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June 2008 |
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21 June - Quebec City
The last bit of work to be done on the boat before leaving was to polish the hull. Poor Marie has been so dirty for so long we thought we would give her a bit of a treat, so after having done the ground work when we were on land, Stuart cleaned her down and we applied 7 coats of a product called Poli-Glow. This worked amazingly well and Marie is now shining like she has never done before! It also seals the gel coat so will stop her getting quite so dirty in the future. We slowly moved the rest of our belongings onto the boat and on May 23rd we finally left the farm, moved back onto the boat and the left the marina. Even though the water was a good 2 feet higher than when we were dragged in last year we still hit the bottom on the way out! Not enough to stick but we felt her grind to a halt and ploughed through soft mud before freeing up on the other side. Good job we didn't leave it any later.
Isabelle arranged a lovely going away doo for us at Pierre and Dominique's place and all the friends we have made in our time in Lacolle came to say goodbye which was a very enjoyable day, after which we went back to the farm and said goodbye to the horses. We were also sent off with lots of yummy things!! Thanks Lucian and Louse for the cakes and the wine, Isabelle's mum for the yummy chocolate horses heads and Miriam for the chocolate cake. Needless to say none of it lasted very long, and our bellies wee very happy (although maybe a little larger too!!) Thank you also Pierre and Dominique for holding the party at your place and mostly thank you Andre and Isabelle for having us in your home for the entire winter, we really appreciate all you done for us.
Click here for pictures of the leaving doo
After doing a large grocery shop we upped anchor and headed of towards America to do a bit of shopping for boat parts and so we could re-enter Canada with a fresh 6 month Visa. The Canadian authorities were very nice and said if we just wanted to renew our visa we only needed to pop over to America for 5 minutes then we could come back again. When we tried to enter America though we told the authorities that we only wanted to stay in the country for a few days it completely spun him out, he couldn't understand it at all and the fact that we weren't Canadian or American was also very confusing for him, his brain went on overload and he could not compute at all. He ending the situation and his confusion by refusing us entry into the country!! He told us we would have to turn around and go back to Canada straight away! (The marina we were staying in was next to the Canadian customs which is 5 minutes away from the American customs so we haven't actually traveled very far).
Welcome to the land of the free!! We headed back to the Canadian customs and told him what happened, he didn't understand what the Americans problem was and allowed us straight back into Canada with a renewed 6 month visa. Although, because we had been refused entry to America he had to go through certain procedures, the immigration officers were called over and the boat had to be searched. They had to confiscate the cross bow that Walt gave us for our own safety in Sarasota!!! Cheers Walt they thought we were nutters for having a cross bow on the boat (but did find it quite funny)! They were as nice as they could be considering the situation but it does make me very angry when you are sat there for hours made to feel like criminals, having your home raked through all because of a not very bright American official, with no common sense on a bit of a power trip. Booo to America, we just hope that this doesn't make life difficult for us in the future when we need to head back into America.
The excitement of that over we headed up to Ile Aux Noir and tied up on the public dock where we stayed for a week finishing off last minute repairs to the boat. Andre brought our last few bits down to us and Mano rejoined the crew then headed up to St Jean and the Chambly Canal. The Chambly Canal was quite an experience, they only open twice a day at this time of year mid week so we had to wait a day to get a spot then we went through with 2 fairly large power boats. It was a very tight squeeze as the locks are tiny. You begin with one lock then you have a fairly long run through the canal system, we motored past the buoy that we were ice skating around in the winter which was funny. It looks like a completely different world without all that snow and ice around. The canal is quite narrow in places and pretty shallow, it is said to have 6.6 meters depth and we weren't reading much under the keel all the way which was also quite nerve wracking. The end of the canal takes you through 8 locks in steps so you come out of one lock straight into another until you come out in the other side of the Richelieu. We had one more lock to go through in St Ours which was a large very easy to use.
Next stop was Sorel, we slowly come up this way taking short day trips and anchoring in the river at night. Sorel is where the Richelieu enters into the St Lawrence and where we begin to have to deal with currents and tides, life won't be quite as easy from now on! We found the Sorel National Park Marina very good, it consists of 2 separate marinas one of which has a crane you can hire to put the mast back up for £40. This was perfect for us although we only had 6 inches of water under the keel, so again we wouldn't like to have left it any later when the water is lower. Putting the mast back up wasn't quite as easy as taking it down and every time we got it into position we realised that the stays had managed to work themselves into the wrong position on the wrong side of the mast and it had to come back down again. We also had a very enthusiastic helper who decided to share his knowledge with us! 'Yoooou don't want to do it like that' may have crossed his lips once or twice!! Finally after a few ups and downs the mast was back up in its rightful place, although I did have to go up there afterwards to detach the hook from the crane which we managed to get stuck on the outside of the stays.
Click here to see the pictures of our journey to Quebec City
We had been anchored near the mouth of the Richelieu for a few days as we needed to find a welder to weld a part of the mast back together before we could put it up. After trying all of the marinas we eventually found a really good local guy in the centre of town, but although the week days aren't so bad here this is no place to anchor during the weekend. Everyone with a power boat finds it necessary to zoom up and down the river innumerable times all day long, so the boat is constantly flying all over the place, it was like being back at sea! We saw another said boat coming up the river with it's mast down waving his fist at all the power boaters as they zoomed past laughing at him! He must have had a very tired arm at the emd of the day!
It was nice to be able to move from this spot although we quite liked the little town. We then moved the boat up one of the rivers in between the islands opposite the town which was a much more pleasant place to stay. We only stayed one night then moved on to Trois Riviers, we had planned on stopping here and visiting the town but the current was running 3 knots with us when we came past and we made no headway when we turned into it to try and find a place to stop. We let it carry us further down the river and anchored where the current slackened but this meant no visit to the town as the river side was lined with private residences with no public access.
The next stop was Porte Neuf after we zoomed down a thinner part of the river with 5 knots of current behind us doing a speed of 11.3 knots!! We have never been so fast before! We only planed to stop here for a night but a depression set over the area bring with it steady East winds, making it wind against current so fairly choppy. The day we did set up to go we made no headway whatsoever so came back and anchored in a pretty horrible spot just in front of the Marina. Here we were stuck on the boat with miserable weather for 3 days nearly going mad with cabin fever! The depression finally moved on and we set of with the current towards Quebec City.
Yeah finally arrived in Quebec City and have anchored off of a mooring field off of the Quebec City Yacht Club.
Click here to see the pictures of Quebec City
Click here to see the pictures of the Montmoreny Falls