Montreal and south to the U.S.

From St-Anne we headed back down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal.  This section of the trip actually takes place in the St. Lawrence Seaway, the canals and locks created by the Canadian government to enable large ships to pass by the rapids on the St. Lawrence River.  Although the locks don't lower you much, they are huge because they are meant to be used by ocean-going and lake freighters, many of which are over 400 feet long.  Because the primary purpose of the Seaway is to support commercial shipping, they have designated times each day when they will lock pleasure boats through. There wasn't much commercial shipping underway the day we moved (we only saw one freighter locking through at our last lock), so we were actually taken into the locks shortly after we arrived rather than waiting an hour for the designated time.

After you exit the lock near Montreal, you have to turn west, against the river current, to get to the marinas in Montreal.  Small boats and sailboats can't do it, they don't have enough engine power to push into the current.  We barely made it; at one point we were doing less than 3 knots (contrast that with our usual cruising speed of 7.5 knots).  and the water was quite lumpy because the river current was flowing around islands and intersecting with the Seaway waters.

We spent four days in Montreal but Jim's shingles are really acting up, causing him quite a bit of pain, so we didn't really do much.  I don't think he ever got more than a block from the boat.  I took my morning walks through Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal), some of which was built as early as the 1640s.  Vieux Montreal looks a lot like Paris with wider streets.  I also walked through some of Underground Montreal which connects most of the street level shopping, the universities and the subway through underground walkways that cover most of the downtown area.  Once you get there, say on a subway from the burbs, you never have to go out into the weather to get all over the city.  Great in the snowy winter, and not too bad in the heat of summer either.

From Montreal we made a quick three day run to the U.S.  Going down river from Montreal to Sorel you have the river current flowing with you, so we were actually making 9-10 knots all the way down the river.  At Sorel you enter another series of rivers and canals, generally referred to at the Richlieu Canal, that takes you straight south to Lake Champlain and the U.S. border.  It is the only water border where U.S. Customs and Border Patrol stops and boards every boat.  It is also an extremely active border.  The CBP agent who came aboard Down Time told me they had checked in 75 boats between 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM that day.

So now we are wandering around Lake Champlain.  Our first stop was a marina just past the Customs dock where we could hit a pharmacy for a pain prescription for Jim and a grocery store to re-stock the food. (Did I ever mention how expensive food was in Canada? Ouch!)  It felt like we hadn't left Canada yet.  There were no American licenses plates on any of the cars in the parking lot and the only language you heard on the docks was French.  It is much easier for the Quebecois is this area to keep their boats in the U.S. and drive over the border than to cross the border on the water.  The only U.S. boats in this marina were cruisers who had just come back from Canada.

We'll gradually make our way down Lake Champlain to the Champlain Canal, then back into the Hudson River.  Now that we are back in the U.S. we actually have mobile broadband again, so I'll be able to post a bit more frequently. It is good to be home!