Montreal and Safe after Irene

we are safe and sound with no damage after Irene. We are parked on a canal wall just above lock 7 which is just above the junction of the canal and the Hudson River. Water height and flow is controlled by the lock 2 miles above us which is at the high point of the entire system. The river has risen about 4 feet here but is still below us by at least 6 feet and the water has started to subside.

The canal is presently closed because of flooding below us and a number of the navigation buoys are out of place.  It will be several days before it reopens. I plan to add a few more pictures to this update but wanted to get it out now so everyone knows we are ok. So check back later as there will be more than what you see here.

We hope everyone is safe and sound!

Steve & Jean

In the last update I stopped at St Anne de Bellville which is one of the western suburbs of Montreal.  From there we crossed Lake St Louis and entered the St Lawrence Seaway. We found the navigation aids in Lake St Louis different from both our electronic and paper charts and the gps seemed to lag our actual position. The channel makes a hairpin turn at one point and we nearly missed it.

The seaway is basically a canal here that takes ships and pleasure craft around the Lachine rapids at Montreal. As usual, ships have priority over pleasure craft.  The first lock, our timing was great and we drove right into the lock with only a short wait. The only problem was all of the instructions on the radio were in French! We had no idea what was happening or what we were supposed to do!

It was about 10 miles to the next lock. When we reached the lock, the boats we had locked through with were waiting and we ultimately waited over 4 hours while two large ships locked up. In the process we had a thunderstorm and some rain pass through. We went through both locks with smaller boats rafted to us.

After the second lock, it was less than 5 miles to downtown Montreal. However, the river is channeled there and runs very swiftly for about 2 miles, against us of course! We started into it at about 8.5 knots and were down to 3.5 over the ground at one point. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that in a low power sailboat.

Montreal was a great stop. Son Steve joined us there, driving up from Maine on Saturday. We toured several museums, the best being the Architecture and History museum, the Bank of Montreal Museum, and the McCord Museum. We also walked around quite a bit, took a bus tour, explored the underground walkways and shopping and of course tried the local fare at several restaurants. The following are a number of scenes from our visit to Montreal.

Sun Cat in the marina with the old city behind us

Steve & his mother on Jaques Cartier on a Sunday morning

Walkway along waterfront next to marina

The market

Inside of Bank of Montreal lobby - remembeer when banks looked

From Montreal, we traveled down the St Lawrence to Sorel and then traveled up the Richelieu River. The river is very pretty. We stopped the first night at the St Ours Lock and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and a walk through the park.

The next day we continued up the river. One of the interesting things that happened is we had a seaplane take off from behind us, right over our heads! We also passed a parade of antique wooden boats that were headed for a show in Montreal that weekend. We went through the first 3 locks of the Chambly canal and stopped there in Chambly for the afternoon and evening during which time we toured the restored fort there. It was another interesting history lesson.

The Chambly Canal is narrower than the others we’ve been in and the locks are smaller. We traveled the remainder of the canal with 2 smaller boats which just barely fit in the locks with us.  In addition, when we cleared one of the draw bridges we were instructed to wait in the next wide area while a 45 footer passed us coming the other way. When we got to the last lock in St Jean de Belleville, we were held in the lock for over 45 minutes as the draw bridge downstream would be closed for that time while the operator had lunch. It would up taking us over 4 hours to do 10 miles and 6 locks that day.

We spent the afternoon there in St Jean where we cleaned the boat and walked around a bit, discovering in the process that the fort there was still an active military post. They were having a hot air balloon festival there and on our walk after supper we saw over 30 of them passing overhead. It was quite a show!

Breakfast the following morning was interrupted by another flight of the balloons and after that we headed south, clearing US customs in Rouses Point. From there we proceed into Lake Champlain, passing through “The Gut” and stopping at our friends Bill and Jill’s in Grand Isle.

We had a good visit with them. Christine came up to pick up Steve and the six of us took a ride on the lake in Bill’s 1950’s Lyman runabout. It was a beautiful day and we had a great ride, enjoying the Green Mountains to the east and the Adirondacks to the west. Steve & Christine left the next day and the four of us went to Shelburne Museum for the afternoon. The museum is huge so we went back the next day to see the rest of the exhibits. Some of the best are a circus train in miniature, houses from different periods in the 17 and 1800’s and the steamer Ticonderoga. The moving of this large ship to the museum, 2 miles inland is an interesting story all by itself! We also visited downtown Burlington which Bill, an architect had been involved with the renewal thereof. It’s always interesting to hear the story behind the story.

From there we went to Valcour Island where we  anchored in Spoon Cove. A very pretty spot. The wind came up in the middle of the night and the next morning we headed for Burlington to ride out the bad weather forecast for the next day. It was the roughest passage of the trip so far (and hopefully will turn out to be the roughest).

We enjoyed 2 days in Burlington, walking around the city, doing some shopping and getting together with friends. The city has done some very good things by creating a pedestrian mall and locating the regional mall (with all of the usual national stores) downtown.

Hurricane Irene changed our plans a bit. We were going to spend several more days on the lake but decided it would be prudent to get off of the lake. So we took off early and headed to Whitehall which is the start of the Champlain Canal.

On Saturday we moved to the terminal wall at Fort Edward and were comfortable there. However, about 9PM the lockmaster from Lock 7 (less than a mile away) came down and suggested we move above the lock so we did. We are presently riding our the storm with 3 other boats tied to a concrete wall about 2 miles from the highest point in the canal. There is a slight chance of being affected by flooding but we feel quite safe at the moment.