We left our little anchorage east of Montreal and headed off once again. The river currents remain strong and the boat traffic, large, small and odd, is ever-present. We’re getting used to sharing seemingly narrow channels with all sorts of vessels:

 

 

 

As we approached the city of Sorel the traffic got increasingly large (in size and numbers), and increasingly annoying. Sorel boaters now hold the prize for some of the dickiest people on the water. People zipping every which way, with little regard for others, plus all the large freighter traffic made for some pretty stressful hours. (Later, we met a sailing couple from Sorel: Madeleine & Philippe. They were the sweetest people ever, so Sorel is redeemed!).

The fact that there was a tall ship event going on, plus it was the weekend, all added to the mayhem no doubt. But it was wonderful to finally find our anchorage and settle in for the night. We shared it with perhaps a 1/2 dozen other boats, but there was lots of space.

We settled in beside a reed bed that night and were treated to a chorus of bull frog croaking all night long. Ann was most amused…

From there the river widens to what they call Lac St. Pierre. It is large, but quite shallow off the dredged channel so we spent the whole day hopping from one buoy to another on our way to Trois Rivières. We once again arrived in the midst of Tall Ship revelries, which certainly added to the traffic and the excitement.

We found an anchorage up a branch of the Rivière St-Maurice which is one of the “trois” rivers. Our view included a public beach on one side, and a couple of fancy condos on the other. Lots of other boats were anchored and moored, although oddly none as close to shore as we. Hmmmm, I wonder why 😉 .

Trois Rivières is the place where tides first make themselves known. They started small — only a 1/2 foot here — but quickly built in range and water speed. In fact our next steps were to traverse the mighty Richelieu Rapids, which is a marked danger zone with currents reaching over 5 knots in normal times. We’ve consistently been seeing currents running at least a knot over normal, so we expected the worst. We decided to stay two nights so we could learn how to read tide and current tables.

Most boaters reach Quebec City from Trois Rivières in one day even though it is about 70 nm distance. We could have done this, but given the Tall Ship event, we’ve decided to have to bypass the City all together. So we made our plans to stop about 1/2 way along in a place called Portneuf. And glad we did b/c the trip down did not disappoint.

 

We did indeed hit over 5 knots of current. Here you can see our boat speed over water (right) at 3.6 knots and our speed over ground at 8.7 knots … and this was when we were trying to slow down! Here the tides average 10-12 feet. This drives very fast currents at times, which can either speed you on your way, or slow boats like ours to a stop. We arrived in Portneuf after a short and fast run down the river.

Portneuf is our first marina stop in 23 days. We decided to make this our re-provisioning stop, so we stayed three nights and filled our diesel and water tanks, dumped the garbage and recycling, cleaned up the head (emptied the compost), and made it to the local grocery store for a restock of essential additions: mostly coffee and wine 😉 .

The marina has a wonderful restaurant which we’ve been enjoying a bit too much. And the people of the marina and town are friendly and so very helpful to us poor Anglos. After learning the nearby grocery/booze store had recently burned down, leaving the only place many km away, we not only got a ride up there from a friendly marina member, but we also got a ride back from the store by a store employee. Incredible people!!

Tomorrow we make our run past Quebec City. The plan is to ride the ebb tide all the way past the city. Early start: 5 am!

 

… And so we did. Left Portneuf at 5:30 am about one hour ahead of high tide. We motored into a slackening, but quickly turning current, and rode the big wave all the way down. Zipping underneath the Quebec City bridge we hit a top speed of 12 knots, while showing 5 knots on the water. That’s 7 knots of current!! Our boat’s top speed is supposed to be 7 knots!!! That’s Trans-Warp Speed Scottie!!!!!

 

We bypassed Quebec City b/c the Tall Ship event, while pretty cool, also meant the city was a zoo. It would have been pretty impossible to find a berth for our boat at this late date, so waved and moved on.

  

We arrived at an anchorage some 15 nm further east from QC and dropped the hook. This would be our first major tidal anchoring with over 15 feet. To top it off, a major squall system rolled through the whole area, and lasted for hours. The squawking radio kept issuing WARNINGS, DANGEROUS SQUALL APPROACHING. Over 50 knots of wind was possible. Talk to you soon… I hope 😉 .

We moved down past the first bridge and picked up speed as we went. The current is regularly around 2 knots through here. We saw at least 3 knots at times, and 4 lower down. Pachina Mia (who’s top speed is around 7 knots) has never travelled so fast!

Our first night was Brockville area. We managed to find a little nook off the channel and tucked in near a graveyard — the residents didn’t seem to mind us being there. From there it was a quick trip past Prescott down to the edge of our first locks at Iroquois.

