Chambly to Pierre Island, anchor

All of us have done the loop, so we've all boated in Canada before. But none of us have boated in Quebec before and, trust me, that's a big difference. It's like boating in France. All the signs are in French, all the radio chatter is in French. Kinda cool, really. Food is better (fresher for sure), and the beer is amazing. 2 small towns, 2 breweries, and all of us had something we loved.

Others signs we're in a foreign country are the treatment of pedestrians and bicyclists. All roads seem to have dedicated bike lanes -- not just space or well marked, which they are, but physical separations like plastic pole. There's been a well groomed, and well used, path traveling along the lock system. 

The plan was to continue as usual -- the two of doing the last 3 locks, which cascade down off the hill in Chambly. But the lockmaster had other ideas. She had a number of vessels needing to lock down this morning, so to do it quickly she had us go first with a smaller boat (faster in and out) and Highwind came right after by themselves (also fast), then the 7 or so other boats they needed to get through.

These four turned out to be speed demons on the 
water. They sped passed us, only to have to wait
in the Saint Ours Lock.

A bakery opened at 8:30 am so I quickly bought us all fresh croissants, then it was engines on.

After leaving Chambly Lock system we snaked about the Richelieu River heading to the last lock before the St Lawrence. We got the snot waked out of us at this part of the journey by 4 pocket cruisers, who shared the wall with us at Lock 3. They were fast and came unbelievably close to us as they passed. I mention this because we slowly made our way to the Saint Ours Lock and ambled in... only to spy those 4 pocket cruises having to wait for us in the lock. HA! They pulled over right away after the lock, probably to spend the night. As we pressed on I really, really wanted to get close and go fast, outta spite.

Lots of cute towns along here. All with 
silver-domed churches.

BUT I DID NOT.

Anyway, the rest of the day was without incident. The Saint Lawrence is a big, big river. But the calm winds made cruising very comfortable. We picked an anchorage and did our usual rafting with Highwind.

AND NOW, MOVIES!

Cascading Locks on Chambly's lock system.

The long run before the locks. SKINNY!!!!!