Warp Speed Scottie!

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.