Wyvern III: July 3

We are finally on our way downriver.....again!! We successfully got the transmission refitted with a new output coupler and back in last Thursday. Friday was a rainy day, so we stayed and said our good-byes to the people at the marina. Special mention goes out to Mike, Mark, and Art; three men who went out of their way to be friendly and make our stay more enjoyable! Finally, a very special thanks to the marina manager, Jack! A very kind man who went 'above and beyond' to help us through the long and frustrating wait for our repairs! I highly recommend Marina 200 to anyone boating through the Cornwall area!!

We slipped our dock lines on a beautiful quiet morning on June 29, and headed for Lac St. Francis, and then ultimately, the dreaded Beauharnois locks and associated bridges. We had heard all kinds of stories about how slow these locks were, and how people would often get held up at the lift bridges, also, so we approached them with some trepidation. To our surprise, everything went really smoothly!! We were able to reach both lift bridges via radio and they lifted within 15 or 20 minutes. Then the locks themselves opened immediately when we arrived! Each lock we went down 42 feet, for a total drop to Lac St. Louis of 84 feet. So after an early start in the morning, we found ourselves dropping the anchor in a quiet bay, overlooking Ile Perrot, on the west end of Lac St. Louis.

Lac St. Francis

Valleyfield lift bridge

Beauharnois Lock

Evening relaxation on Lac St. Louis (Ile Perrot in the background)

dinner prep

June 30 we woke to another beautiful day...Lac St. Louis was a millpond, so we motored across it, enjoying views of Mont Royal along the way. At the end of the lake, we entered the Canal de la Rive Sud and essentially stayed in it all the way to Longueuil. Fortunately we didn't see any big ships until just before our last lock, so there was room to pass! Because we were in the canal, we actually couldn't see any of Montreal, however we passed St. Lambert where there was lots of activity on the water, including people 'ski-surfing' behind boats on boogie boards. The boat would pull them up and get them going, and then they would let go of the rope and 'surf' on the wake wave created by the boat's transom! We went through our last two locks on the canal, dropping a final 90 feet, and eventually came out near La Ronde and re-entered the St. Lawrence Seaway proper. After our quiet day on the canal, we had a lumpy ride in to the marina at Longueuil, where we showered and had a nice meal before hitting the hay for the night! Later that night we got the long-awaited happy news that our newest grandson had been born that day!!! What a wonderful way to end the day!!

Mont Royal from Lac St. Louis

Sharing the canal with the Big Boys!! Actually one of only two tankers we had
to wait for at the locks...both at the last lock just before Longueuil

July 1, after a quick breakfast, we decided to keep moving and try to reach Lac St. Pierre. The forecast was for strong NE winds the next day, so we wanted to find a safe place to hide from the weather. We had read about the Lac St. Pierre Archipelago at the west end of the lake, near Sorel-Tracy, and decided that would make for an interesting anchorage. Although the day looked threatening, it never really amounted to much, and once we were out of the Montreal area, the water also settled down, so despite the 'less than perfect' conditions we actually enjoyed a fairly comfortable ride, and even managed to raise the sails for a bit outside Sorel! We reached the Archipelago around 6:00pm under hazy conditions, which made the marshy land look even more remote and 'wild' than it was! We set the anchor in a small estuary called Le Chenal des Iles aux Sables. Everything was absolutely still, with only the sounds of cranes and other wild birds breaking the silence....we really felt like we had gone up the Bayou!! The nor'easter arrived that night as promised, and continued to blow the next day, so we stayed put. We had read that Lac St. Pierre, due to the combined effect of it's large size, shallow water, and wind blowing against the current kicks up some wicked waves and there is nowhere to go to hide, as it is so shallow except for the canal dredged through the middle.

Today we woke to a windless, sunny day. We motored across Lac St. Pierre, meeting three huge tankers on our way, but the lake was absolutely flat calm. At the end of the lake, we passed by Trois Rivieres, and then motored through the Richelieu Rapids.....clocked ourselves at 12.8 knots in the middle of them!!! (Our top speed with the engine is usually about 6 knots!!! That means there was almost 7 knots of current flowing through the rapids!) Almost as soon as the rapids spit us out, we arrived at Portneuf, where we have once again availed ourselves of the showers and spent a quiet night dockside, preparing the charts for our trip to Quebec city tomorrow.