August 2 – Thursday
I had not shared it with Polly, but I had read in the log book of our friends, the O’Bryan’s, John’s note that their passage through this leg of the Chambly canal and its locks, was the worst they had experienced on their trip. So it was to be for us. The heat and physical requirements of handling and holding the boat while locking up, made it real work. We had cleared the first 3 of the 9 Chambly locks the day before so at 08:30 we left the wall and headed for #4 where 3 sailboats (masts down and braced on deck) were waiting on the wall also to enter the lock. As we approached, the green light appeared and the lock master directed us to enter first and then he loaded the smaller sail boats around and behind us. There was not enough space remaining to get our dinghy in if it had been necessary – we were tightly packed. When the water flowed into the chamber we had to pull hard at various angles to keep our boat from flushing back or front or away from the wall depending on how the water was behaving at various times. We managed this through locks 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (all in close proximity to one another) along with our new sail boat friends. We could chat easily standing at a distance of 4 to 8 feet. These boats were all friends from Montreal and were heading to Lake Champlain for 2 weeks of cruising. Leaving lock 8 one of the Montreal boats had a problem so they all stayed behind to help out. We proceeded to the final lock, #9 which was about 10 miles at Saint-Jean. The lock was waiting and we entered alone and had the full attention of the friendly staff. We took pictures of them and they took pictures of us in the lock. When we had been raised the 5’ needed to exit they explained we would be held for 5 minutes, and then the swing bridge would be ready to open at 12:30PM, the end of it’s scheduled non-opening time (11:45 to 12:30). We left this final lock at 12:30 and proceeded to the open bridge navigating carefully around a tiny rented electric powered craft that was weaving through the channel at about one MPH. The couple seemed a bit surprised as we quietly slid by them 5’ way.
The only thing standing between us and the United States of America now, was about 20 miles of the Richelieu River flowing against us at 1 knot and what seemed like several thousand small, fast boats towing skiers, jet skis and a few pontoon boats all going in various directions . No worries mate – we were going home. At 2:30 we hauled down the Canadian flag and ran up the yellow “Q” and by 3:00 we were docked at the Marina at Light House Point and heading for U.S. Customs.