…but it helps. As well as Environment Canada Marine Forecasts, and, when you’re online and mobile, weather apps and Weather Network. And we used them constantly before and after leaving Trois Rivieres: Lake St-Pierre beckoned, and we didn’t want to cross that body of water at the wrong time.
We left Marina Trois Rivieres on a fine morning – Sunday, July 29, Day 66 – and had a fine crossing of the lake, disturbed only by another pincer movement of two giant cargo ships, coming from opposite directions, and passing each other with us – and a small sailboat – in the middle of their huge wakes.
We planned to have a night or two at anchor, something we hadn’t been able to do much at all lately on the St Lawrence, and headed for the Islands of Sorel, where we “dropped the hook” in 17′ of water in the Chenal de les Ile aux Sables, well off the main river channel, joining several other boats who had the same idea, including, once again, Maurice and Renée on their Monk 36.
The next day was for exploring, Michel in her kayak, Stephen in the dinghy, with Michel getting a tow upstream so she could wander back to the boat at leisure.
Another night at anchor, then we would be up for the legs to Montreal and beyond, again dodging the weather. Our destination was Contrecoeur, about 35 miles, to get shelter from the coming winds, for 2 nights. On the way, there was a period of some concern when the chart plotter went on the blink, though we had paper charts as well as the iPad navigation app. But after a while, and a lot of rebooting, we got it back again.
Contrecoeur itself was a disappointment, the best restaurant in the village being a tacky pub next door to the church, but the marina gave us the shelter we needed, off the main channel.
Next morning, and we changed our minds about staying at the dock, since the winds, while picking up, would be even stronger the next two days. So we scarpered, arriving 28 miles upriver at Longueuil, where we had stayed when we were outbound, back in early June. We had two days of wind and intense humidity and heat (didn’t everyone?), but the croissants from the patisserie and dinner at Copainsgourmands bistro again made it more bearable.
On Friday, August 3, we were ready to head out at 08:00 to catch the first of the two Seaway locks we had to tackle that day – St-Lambert and Ste-Catherine – before we got to Lac St Louis and, hopefully, St-Anne-de-Bellevue. It turned into a frustrating, grinding day, taking us over 6 hours to negotiate the locks and the 28 miles of water, waiting for long periods as cargo ships went through.
The only bright spot was meeting another friend we had made in Trois-Rivieres, Luke, who was helping the buyer of his (Luke’s) sailboat get it back home – an amazing coincidence that we were in the same group of boats going through.
By the time we had got through, there would be no room at St-Anne-de-Bellevue for us, it being a very popular boating spot, and with it being the start of a long weekend and the last of Quebec’s traditional 2-week break, so we turned right and booked a night or two at Lachine – again, a marina we had stayed at in June, and one of our favourites.
We stayed two nights, took the dinghy out, did the laundry and broke out the bikes for rides around Lachine, which is a remarkably beautiful part of Montreal.
By Sunday, August 5 – Day 73 – we were ready to leave without fear of the weather, and made it to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, which was everything it was supposed to be – not at all peaceful, but a place full of music, restaurants, ice cream and boats, big and small, rich and poor, slow and fast. Mostly fast. We got there early in the day and had a prime spot on the town wall, park side.
From Montreal, over the next 3 weeks or so, we are going up the Ottawa River to that city of renown, and then down the Rideau Canal to Kingston. Between here and Ottawa there’s not a lot of places to stay suitable for us, but we book a night – maybe two, depending on the thunderstorms that are circling around every day – at a small marina which has room for only one boat our size, at L’Anse-a-Martha. To get there, we have to go through the lock at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, then across a lake, then through the huge Carillon Lock, the highest in Canada, to get on to the Ottawa River.
We do the first lock at 09:00, which is the first lockage of the day, no problem.
It’s a very very hot day and we have a 1 1/2 hour wait in the blistering sun at Carillon, but are then through this impressive piece of engineering, rafted to other boats.
On the Ottawa River, there is now little traffic, and the whole journey starts to take on a flavour familiar to us from our usual boating on the Rideau and the Thousand Islands: a smaller and more gentle river, more peaceful and calm, more wooded. It’s a big contrast to the rocks, the vast width of the river, the tides and the currents and the smell of seaweed that we encountered the further we went east of Montreal. It definitely feels like we’re getting closer to home. And the peace of the marina confirms it – a lovely place to be, especially in the torrential rain of the thunderstorms that afternoon and night.
It’s Tuesday, August 7, and tomorrow we are going weather-dodging again, this time upriver to the ritzy Chateau Montebello, which has a posh marina, for 2 nights. A famous resort from the 30’s, it, like the Manoir de Richelieu in Malbaie, is owned by Fairmont, and was the site of a G7 meeting when Ronald Reagan and Pierre Trudeau were in power.
As we say to each other a lot, “every day is different”.