The exhilaration of cruising toward Quebec with a favorable
2-4 knot current was replaced on the return by pushing the current on our nose
along with a 10-15 mph wind. The day was
lovely and sunny and on the trip back across the Richelieu Rapids, which at
high tide, we barely noticed, we saw very few fellow travelers. Eight hours after leaving Quebec, we were
docked at Trois Rivieres Marina passing the tour boat and the Cathedral at Cap
de la Madeleine, pictured at the end of our last blog entry, on the way into
the marina entrance.
Donna called the marina while we were underway to request our dock assignment. The marina personnel spoke very little English to Donna’s non-existent French, so Donna was asked to send email. She did so and was pleasantly surprised to receive an almost instant reply with the requested slip assignment. We later discovered the marina admin staff uses Google Translate to receive and send email in English. Also, most marinas provide dockhands to guide you to your slip and assist with line handling. Trois Rivieres does not, and the captain and crew are left to their own devices although almost always, other boaters jump in to assist.
Donna called the marina while we were underway to request our dock assignment. The marina personnel spoke very little English to Donna’s non-existent French, so Donna was asked to send email. She did so and was pleasantly surprised to receive an almost instant reply with the requested slip assignment. We later discovered the marina admin staff uses Google Translate to receive and send email in English. Also, most marinas provide dockhands to guide you to your slip and assist with line handling. Trois Rivieres does not, and the captain and crew are left to their own devices although almost always, other boaters jump in to assist.
Once outside of the cities of Montreal and Quebec, few
people speak English; an exception are the lock tenders on the Chambly
Canal.
Marina laundry rooms double as informal libraries. Boaters leave books they have read behind and
pick up a book or two that someone else has left in the “library.” While in Kingston, we picked up “Coming Full
Circle” by Bruce and Susan Armstrong.
The book is their Americas Great Loop voyage and very well written. Although we have no interest in doing all the
segments of the Loop, we have already done quite a few and thought it would be
interesting to read someone else’s account of places we have been and learn
about cruising to other destinations. Like
us, the Armstrong’s happily discovered Lake Champlain and the Chambly Canal
because flooding kept them from travelling their planned route that season. They provided us with a couple of interesting
tidbits about Quebec Provence. Many
churches have a rooster, le coq, mounted on top of the steeple’s cross! At a cathedral in Montreal, they asked a
priest about this custom. He told them
it is a French symbol calling the people to awake to God’s message. We had not noticed the roosters before
reading this passage, but certainly took note thereafter and found quite a
few. Another interesting tidbit is the motto
on Quebec’s license plate “Je me souviens” or “I remember." Bruce
Armstrong asked a local what it means and the reply was “That we are French,
and they cannot take that away from us, ever!”
Quebec has had a sovereignty movement since 1867 and during the 1980’s
and 90’s there were several referendums attempting to separate Quebec from the
rest of Canada. One such referendum was
defeated by less than 1% of Quebecoise, comprised of a coalition of the
minority English speakers, First Peoples and first generation immigrant Canadians.
Some French citizens are still quite
militant in their desire to become a separate country. To those of us outsiders, it seems that they
already are in everything but name and the Provincial Government operates quite
autonomously.
The forecast next day was for a mix of sun, clouds and
showers with the wind picking up in the afternoon. The day turned out to be very quiet and
subdued with hazy horizons and a little weak sun periodically peaking through
overhead. We encountered a few small
open fishing boats and a couple of traveling sail boats motoring across Lac
Saint-Pierre. Absent were the commercial
tugs and large freighters. Here too, we
had adverse current of 1-2 knots, which increases our fuel burn a little. We traveled through Sorel and into the
Richelieu River arriving at the dock outside the St Ours lock doors in the
early afternoon where we spent a very peaceful afternoon and evening relaxing.
We traveled the canals the next day and were locked through
St Ours with another local boat on the first (9:00 AM) opening. The weather was very breezy and cloudy with
breaks of sun and we followed the local boater down the Richelieu River to
Chambly, a 3.5-hour trip. Our fellow
traveler pulled into a marina in Chambly while we began the 3-5 hour process of
locking through the 9 Chambly Canal locks.
This was our first trip as paying customers and we cannot complain, it
cost $51.80 CA (approximately $39.00 US) for 9 locks versus $33.30 CA ($25.00
US) for the single St Ours lock. We had the locks to ourselves southbound but
many boats traveling northbound and we did have to wait about 10 minutes before Lock #1 and again at Lock #4 while the northbound vessels locked through.
 |
| At the end of the canal and into the lower Richelieu River |
The destination for the day, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, was
new to us. Other boaters have given thumbs
up to the Le Nautique St Jean marina and restaurant so we decided to give it a
try. The marina staff kept us idling off
their dock for 20 minutes in a swift river current, then did the minimum to
help us tie up and to add insult to injury, asked that we meet in the office
within 5 minutes to register so that they could close up and go home! While Kapt Karl further secured Santorini in
the slip, Donna went to the office to register.
Information regarding marina services was not volunteered. When asked for the WiFi sign-in information,
it was relayed verbally. Donna asked for
a piece of paper and pen to write it down and a scrap of paper was pushed
across the counter. After the trouble
to obtain the login information, the WiFi was very weak and we were barely able
to check e-mail. We did receive very
good service at the restaurant. The menu
was in French but we were assigned the one server that spoke English to assist
us. The outdoor dining area was very attractive
but crowded and noisy. The food was
mediocre – fish and chips for Kapt Karl and moules (mussels) and frites for
Donna. The crowd at the marina seemed a
little rough and not very friendly. We
will not return there.
The next morning, we walked to a market Donna had read about
in the Armstrong’s book. It was 1.5
miles away and the walk took us through parts of the town and along the
river. The many restaurants and shops
looked inviting and the market is comprised of a number of individual shops
under one roof. A holistic health store
provided the calcium supplement we had been looking for in other stores along
the way. Karl complemented the owner
(who spoke a little bit of English) on her product selection and she
beamed. She said the Quebecoise are not yet
very health conscious and she is trying to anticipate an emerging need. She mentioned that she uses Vermont stores as her
model. Also in the Mache was a bank, and
SAQ (liquor store), butchers, fishmonger, cheese and charcuterie shop, bakery
and green grocer. We bought some Italian
sausage and Chorizo for grilling, some cheese and a baguette. Mostly, we were doing some intelligence
gathering for a future trip. We agreed
we will stop in Saint-Jean again but will stay at the free dock outside Lock
#9. We will not have electric hookup
there but it will be a picturesque environment and an easy walk to the
amenities of the town. The weather was
humid and cloudy, not a day for photos.
That will have to wait until the next time, c’est la vie.
We motored the 20 remaining miles of the Richelieu River to
Lake Champlain, detouring around I’lle-aux-Noix to see St-Paul a boating
community with canals that the cruising guide likened to Ft Lauderdale – au
contraire, not even close; but glad we took a look.
Arriving at the US Customs dock at one o’clock, the same
Agent who accused us of trying to run the border last year, was there on the
dock and assisted us tying up. He was
very pleasant, and after looking at our passports said he would meet Karl up at
the office to complete the paperwork. He
became impatient when Karl was briefly delayed by a couple of admiring Canadian boaters that asked a number
of questions about Santorini. Shortly,
Kapt Karl returned to the boat, removed our Canada courtesy flag at the bow,
stowed it for the next trip and cruised into US waters. After stopping for fuel and pump out at
Gaines Marina, Rouses Point, NY, we continued south and anchored in Middle Bay
to the north of Plattsburgh.
