulled their permission at the last minute for the latest round of building and the company lost millions in funding.  The Province claimed it was environmental concerns, the company says it had more to do with the Liberals placating the environmentalists in an election year.

AdelaidePark Island.  The real McCoy...er..Phoenix.  For you non-boaters, these are the composting toilets they replaced the outhouses with.  No smell, and even hand sanitizers.

August 17th.  We had never stayed at Adlaide before.  Very small, but pretty and a great view of the passing freighters.

Betsy lives!  Don't ask me why.

 August 18, 19 & 20:  Can't believe we didn't take any pics, but we have been here so often and have many in the archives. We traveled to Gordons Marina to diesel, water, garbage & pump out. Not surprised by the high diesel price and $4 for each bag of garbage, but surprised that to pump out our holding tank it now costs $26 (used to $5 in Sodus Bay; $11 in Vermont).  We picked up Catherine & Jeff Smith-Cole and the Dwyers picked up Megan and we spent 2 lovely days at the secret mooring at Endymion Island. Great fun! After dropping all guests off back at Gan Marina, we traveled down to Mulcaster and anchored out in 7 Dwarfs Bay for 2 days.

And you thought all the pirates were in Somalia?

We found a relatively new addition, a statue of St. Lawrence, overlooking the river that bears his name, but which he never saw.  We took a day long dingy excursion from 7 Dwarfs Bay to Rockport (very nice visit) and then down through the Lake of the Isles and back to our anchorage.

Seven Dwarfs Bay. Wonder why they call it that? Looks like they have freshened up the paint on the dwarfs.

August 22nd-23rd.  Cedar Island, the last of the park islands when you are traveling upriver.  Located right in front of the city of Kingston it's a popular spot for the locals.  As a result, it's hard to find an open dock here.  Getting there at 11 AM on a Wednesday seems to be a pretty good strategy. Bonus was the fort was celebrating the war of 1812 and we got a free fireworks show.  Now I had started feeling "off" when we were anchored at Seven Dwarfs.  By the time we got here I was full blown sick.  Enough so that we changed plans and went into Kingston on Thursday.  Went to the Kingston Hospital ER.  Wasn't until we got home that I found out I had a parasite, probably picked up from drinking contaminated well water.  Thanks to modern medicine I am currently killing all the critters with antibiotics.

                                                     

August 23rd-24th, Waupoos Island.  This little spot is located inside Prince Edward Bay.  Located directly across the lake from Sodus Bay, it makes a great last stop before crossing.  There is no town, but there is a friendly marina, good anchoring, and a couple of good restaurants, a hard cider factory, and this winery, which features beautiful views of the bay.  The restaurant is located in the building directly behind us.  We went there for dinner and it was outstanding!

Thomas Wolfe was wrong, you can go home again.  The lighthouse at Sodus Point.  Again, we will put some data together and do a summary of the entire trip (mileage, marinas, etc.).

We are Home!

We crossed Lake Ontario from Wapoos, Ontario to Sodus Bay on Saturday 8/22 and after a good nights sleep we packed up our mountain of laundry and headed home to deal with our mountain of mail.  Since we did not have wi-fi or good cell coverage in the 1000 Islands, but did continue to take pictures, we plan to do one more Blog page from home that outlines the last leg of our trip.

St Lawrence Seaway

Sat Aug 11: Although we slogged into Vieux Montreal with the current slowing us down to almost 2 knots, when we left, it was like a slingshot... doing 12 knots coming out with the current. We approached our first commercial lock (St Lambert) at 10 am to find out that a big ship was stuck in the lock because the lift for the bridge was not working. Techs were on their way. By noon they fixed the problem, let the ship out & let us in. Same system at all 5 Canadian Seaway locks; tie up at a waiting dock, use credit card to buy $25 ticket, call the lock master to tell him you are there, & then wait.  When given the green light, motor in against a 30 foot wall and pause to catch the bow & stern lines they throw down to you. Then it is moving up the line with 1 hand while pushing the boat away from the wall with the other. It is quite a ride! We only made it through 2 locks and ducked into a marina in Lachine just in time. Quite a storm!
Sun Aug 12: 2 more Canadian Seaway locks & into Creg Quay marina for the night.
Mon Aug 13:  For you 1000 Island boaters... Who listen to the weather forecast "From Kingston to Cornwall" .. We stayed in Marina 200 in Cornwall ane re-provisioned at the "No Frills Grocery". And they mean "No frills!"
Tues Aug 14: went through 2 American Seaway locks. A little different. They only take exact cash... $60 and that gets you through both locks. So we are hovering... Waiting for someone to throw ropes and a voice yells " Wrap your midship line around Ballard #1 , tie it off and hang on. The Ballard rises and takes the boat with it. Actually, a very smooth ride. After the last Seaway lock(Canadian once again),  and waiting on 2 lift bridges, We finally made it to a shipyard called Iroquoy Marine.. The first place we could find to put up our mast. The owner let us borrow his car to drive into town for water, liquor, & wine. Nice guy.
Wed Aug 15: they did a great job putting our mast back up and then we spent the day working (rewire, tune, put sails back on, and take apart the mast supports.
Thurs Aug 16: after passing Prescott, & Borckville, we met up with the Dwyers on Adelaide Island. Too shallow for us to dock, so we through the hook & it's cocktails on the island & dinner on the Dwyers boat. Very nice!

Pics & text of Richeliu River, Chambly Canal, & entering Montreal

"The mate was a mighty sailing lass..."

Mon Aug 6:  We left Lake Champlain and headed for the St Lawrence.  We were told that no plants could enter Canada from the US.  Grace was not about to surrender Betsy or her herbs.  Pictured is Betsy incognito hiding from les Gendarmes.  An international border incident was narrowly averted.

Chambly Canal

One of the many bridges (lift & swing).

Unlike the US canals, Canadian canal workers handed you clean, dry lines as you came in.

However, these locks were very small. Picture our boat and one more power boat sharing the space in this lock.

The last 3 locks were right together.  This was the last one overlooking Chambly.

All the Chambly locks are hand operated.

Tues & Wed Aug 7 & 8:  Mt. St. Hillaire from Marina du Phare in Beloeil.  Run by a freindly couple.  She was fluent in English, he was not.

Vieux (Old) Beloeil.  Small town with a lot of great restaurants (menus in French).  With the help of the bilingual waitresses we were able to enjoy two of them.  Monteraleans drive here to eat and it's easy to see why.  The food is "magnifique"!

St Ours, the last lock before entering the St Lawrence and home to Grace's new best friend, Sebastian, one of the Canadian Park guys.  He  confirmed her river route and told her hundreds of sailboats make this trip every year.

Had to overnight at the St Ours lock because water levels in all marinas around Sorel (where the Richeliu River meets the St. Lawrence) were too low for us to get in. So we started early and made a 10 hour trip from here to Montreal.

Our first encounter with a Seaway ship.  Surprisingly, his wake was smaller than a lot of the powerboats.

Approaching Montreal traveling upriver.  Our first encounter with the current.  Could only make 4.5-5 knots most of the day.  The last 2 miles 2.5-3 knots max.  Luckily, the only other place we should encounter this is the bridge at Cornwall.

Aug. 9 & 10: Spending 2 nights in the Lachine Canal dock waiting for the weather to get better. Should be entering the seaway canals tomorrow with our mast still down as we continue to search for a marina with deep enough water that will step our mast.  Even the French ducks "cop a tude".