Wed June 22: Cornall to Valleyfield QC anchorage

Because we are in the province of Quebec now, we speak English with strong French accents.  I am sure this would be super annoying to anyone not us...

To an anchorage in Valleyfield and then on to Montreal Thurs!

Our route today to Valleyfield was a relatively short one with no locks, so we had time in the morning for leisurely coffee/tea - thanks to our (product placement warning) Blue Horizon mugs, courtesy of the Murphy Family.  As a reminder, you TOO could enjoy a shout-out in this very popular blog (4, count em - FOUR, loyal readers).

We were excited to try the pastries we bought yesterday at a “famous” bakery. Turns out the original owners had sold a few years back and, after tasting the donuts, we’re thinking that they may need to drop the “famous” from the description.  I think we could get better at a Tim Horton’s (the Dunkin Donuts of Canada).

 

Baby Canadian Geese aka Poopers In Training

 

Mom (or Dad, who can tell) getting breakfast

 

Melanie says this is “Goose, Goose, Duck” - a 
popular childhood game

 

 

Since was raining yesterday afternoon and we had some time, we decided to take a bike ride after breakfast.  Right away we happened upon this arena of sporting excitement.  We could just imagine the tense competitions that take place here. 

Oh Canada - we love you!

 

Our bike ride took us along a branch of the St. Lawrence river up to the Saunders Dam and the (damn) visitors center.   As mentioned in a previous post, the St. Lawrence Seaway was created with a number of dams and locks to tame the rapids and make it possible to move vessels up and down the river, and to generate electricity.  This dam was built in the 1950’s as a collaboration between Canada and the USA and is now operated jointly with electricity going to homes in both countries.  The visitors center was very informative - recounting the history of the region, how everything was built and how hydro-electric power is blah blah blah.  We would have spent more time reading and studying but we had a more important mission - to grocery shop!

Some of you readers may have noticed that we have not been to a grocery store in a few days - and that we usually hit a store at least once a day (and often twice)…so, even though we still have food on the boat, we headed to Farm Boy; a wonderful farmers market/food emporium.  We didn’t need that much, yet we rode away on our bikes with full backpacks and bike panniers, $100 Canadian poorer. 

Back on the boat we stored our groceries, let loose the lines and headed to anchor at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. 

They look all big and bad, but they are Canadian  - so, rather than shoot across our bow, they all gathered at the window and waved adorably.

It was a bit windy, but overall it was an easy cruise and we dropped our anchor in a small bay at about 4pm.  The overnight weather forecast was for rain (Rick put that in - I would have No Idea), but the afternoon was beautiful and sunny.  On shore we could see them constructing bleachers and doing sound checks for the upcoming weekend holiday.

Some of our purchases from Farm Boy - when in Quebec eat pate and cheese curds

We broke out the trusty anchor alarm app and settled in for the evening.  Rick cooked a nice pasta dish for dinner and we called looper midnight at 9 pm.  

Anchor app that tracks the boat position. If you start to drift the alarm 
rudely wakes you up so you don’t find yourself in a different place in the morning (like on someone's front lawn).