Leg #9 — 7/5/14 to 7/20/14 Chambly, Quebec, Ca to Belleville, Ontario, Ca

Up at 4:00, flight at 5:55, Dayton/Chicago/Montreal at 11:15am. A lengthy Cus­toms check thru and then a taxi to Marina de Cham­bly.  I was dropped at the gro­cery to pick up a few items and walked back to the marina.  Ken worked on get­ting the boat ready to leave.  We took off from Cham­bly at 2:02pm head­ing toward the St. Ours Lock which has its last lock-through at 5:30.

View up the St. Riche­lieu River

We made it there by 5:00 and was through and tied up to the lock wall by 5:30.  Whew!  Good thing because the wind picked up and it started rain­ing.  St. Ours is a beau­ti­ful area, very rural and quiet.  We ate lunch and din­ner on board.  We walked around the grounds but didn’t find any pos­si­ble way to find trouble.
Early the next morn­ing we took off up the Riche­lieu River head­ing to the St. Lawrence and Mon­treal.  We stopped for fuel at Marina Bel­lerive at 8:00am.  We came out of the river at 10:15am.  The 58 mile trip should get us into Mon­treal around 3:00pm.  We ran against the cur­rent up the river (seems like down) which keeps us around 10 mph. We know the winds from Hur­ri­cane Arthur are head­ing this way and we want to get tied down before it picks up later.
The trip up the St. Lawrence, for the most part, was res­i­den­tial and very beau­ti­ful.  What I noticed on this stretch was all of the church steeples.  Each time you saw a steeple down the way, it was a new lit­tle town.  Tow­er­ing over the sur­round­ing area, each one made a state­ment.

Clock tower in Montreal

We arrived into Marina d’Escale, Old Port, in Old Mon­treal.  We are right in the heart of the his­toric area with the Bastille, Hotel de’Ville and many shops and restau­rants.  After tying up and an alert from the office staff we took off to Place d’Arts to catch the last day of the Jazz Fes­ti­val.  We were able to catch a cou­ple of the groups and get some din­ner.  We ate our first pou­tine, French fries with cheese curds and gravy.  Our order had lob­ster added.  Both of us kept a song from Wagon, an Aus­tralian group, called “Willie Nel­son” in our heads for the next few days.  I need to see if I can find it any­where to down­load.  Back to the boat where we had new boat neigh­bors from Ver­mont.  The cap­tain deliv­ers boats part-time and they had just picked up their own new boat in Alexan­dria Bay and were tak­ing it home….back the way we came. We ended up shar­ing a lot of information—them about the area, us about the Loop.
The next day was rainy but we still needed to explore.  I took my early walk and found Vic­to­ria Park and the tran­sit sta­tions.  I also met up with the throngs of peo­ple com­ing to work.  Lots by sub­way and many by bicy­cles.  I also do recon for any break­fast.  Later, Ken and I walked back and had break­fast.  I tried Rat­ta­toulle, a sort of veg­etable chut­ney, to eat with my eggs.  We walked a dif­fer­ent sec­tion of Old Mon­treal and then back to the boat.  Around noon, we walked over to find the Hop On, Hop Off bus.  We got on that and round for a cou­ple hours around the city to areas too far to walk.  This time we didn’t have a map so I really couldn’t get my bear­ings very well.  There are a lot of dif­fer­ent sec­tions with much inter­est­ing his­tory.  We got off at the Notre-Dame Basil­lica and had lunch at Dunn’s which was rec­om­mended for their smoked meat.  It looks like corned beef but less fatty and not as strong.

Notre Dame Basil­ica Montreal

Mon­treal City Hall

Notre Dame Basil­ica Montreal

Old Montreal

We took off very early the next morn­ing head­ing for the St. Lam­bert Lock.  One of the two large com­mer­cial locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway. 

The crew of Treacy O’leary

We were aided in tying up by Bren­don and Car­olyn, the first Irish Cana­di­ans that we’ve met, on Treacy O’Leary. They ran ahead of us for the rest of the day and helped where ever they could.  We had 7 boats going through at a time, 2 sets of 3 side by side and one in the rear.The  two locks turned out to be eas­ier than we were expect­ing and the lock mas­ters were pleas­ant and help­ful.  They are much larger and dif­fer­ent than the locks we’ve done so far.  Larger boats go in first and the oth­ers raft off of them.  The staff throws down two lines, one bow and one stern for the boat on the wall (us) to hold your boat close to the wall as they let the either in or out to take you up or down.

At the inter­sec­tion of the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence, we turned, well zigzag’d north.  Our first stop was St. Anne de Belle­vue.  We went went through the lock to be on the other side so that we could leave early in the morn­ing.  We walked back under the bridge and rounded up Bren­don and Car­olyn to go have a “pint” or two.  They came back to check out Sev­enth Sun.  They would some­day like to get a big­ger boat and travel fur­ther.  After a rest, we headed out to din­ner in one of the many restau­rants lin­ing the canal.  We hap­pened to pick the restau­rant the fur­thest from the boat so that when it started rain­ing and howl­ing we would have the fur­thest to walk.  Amaz­ingly, right when we decided we would go ahead and head back in the mon­soon, it stopped rain­ing. The wind con­tin­ued all night which gives the boat a lot of creeky sounds dur­ing the night.

