Day 107...Sainte Anne to Ile Hervieux Anchorage

 SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012

     Could we sleep late after our exciting night in Sainte Anne? NO.  We were up and out by 6:25 a.m.  HARBOR NITES was going to sleep in and try to catch the locks later in the day. Our plan was to go to Saint Catherine Lock and wait for the lock through if necessary.  We heard the first lock through would be at 10:00 and it was going to take about that much time to get there. 

     Right after we departed Sainte Anne we passed through what looked like two spoil islands on either side of the narrow, deep channel.  They are actually the sides of the old lock walls overgrown with trees and weeds.

     Because of the shallow water depth, we had to run a zigzag course through the St. Lawrence River.  We started out fighting the current because of the way we had to go and our speed was down to 5 mph. Do you see the boat heading to the left in the second picture?  That's the way we'll be heading after we make our 180 degree turn.  After we made the turn and were headed opposite of the way we were going just a little while ago, we picked up speed to over 8.5 mph with the current.  We knew we were going to be cutting it close to make the 10:00 locking so we sped up to 9.1 mph.  We’re really flying (current assisted of course).

     On our way to the lock we passed a ship going the opposite way.  That was good news since the lock should be full for us unless there was another ship ahead of us.  The St. Lawrence Seaway is just that.  It is a body of water that carries both commercial and pleasure craft.  The commercial ships take precedence over the pleasure craft.  We must wait for the ships to be locked through first and then they will take us.  Sometimes the waiting time could be several hours if the commercial traffic is heavy.  Depending on the number and size of the pleasure boats locking through at the same time, you could be required to raft off another boat or have another boat raft off of you.  There are spotters in trucks that drive up and down to see if any more boats or ships are coming to the locks to coordinate the locking through process.  

     There were two bridges just as the channel stated to narrow.

     When we got to Saint Catherine Lock (Lock 2, down 32 feet), it was about 9:20 and the green light was on for us to go in.  Gary hurried to buy our ticket to go through the lock.  Boy was he fast since he had to get off the boat, run up the stairs and use his credit card in the automatic dispenser to pay the $25 locking fee for the ticket.  We entered the lock at 9:30 a.m.  I guess the spotter told the lockmaster that no one else was coming so we didn’t have to wait until 10:00.  We were the smallest boat and the last boat in so we didn’t have to raft since there was plenty of room behind us.  

     In these locks the lock staff drop orange ropes to the person on the bow and the person on the stern instead of having ropes attached to the lock.  You have to remember to take the rope into the boat if you’re going up OR simply let out the rope if you are going down, which we were.  Down is easier than up most of the time. 

     Also in these locks you must wear your life jacket.  Gary bought us self-inflating ones in case I knocked myself out falling overboard.  I haven’t fallen overboard yet but I’m happy to know I have the super duper life vest if I do.  We’ll have to model them for you later. 

     We were leaving Saint Catherine behind and moving on to our next lock by about 9:50.  I’m glad we sped up to make the opening.  Everyone filed out and headed for Saint Lambert.  

     There was a bicycle path on the port side of the boat.  Do you see the speck of blue?  That is a bicyclist flashing by.

     When we got to the dock everyone was waiting for us.  

     We found out that there would be at least a 30-45 minute wait because of a ship coming from the other way.  That didn’t seem too bad since it could’ve been a lot worse.  Boy we were LUCKY today with our timing.  Gary was able to buy the ticket at a leisurely pace this time.  We talked to the people on the sailboat and the people on a larger fast boat.  Then we let a powerboat called LUNA SEA raft off to us at the dock since there was no more room. Everyone was French Canadian but us.  People can’t get over the fact that we are from Florida.  That alone can always start a conversation.

     The ship looked gigantic coming out of the lock.  I can see why they take priority over the pleasure boats as far as size and economics.

     We entered Saint Lambert Lock (Lock 1, down 18 feet) at 12:20 p.m. and got out of the lock at 12:38.   The lock staff was ready to throw those orange ropes to us again.  I guess the locks are too long to space the ropes out so it's easier to throw them according to the length of each individual boat.

    Just before we were ready to go out one of the lock staff came over and told us to look out for the fire.  As we were leaving, we did see that the wood rub rails going into the lock were on fire.  Wonder how it got started?

     These locks are really busy.  Another ship was going in as we were leaving.

     As we were following the sailboat under the bridge out into the harbor, we heard music.  I thought we were hearing things until we saw the roller coasters.  We were passing LaRonde, the Montreal Six Flags Theme Park.

     The water in the Port of Montreal was like a washing machine from all the speedboats enjoying the weekend.  It was as bad as New York Harbor.  We decided to try to get as far as we could today so we kept going instead of going into a marina. Another reason to keep going was that we were zooming at between 8.9 to 9.1 mph.  That’s zooming for us.

     Here is another gorgeous silver topped church by the channel.

      We finally anchored at 4:30 after we were tired of fighting the boat traffic.  All of those boat wakes were making us miserable.  We pulled off to the side of the river at Ile Hervieux and stopped for the night.  We traveled 61 miles today in 10 hours.  We have traveled a total of 2017 miles.