Day 316: Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Port to Port: Iles Verte to St Catherine Lock
Underway: 5:57 am Motor Off: 1:30 pm Miles Traveled: 27 Stayed At: Anchor
Mile 50 to Mile 23: After a quiet night at anchor, we woke with the sun again and decided to take advantage of the great cruising conditions to head toward the first big lock on the Saint Lawrence River. Carina followed us up river again. Carina needed to stop for fuel and a pumpout so we followed them into a marina where we had another reunion with some friends from Kingston (and Green Turtle in Kentucky) – Gay and Mike on Irish Attitude. They are heading the same way we are along with several other boats getting fuel at this marina. We all headed up river and soon joined a bunch of other boats waiting to go through the first lock.
We had another reunion at the lock – Rick and Margie on Journey whom we met in Kingston also – were one of the boats waiting. You have to be careful here in Canada – you never know who you are going to meet.
Us and 11 of our fellow boaters all motored into the lock and, with some effort and confusion, finally got rafted up and secured to the wall. The lock operators offer very little help – they won’t even communicate on the radio. Their job is to get the big ships through – us pleasure boaters are a nuisance. With everyone working together, though, we finally figured it out and, before long, we were headed up to Lock 2 in a long boat parade. The wind was starting to pick up but we were fairly well protected in the channel and everyone did the same thing all over again. It was a little exciting this time though because a huge ship was waiting to come into the lock and everyone had to get out of the way to let him pass.
The weather forecast was sketchy for the afternoon – 20-30 knot winds potentially and thunderstorms so we joined Carina and anchored in a nice protected basin just above the lock. The bad weather held off until a little later in the afternoon so we got a relaxed and got a few projects done before the rain, lightning and thunder hit. We haven’t had a storm like this for a long time and it was nice to be securely anchored instead of out in a wide-open bay somewhere. The storms only postponed our planned dinner together to a different day. All else is well in Canada.
