Thursday July 18, 2024 Rouses Point to St. Jean-sur-Richelieu 4 hours and 24.5 miles
Off the dock at 9am and headed over to fuel dock to top off the tanks and another pump out (because you just never know where the next facility will be available...all the un-glamorous things about boating to plan for!). Glorious weather finally as we are welcomed to Canada with 70 degree days, clear skies, low humidity. Cool enough we had to layer up shirts to be comfortable. Such a pleasant and welcome change.
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Leaving Rouses Point is a bit tricky going through
an opening of old wooden bridge pilings |
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| Ft. Montgomery - the last fort on the US border |
Next stop was the customs station as we are crossing into Canada. We are properly flying our yellow quarantine flag and pull up to the dock as the only boat there. John took our passports and boat documentation into the office. Moments later, they called for Martha to come up to office as well. Our passports are relatively new and this being the first time we've used them...we actually forgot to sign them, oops. Super simple process...only questions asked were a general idea of our timeline of how long we plan to spend in Canada and the ever expected question about firearms of which we do not carry any aboard. Surprise, no question about how much liquor/beer we have on board, which the prepared answer is "ship's store", meaning it's just for our own consumption. Also, no questions about live plants (my Christmas cactus is barely hanging in there) or fresh veggies, meats etc. Honestly, I'm not even entirely sure what the rules are to these last two items, it's never been as issue the couple of times we've been to Canada.
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| Leaving the friendly and efficient Canadian border station |
As we head into this portion of our journey, Lake Champlain is turning into the Richelieu River. We stop for the day at St. Jean-sur-Richelieu just before the first Chambly canal lock which is a series of nine locks. Actually, this is Lock #9, since we're going south to north, they're in reverse order. We take a walk over to the lock station and get the details about the process of going through the locks. Very informative, helpful and friendly...Parks Canada lock attendants are such a pleasure to work with! It's kind of a first-come, first-serve policy, so they've noted that we will be the first boat through when they open at 9 AM. The locks are SMALL, so the logistics of "which boats go through when" is really pretty fascinating. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle, but once they know which boats are coming through and how far they are traveling, they make a plan for what boats will fit in a lock together.
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| This lift bridge controls all traffic entering the Chambly canal from the south |
The town has a few restaurants and some older interesting homes and churches dating back to their canaling heydays. Best surprise was being docked by their city park where they have Thursday evening live music. This week was a female violinist and band playing renditions of Beatles, Queen, etc. tunes. Extremely energetic and enthusiastic violin playing. Good size crowd that was very appreciative. This weekend starts the Canadian construction holiday - 2 weeks where construction workers are off work. We are told to expect a lot of boaters to be out. On the Chambly canal most are headed south towards Lake Champlain.
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| Female violinist rocking out the tunes. |
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| This house caught my attention while exploring the town. |
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Mostly because of this doorknocker. Reminded me of the scene in Scrooge
where old Marleys face appears on Scrooges door. |
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| Journey for July 18, 2024 |
Friday July 19, 2024 St. Jean-sur-Richelieu to Chambly 4 hours and 12.1 miles
Off the dock and ready to leave at 9am. Actually, we had the VHF radio on listening in to instructions for boats planning to enter the lock this morning. Extremely well organized given there 5-6 boats wanting passage and no way we all fit. As we arranged yesterday, we were first in for the northbound trip and one other boat entered the lock with us - another 50+ footer. With our anchor touching the front gates and them snugged up tight against our stern with their anchor occasionally overhanging our cockpit, the lock tenders were just able to close the gates. We traveled with that same boat at the required 6mph speed in and out of six locks for the day. Not only are the locks small...the canal is very narrow. So much so that at some locks we received instructions about areas to "stand by" to give southbound boats the right of way to exit the upcoming lock.
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YUP!! Canal has 22' width openings, but it sure feels tighter.
We're almost 16' wide so theoretically "plenty" of room on each side |
We had communicated our hope to stay on the wall in the basin above lock 3 and by the time we entered lock 4 they had received confirmation there was space for us set aside. It wound up being an ideal location. We have 30AMP power, easy walk to restaurant row, across canal from park with farmers market Saturday morning, ice cream shops and across street from the step locks #3, #2 and #1.
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| A view down the flight of 3 locks |
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Our primo spot on the lock staging wall. Glad we purchased the mooring permit
along with the locking permit - Gives us preference at times. |
They even have an awesome brewery - Bedonaise and Bedon Ronds (roughly translated to something like "beer belly's and round belly's" - a reference to him and his pregnant wife when he started the brewery). The owner started collecting beer bottles as a kid at 16. Then more memorabilia, then got into beer making as a hobby, then got more serious and became a brewmaster, toured all over the world learning the craft then finally opened this brewery in 2005. Three large sitting areas all covered in anything beer related. Waiter said this is only about 25 percent of his collection. Large assortment of beers. The 6 we tried were all quite good.
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| We wound up getting one more pour. All very tasty. No IPA's today. |
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| Just a small sample of the owner's collection in one corner of one room |
Ft Chambly is just a short walk from the locks. First fort built there in 1600's as a trading post. Succession of wood forts in same location before a stone fort was built by the French in early 1700's. Was taken by the British during the revolutionary war. Became a big encampment during war of 1812 but eventually abandoned. Left to ruins by the late 1800's a campaign to save it was undertaken. Slow progress until 1960's -70's when final reconstruction and archeological work was undertaken. Very nice park and museum now. Overall, Chambly has been a very worthwhile stopping place for a few days.
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| Fort Chambly |
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| Journey for July 19, 2024 |
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