We say good bye to Montreal and head up the St Lawrence Seaway passing the Port of Montreal. It was fascinating to watch the cranes loading and unloading, the trucks moving trailers and the train cars lined up to be loaded. Multiple freighters were being processed. I can’t imagine the coordination and scheduling that must take place to make the port function.
Past the port there were depots for loading oil and natural gas, sand and gravel and potash,
We have the the current in the river pushing us along. The current was 4 knots but now as the river widens the current is closer to 2.5 knots. Still a nice push. We went 9.7 knots at only 1200 rpm- 1000rpm is idling for us.
There are several large islands in the St Lawrence between Montreal all the way to where we will anchor tonight that we must wind our way through. Many are heavily forested with few roads. As we travel further from Montreal, the islands become more developed with towns and farms. Besides negotiating through the island we also had to monitor the anchored freighter just off the channel, all waiting their turn at port.
We pass the towns of Montreal Est, Varennes, Repentigny and Vercheres. Figured you needed practice on French pronounciation!
Bill loved the hydrofoil Coast Guard boat that passed us at 38.3 knots. Bill took a video. And he had to look up the largest of the freighters- Mamilossa 38’3m long 28m wide with a draft of 12 meters. You can do the conversion.
We went through a small channel behind Ile de Contrecoer and anchored just north of the towns small marina with several other sailboats.
We spent the afternoon relaxing. We met a Norwegian and French Candian that were kayaking the Great Loop. They started in Halifax, Nova Scotia and were heading down the St Lawrence. If you visit his site it helps donations for Doctors Without Borders and Captains without Borders. More power to them, I could not do the Loop in a kayak!
In the evening we enjoyed the sunset and a delicious pastry for dessert, leftover from our bakery trip in Montreal.