 

Along the way we passed some notable landmarks that we’ve driven past many times. This included finding the icebreaker Samuel Risley at its home berth in Prescott. We would see ‘the Ris’ every Spring breaking up the ice in Thunder Bay, and re-setting all the buoys. Kinda neat…

Finding a beautiful anchorage in sight of the first lock, we decided to stay and plan our next steps. We got to watch the Big Ships as they moved through the lock, often with the assist of the local tug boat.

   

Our time came, and we ventured into out first set of locks since doing the Welland some three years ago. We were both feeling rusty and a bit trepidatious, but as is often the case, the imagining was far worse than the actual event. We managed without a hitch. That day we moved through three locks.

 

Down below these locks we got into the outflow from the Cornwall damn, and experienced our highest currents to date; at least 4 knots! We hit nearly 10 knots (speed over ground). Way Too Fast!! But a long day. We found an island down below the dam and settled in for the night. We woke to squally weather so made the easy decision to stay an extra night. Storms, bread and puttering…

 

… and Ann gave me a little trim:

  

The next day we crossed Lac St. Francois and anchored next to Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. This is a very busy little water town on the river. We came in with a gale building behind us, and squeezed through a narrow buoyed passage which held dire consequences to anyone daring to ignore the channel (foreshadow alert!).

 

 

Rain and storms and kinda crappy winds gave us a nice excuse to hang out there for a few days, so we read, fixed a few things, and took in the scenery  . After a particularly stormy period our boat was swinging out so we could see the narrow channel. And we saw this scene (right).

A passing boater said this big power yacht had cut the channel, and ran hard on the reef. Said they were looking at $250,000 damage. THAT’S a bad day on the water…

The next day took us though one lift bridge and two more locks. That evening we anchored off the Kahnawake Reserve near the start of a canal around Montreal. “Is that the sound of a goat?” says I… Yes indeed. Goats and funny cows and all manner of farm critters were roaming the shore nearby. I became Man who Speaks with Goats.

Our anchorage was once again just off the main channel, so we had a great view of passing vessels. This included the first of the tall ships travelling the Seaway this season.

   

The next morning we entered the fairly narrow canal, negotiated past a lift bridge and some passing freighters (that would suck the water right out of the channel with them!), and came through the last of the locks. After some minor excitement that included Ann having to make a docking Mike couldn’t, and Mike making a leap onto a dock that Mike shouldn’t, we managed to get through and relatively unscathed … I’m sure that ding will buff out of the hull 😉 .

And with that we flushed out of the final lock, just downstream of Montreal.

 

 

The currents were very fast once again, but so was the head wind. We bashed against standing waves for a couple more hours before finding a nice little place to drop the hook behind some islands east of the big city. Urbanness is all around us, so it’s hard to find complete solitude. Lots of zippy boats, but the bird life is amazing. And the main Seaway channel is right across the flat island, so we get to watch the ships go by while enjoying the birds and other wildlife.

Belleville was to be a one-season stop over. But as is so often the case, the best laid plans are like a lint to the vacuum cleaner of life, and so our time was sucked away on various events (both big and small).

But finally all the ducks aligned and the planets were in a row 😉 And so, we spent our final days preparing, provisioning and saying goodbye to our many new, good friends.

But finally, we were off!

    

Thank you Belleville, thank you Stillwater. And thank you to all the wonderful people we’ve gotten to know there. There is sadness in parting, but pleasure in the people we’ve gotten to know. You’ve given us plenty of reasons to come back.

We headed out and pointed the bow east, following now-familiar waters of the Bay of Quinte and the Thousand Islands. Our first day out we (naturally) hit some very high winds; a fresh gale for all our sailing buddies (37 knots!). We anchored and rode out our first night of storms. But it was great to be off!

The next few days were spent getting re-aquainted with Pachina Mia the sailboat (as opposed to simply a house boat). We sailed  and fought more storms  . We saw, once again, some beautiful places , and did some fun and funny things  & .

At the anchorage near Gananoque we finally caught up with friends Deb and Chris on Windover. They left a few days ahead of us, and we’d been hoping to connect one last time on the water (at least, until they chase us down in Newfoundland). They joined us in Beaurivage anchorage for one last meal and evening, and then they headed back west, while we continued east.

… eventually. 

 

We lingered more than a few days in Beaurivage, spending Canada Day (yay Canada 150!), and then we moved a whole 10 nm down to our other favourite 1000 Islands anchorage and spent another four days getting ready to take the plunge. Of course Ann took a few plunges while there (a good thing too, can someone say Peppy Le Pew 😉 ).

 

After more than a week lingering in places we’d already been, we finally weighed anchor and headed out into the great beyond. We past under the Ivy Lea bridge. At long last we ventured into places unknown; over the edge of our known world…

 

Here Be Dragons!