Chambly to Montreal

June 6- a long, 88 mile day to Montreal, a bit stressed out by the huge St. Lawrence Seaway and dealing with the French language!

We left Chambly around 0630 and continued north. The Richelieu River is scenic and bordered by tiny villages on both sides, with names like St.-Charles-sur-Richelieu, St-Marc-sur-Richelieu, St. Anoine-sur-Richelieu, St-Denis-sur-Richelieu---- you get the idea. I believe that sur-Richelieu means "on the lower Richelieu."

The churches in Quebec nearly all have silver steeples, like this one in St-Antoine.

I don't know the reason for the silver steeples.

We had one more lock for the day, at St-Ours. We arrived in time for the first lockage of the day at 0900. This lock was much larger than yesterday's and has a floating dock in it that we tied to. We were the only boat in the lock. It is still early in the season here, so boating is not fully underway, especially on cold, cloudy week days.

We entered the St. Lawrence at 10:15 and met half a dozen ocean going freighters.

The Algoseas passing us.

We chose to take the small craft channel to avoid the strong current and large ships. We entered at Lanoraie and exited at Langueuil, across the river from Montreal- about 27-30 miles. We added fuel at Port de plaisance Real-Bouvier since diesel may be scarce for a while. We paid $1.50 Canadian per liter. The Canadian dollar is worth .77 U.S. right now, so that worked out to $4.33 U.S. per gallon-- not too bad.

The current on the St. Lawrence here is 5-6 knots, and we are headed upstream. Yikes!

Current against the marker

Party boat

We are staying at the Yacht Club of Montreal- very plush and right in Old Town. They even provide fluffy towels in the showers- a welcome change from our thin but quick drying microfiber towels. We have a couple days here to explore the city. I read that Montreal has more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the world!