Wed July 20: Chambly to Sorel-Tracy marina

 Mike speaking:

 

After a restful night's sleep (yes, Rick and Melanie, we really did sleep well in our lovely cabin) Linda and Melanie found their morning caffeine at Cafe MJ et Cie.  The ladies deemed the place adorable and gave the Chai latte and Americano the "thumbs-up."  Rick fired up the engine and we bid adieu to terra firma.  

After an arduous journey of about 60 feet we entered the first of three connected locks.  Each lock feeds directly into the next so it's a total of 4 lock doors instead of 6  (think "water steps").  

 

 

 

We met-up again with Rick and Melanie's favorite lock attendant, the intrepid Audrey Ann, who helped us through these final locks of the Chambly Canal.

 

 

We have dropped a total of  24 metres (79 feet) throughout the canal system and the remainder of our journey will be in lakes and rivers beginning with Bassin de Chambly.  Interesting fact:  Canada's system of measurement is a mix of imperial and metric measurements.  While officially metric since the 1970s, irl the country operates under an inconsistent combination of both systems.  (Linda is certain it's because the ever-kind Canadians want to make make visitors from the States feel as comfortable as possible.)

 

 

After re-entering the Richelieu River we began to hear more about the upcoming "Bridge of Death" from Rick.  On the way up river the Bridge of Death had apparently created much consternation and drama.  Melanie responded with a one-person mutiny by taking over the captain's chair and fearlessly navigating "ol' Blue" through the treacherous waters.  On this return trip, Rick returned to the "chair" and skillfully steered us through what turned out to be an easy voyage under the Bridge of Death.  To be fair, we were going downstream and the path was well marked and almost funnel shaped.  The upstream direction was less clear and would have been much more challenging.

 

Bridge of Death

 

The Richelieu River is very scenic with houses and cottages on both sides.  We saw several pontoon planes flying overhead as well as a pontoon plane storage facility and even saw one perform a "touch and go" training session on the river.

 

 

If you live on the river and have the luxury of owning a pontoon plane, you need a river-based driveway ( or should we say "flyway?").

 

 

Chef Rick made us a great lunch.  Lest you wonder, we offered many times to help cook, but it's one of Rick's life pleasures to commandeer the kitchen, and as he is the captain, we didn't argue.  (Didn't want to be told to walk the plank for being insubordinate.)

Linda thinks this little house might be the only 'vacation home' we could afford on the river.

We continued down the river toward Sorel-Tracy.  This would be our final night on the boat and Linda and I both soaked in every moment of the day.  It's truly been a spectacular trip.

 

Mel here - is ANYBODY driving this boat???

 

Outskirts of Sorel-Tracy

We docked in a nice marina with Rick, once again, performing a flawless reverse docking procedure.  It seems to be his favorite maneuver and it's impressive considering the Blue Horizon is 40 feet long and weighs 24,000 pounds. 

Of course we needed something for the boat--this time a bucket--so I introduced Team Rohrbach to Canadian Tire.  They seemed skeptical, but I knew the 2 km walk was worth it.  Canadian Tire is a combination of Pep Boys, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Ace Hardware and Target.  Et, voila...they had a bucket.

Poulet  Frit Kentucky, don't ya know...

We returned to the boat, had another awesome dinner compliments of Chef Rick (Shrimp tacos with yummy fixins), worked on the blog, then crawled into bed after a long and satisfying day.  Tomorrow we journey across a lake and leave our hosts in the afternoon for what we hope is a drama-free bus trip to Quebec City where the plan is to reunite with Rick and Melanie when they arrive in two days.  

 

 

 

 

Au Revoir!