MONDAY, JULY 16, 2012
We left Saint-Ours at 5:45 a.m. We wanted to get an early start so we
could enjoy Chambly after we arrived.
I wanted to show you this floating dock
that is on the grass. The
rivers and lakes up here freeze solid in the winter. Because they do, most of the docks are taken out of the
water. This one just hasn’t been
put back into the water yet.
I liked the way this single row of trees
looked running along beside the Richelieu River.
Remember I told you about the cable
ferries. You can see the cable
better in the close picture of the ferry at Saint-Denis. We were always careful to wait until
they stopped to cross their paths.
This one had red and green lights on top to tell you to stop or go. We appreciate all the help we can get.
Gary couldn’t get over the parking job
that was done with this camper.
I’m glad I don’t have to back it into position. It would probably end up in the water
if I did.
There were more of the beautiful silver
topped churches one almost directly across the river from each other. The first one was in the town of Saint-Charles and
the next one was in Saint-Marc.
There are many silver-steepled churches all along the waterway. No two of them are the same.
In the background is Mont Saint-Hilaire.
There were a few marinas along the river. Most of the boats in the marinas were smaller speedboats or pontoon boats. I guess they are easier to use and take out of the water over the winter. One of the marinas seemed like it should be farther south. It had buckets of palm trees on the dock and near the office.
We had read about a very narrow bridge with a swift current in one of our guide books. There it is. It is the 27 foot Beloeil Bridge. There was a sign board to tell us how high the bridge was. It was the first one we'd seen since entering Canada. Of course, it really didn't help us since the measurement wasn't in feet. They were right about the speed of the current though. We were already fighting about a one knot current. The additional 1.6 current against us reduced our speed from 5.7 mph to 4.1 mph.
Just after we passed under the bridge there were rowers practicing on a course near the edge of the river. Then there was a lot of activity at what seemed to be a rowing club.
We had to cross the lake-like Bassin de Chambly before we were able to enter the locks. There was another church on the banks with silver steeples.
We pulled up to the blue line of the Chambly Locks (Locks 1, 2 & 3, up 35 feet) with the Vermont sailboat, PILGRIM. They were a nice, young couple with two small children that we had met at Saint-Ours when they stopped there for lunch.
These lock were a set of three locks and then a protected basin and then a series of bridges and locks along the Chambly Canal. The lock staff dropped lines for us to hold on to. Again it was a case of needing to be flexible about where to put the boats since they usually put as many in as would fit. Also again this was a set that once you start locking through there was no stopping until you went through all three. When another boat came out of the nearby marina that made 3 boats to lock through together. It was us, the big 40 footer and the about 37 foot sailboat. For some reason the lockmaster wanted us to go in first, then the big boat on the other side and PILGRIM on the side behind us. Boy were we stuffed into the first lock. Look how close the big boat's fender is.
In the second lock they put us closer to the front and the big boat
farther back so we weren't as close together. I was happy about that.
I talked to the French-Canadian lady on the big boat's bow as we locked
through. She was very nice.
They moved the bridge and
Gary got back into the boat to drive us out of the last lock.
We pulled over to the wall
in the basin to spend the night. We traveled 32 miles in almost 6 hours for a total of 2077 miles.
We walked back up to the
locks and took some more pictures of the locks, boats in the locks, the cute
little house for the life preservers and the lock houses.
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