Leaving Montreal
Sunday, July 16 and Monday July 17
We left the Yacht Club of Montreal at around 9:12 AM. We had to deal with the substantial current of the St. Lawrence River as we left the Yacht Club. The speed registered below is huge for this boat. In fact, impossible to go this fast with this kind of hull.
We looked the evening before at the lock schedule and saw that there should be no large ship traffic until the afternoon. What we didn’t know was that they update their daily schedule at 7 AM every day and they added a north bound ship at 10:00 so we had to wait for around two hours for the large ship to go through the lock before us. We just kind of held our position on the water as the ship locked through.
This freighter came in behind us and booted us out of the queue for the lock.
After the big ship locked thru we were allowed to enter the lock. The lock personnel called us on the radio and had
us go in first in front of all the other boats because we were bigger than the rest.
Even though the lock is huge they still have to raft boats together to fit everyone in. That included us.
The raft up was for us too. They neglected to tell us until we were in the lock. We had to add fenders to our
starboard side to get ready for Greek’s Folly.
This was the first time that Short Vacation and Greek’s Folly have tied up together.
We didn’t think that our boats would match up but they did with fenders in the right places.
This was the first of two locks.
Obviously, we are somewhat famous in Canada because they had a band playing for us when we tied up.
I am always amazed at the way that John can maneuver this boat. That day we went through two locks and ended up at the wall at Saint Anne’s de Bellevue just below the lock there. This is a cute little town with lots of restaurants and a few shops. That evening after dinner we walked up into town and the boys got ice cream.
Short Vacation and Greek’s Folly on a wall for the night.
This was a big turtle. We saw another on a day or so later in a lock. The lock staff was very protective…
The little town had a piano sitting out for anyone to play. Coletta played us a tune…
The next day we were having coffee on the back of the Greek’s Folly when the rain started so we decided to stay one more day on the wall at Saint Anne’s de Bellevue. We walked back into the town went through some of the little shops. That evening we had dinner with Tom and Coletta on the back of their boat. Since there is no electricity on this wall we have to run our generator for a few hours each night to charge up the batteries. A little boat with 2 French speaking gentlemen came in right behind us and were not happy that we had our generator running.