Woke to a crisp 62 degrees this morning. Will warm up to 75 degrees today.
Pulling up our weedy anchor, we continued north behind the Ile de Contrecouer and its town nd returned to the main channel on the St Lawrence. Will travel 13 miles up the river to the northern most pint of our trip at Sorel Tracy, Quebec.
As we leave the many islands of the St Lawrence behind, the river narrows. The shore on both sides are filled with homes and towns. A little further and the homes thin out to forest and then a mooring basin for freighters.
Once past the mooring basin, the west shore is farmland and the east side is the industrial port of Sorel Tracy. Sorel Tracey is the third largest city in Quebec and is known for its synthetic textiles, steel and metallurgy and furniture production. The river makes a hard right turn, which brings the rest of the port into view.
We make another right hand turn and enter the Richelieu River and start our trip south. The Richelieu River is 68.6 miles longs and ends in Lake Champlain. The river has three sections- the first a natural river with one lock for 39 miles, the second is a 10 mile cut channel bypassing a series of rapids with 9 locks and the third section returns to natural river. As we travel, the industrial port is left behind and homes begin to line the river front , which then changes to mostly farmland with few towns.
We passed the town of St Ours and locked through being raised 5 feet. This part of the river continues farmland and fields. Lots of fields and lots of corn! Along the way there are small towns with names such as- St Denis, Domaine Lecours- with cable ferries connecting them; St Antoine, Place Stephane, and St Charles and Rosseau Blanchard (with ferries linking them) and the larger town of Mont St Hilaire. The further south we go the more homes, some very large, line the shore. Then we begin to have bridges crossing the river, so we must be getting closer to civilization!
The river continues through a basin appropriately called Bassin de Chambly as it is near the town of Chambly, which is our destination tonight. We tied up at the blue line at the lock to wait our turn. A much larger boat is in front of us, so after talking with the lock staff, we opted to just stay the night and not go through the lock as there was no space below the locks for us to tie up.
We have been practicing our French and our efforts have produced much laughter and even a few lessons. Oh, but we tried!
Went to a French restaurant for dinner and had a delicious salad and veal dish. Now I am stealing the libraries WiFi to get caught up on the blog.