The Car­il­lon Lock

Off the next morn­ing for the Car­o­line Lock.  It used to be the largest drop/increase, about 65 ft., in the world until a larger lock went in the Tenn-Topp Water­way and another one in China.  Great lock mas­ter with local information.

Hotel Fair­mont Montebello

We headed out to the Fair­mont Hotel Chateau Mon­te­bello Marina.  A beau­ti­ful and large old log hotel with the most beau­ti­ful grounds and view of the river.  Later in the evening, we walked into town to explore and have dinner.

The Rdeau River Falls into the Ottawa River

We took off early for the run to Ottawa.  We knew today would be a longer day because of the flight of 8 locks right before you get into down­town Ottawa.  After see­ing some beau­ti­ful sights on the river’s edge, like the US Ambassador’s Res­i­dence, we tied up on the blue line and waited to lock through.

Wait­ing on the blue line to go up the Ottawa Flight Locks

The lock staff came down and went through the instruc­tions for this set of locks.  We trav­eled through with two cruis­ers. This process took about 1.5 hours with only one mess-up by me.  Don’t know how it hap­pened but I let the stern swing out too far.  It was on the last lock and by then we had a large crowd to watch the event.

Ken with way too much time on his hands dur­ing the lock throughs

Mini Potato Latkes with bacon and cheese
and Mini Shep­ards Pie…Ken had Corned Beef
and Cabbage…then add local beers !

Out of the locks, we tied up to the canal wall right in the heart of Ottawa.  We headed out to explore, ate some lunch and picked up the tourist info.  We did as much tour­ing in the time allowed, plus eat­ing & drink­ing in as many places as we could man­age.  We also were able to watch the Chang­ing of the Guard at the beaut­ful Par­lia­ment Build­ing.  The light spec­ta­cle at the Par­lia­ment build­ing was a spe­cial event to watch.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0W7Kntp_00

We did the hop on/off bus and saw the var­i­ous embassies and ambas­sadors’ res­i­dences.  We walked by the US Embassy and many of the out­door sculp­tures through­out the city.  Ottawa, again, is such a mix of old and new archi­tec­ture.  They have work going on at a lot of the gov­ern­ment build­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the 150^th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion in 2017.  The huge Byward Mar­ket Dis­trict with all of the ven­dors, small shops and amaz­ing amount of food attracted us for sev­eral meals.  We hit the 24 Hr. Metro on the way back to the boat the last night there with all the locals for a few provisions.

Leav­ing Ottawa via Rideau Canal

We headed off the next morn­ing UP the Rideau Canal.  Three boats who were also tied near us were head­ing out at 8:30am.  The info says that the bridge opens “on demand” after 9:00am so we weren’t leav­ing until 8:45.  We should have fol­lowed the group because when we got to the bridge they weren’t there and we waited while the bridge needed to be quickly repaired.  We hit the first lock before 10:00am and then pro­ceeded to go through 9 locks before we tied up at Bur­ritts Rapids Lock around 5:30pm.  Only 48 miles out of 125 and we’ve done only 16 out of the 49 locks.

The the last 25 miles from Longs Island Locks to the Bur­ritts Locks was the most con­gested area that we have seen.  All forms of water toys were on the river today.  Every house seemed to have a boat and dock plus canoes and kayaks.
Bur­ritts Rapids Lock is beau­ti­ful.  We have sev­eral boats tied near us…all French Cana­di­ans.  The men seem more flu­ent in Eng­lish and are all more talk­a­tive. We walked across the street for a bite to eat.  It seems like we are in the mid­dle of nowhere but we’re only 50 miles from down­town Ottawa. Noth­ing else is around except the lit­tle restau­rant at Lock 17.
We headed out as soon as the locks opened at 9:00am and were the first boat in.  Some new boats appeared early and there were two of us in the lock.  It was going to be a rainy day with some heavy storms pass­ing over.  We went through seven locks in the rain before stop­ping at Mer­rickville to stroll the town, eat lunch and check out the storm.  After a nice lunch and visit to a local gallery, it really started to pour.  It looked like it would pass soon so we decided to head out again and try to make it to Smith Falls for the night.  Another 6 locks and we were in the basin at Smith Falls.

One of was get­ting wet !

