Boom Times Sailing!: All Locked Up

Today we went up a total of 80feet through nine more locks. The Chambly canal system is a remarkable piece of engineering, and all manually operated. I was really impressed with the facilities and Parks Canada staff. They packed three yachts into relatively small locks, particularly impressive given that I have a 53ft mast along my deck! The first 8 locks are in quick succession but the last lock at St-Jean is about 10 miles away and we had to convoy to it as fast as possible to make the last lockage. The same Parks Canada staff drive alongside the canal to open the next lock or swing bridge. Finally exiting the last lock after a total of four hours we were spent and needed to find an anchorage for the night. An activecaptain.com recommendation indicated a potential spot along the west shore of Richelieu river. We dropped anchor and settled in for a well deserved dinner & sleep. I was a little concerned with our proximity to the marked channel, there were a lot of little fishing boats zipping up and down the river so I put out extra LED lights around the boat to make us more visible at night (with our mast down we don't have our regular mast top anchor light).

Tomorrow we'll try and make it to the US border. The next post may be delayed because we'll lose our 3G internet access when we cross into the USA. We'll try and find some WIFI or get a US cell phone / data plan as soon as possible.