One of us had a roof over them

Herb and Mary from Gid­dyUp came in shortly after us and tied up behind us.  We vis­ited and snacked with them for an update on their trav­els and later walked around town.  Find­ing noth­ing open on a Sun­day night at 8:30pm, we headed back to the boat for left­overs.   We took another walk to find ice cream for Ken after dark.
We headed out to catch the early open­ing of a bridge and lock and were the 3^rd boat into the lock for the tran­sit.  We pro­ceeded to sev­eral, like seven, locks before being told that there was a prob­lem in the Jones Lock so we decided to stay on the down­side of the Davis Lock.  Oh, we started DOWN in the Locks.  Begin­ning in Ottawa, we had been going UP.  I need to check on how many feet we went up total.
We sat out­side and talked to the neigh­bor boaters spend­ing the night and going in the oppo­site direc­tion tomor­row.  I cooked din­ner on board tonight ! This was a very relax­ing and quiet evening in a very quiet and remote location……
Up very early but our house bat­ter­ies are not hold­ing enough charge to run the cof­fee pot with­out hydro hookup.  So instead of run­ning the gen­er­a­tor and wak­ing up the neigh­bors, we decided to take off to Jones Locks and go really, really slow to get their early to try to be in the first lock through. Off at 7 at 5 miles an hour with 5 miles to go gets us there around 8:00am.  Nowhere on the blue line to tie up so luck­ily PC had another dock.  It is now really rain­ing and thun­der­ing but we are next to the SCOW2 barge that picked up the rock out of the mid­dle of the lock and caused the backup of all the traf­fic.   We call them and there’s a weather delay.  Then they call us back when it’s time to get in the Lock and three of the boats that had been lock­ing through with us yes­ter­day get there just in time to go through with us and a house­boat.  This is another series of locks.
Then off to Brew­ers Locks where we tied up and waited.  We had a nice chat with other boaters at all of the locks.  Every­one is going a dif­fer­ent direc­tion on a dif­fer­ent time­line. We have been lock­ing through off and on with the same boats for a while now.

Infin­ity Pool Lock going down

After Brew­ers Locks, we are off to Kingston but we know we have to get a bridge lift at 6:00pm right before the Kingston Marina.  So again, we go really, really slow for about an hour to get there around the right time.  We drew up to the fixed bridge to see if the stated 17’ height was accu­rate but we were off at least 6” so we came back around to wait on the lift.
After the bridge, we tied up in Kingston despite some strong winds.  It always feels great to be tied up after a long day.  Off to walk around, pay for the slip and find some dinner.
Kingston is one of the old­est cities in Ontario and has many old build­ings made of lime­stone.  Lime­stone is local and was a required by ordi­nance when build­ing to pre­vent fires from destroy­ing the build­ings.  We took the hop on/off bus the next day and saw the major attrac­tions in the area….fort, prison, col­lege, hos­pi­tal, city courts….every one made from beau­ti­ful local lime­stone.  More walk­ing, gallery look­ing, eat­ing and drink­ing with a lit­tle music lis­ten­ing thrown in before back to the boat for the night.

We decided to head out tomor­row to check out the 1000 Islands and tour Boldt Cas­tle.  Since this involves step­ping foot on USA soil, we will check in with cus­toms on Heart Island and then have to check back in to Cana­dian Cus­toms later.
Our first goal was to see a lime­stone sculp­ture of Saint Lawrence which was on a cliff in the “pal­isades over look­ing the St. Lawrence River approx­i­mately 1 km east of the Inter­na­tional Bridge.  Right on target !
The sec­ond item was to see the small­est inter­na­tional bridge….voila !

Then the stop and tour of Boldt Cas­tle which was a works-in-progress but absolutely beau­ti­ful build­ing and grounds. The story is sad but with a very inter­est­ing history.
We left Heart Island after noon and headed to Cape Vin­cent to refuel and tie up for the night.  We stayed at Anchor Marine so that we could be ready for fuel at their 8:00am open­ing.  We headed off to find one of the reported local restau­rants and had a nice “fried” din­ner.  We walked around the small town before head­ing back to the boat.
The next morn­ing, I took my early walk, bought a few pas­tries and also checked with the US Cus­toms to see if we could check into Cana­dian Cus­toms across the water at Wolfe Island where the ferry was trav­el­ing back and forth from….and yes, we could !  That made life a lot easier.
Another beau­ti­ful day with calm water and we were off to Belleville, Ontario which is another good 60+ miles across and west and up into the Bay of Quinte.

Arrived then docked with a lit­tle help from the dock­hands.  Crates Marina in Belleville is brand new and almost fin­ished. The neigh­bor boaters are friendly and help­ful.  We walked to town later to check it out and were some­what dis­ap­pointed as the brochure had made it seem more vibrant. Come to find out Belleville has allowed a Metho­d­one Clinic to be placed here.  Tren­ton, a close neigh­bor town, refused and is fair­ing the econ­omy much bet­ter.  The peo­ple in down­town looked rough and weath­ered, not just boat­ing rough and weathered…so now I know the rea­son why.
We walked down toward the pier and ate din­ner at the Boat House and upon hear­ing that there was music down at the Pier, we headed fur­ther down.  Long walk, nice bar and music, long walk back to the marina.
The next morn­ing we were luck­ily reminded by neigh­bors that the farm­ers mar­ket was going on.  We are leav­ing tomor­row so won’t buy pro­duce but we are always in the “check it out” mode.  We tasted belly ash­ers, per­o­gies, but­ter tarts, and spring rolls.
Ken went to pick up the rental car for the drive home tomor­row.  We decided to drive over to Pic­ton for din­ner and also drove through the lit­tle town of Bloom­field with lots of shops and a notice­able line string­ing out from an ice cream shop.  We had din­ner at a nice restaurant,Portobella Bistro, and made the ice cream stop on the way back.
We left the next morn­ing for home via rental car.