Ile aux Fermiers to Club Nautique, Montreal - 10 nautical miles sailed, 5 miles in dinghy, 7 kilometres walked
I woke up to a secluded anchorage that was calm, flat, and strangely peaceful considering we were on the doorstep of the second largest city in Canada.
We were back on the water by 8:30 am and sailed ten miles to the Club Nautique, which was very close to tomorrow's first lock and a short dinghy ride to Montreal's Old Port area. We'd decided that from here on in, Magnus would be at the helm as he really wanted to learn how to handle SeaLight during this trip and so far I'd done all of the tricky piloting in the locks. It was time to rip off the band-aid.
Magnus was on the phone with the marina owner who guided him into the mooring field and sent us to ball number three. I grabbed a boat hook, readied the lines, and positioned myself at the bow as he skirted by a dangerously shallow area then made a sharp turn just in time to ease up to the mooring ball, which I snagged with the hook then attached our lines. It was an utterly perfect maneouver on Magnus's part.
After checking in with the marina and paying the $60 mooring fee, we dinghy'd upstream two miles to the Old Port tourist epicentre. I tried sweet talking the dockhand for a free tie-up but he would hear nothing of it and confirmed there are no free places for dinghies anywhere. So I coughed up $30 for a three hour stay and we were on our way.
Magnus and I did what one does in Montreal - strolled around gawking at the magnificent architecture as you sniff out food options. It was a picture perfect, sunny day with the temperature headed up to 26 degrees, making for a lovely walk. We stopped at an art gallery then moved onto the Crew Collective & Cafe, a co-working space and premium coffe experience in a stunning, cathedral-like ex-RBC building. This is a place I've been wanting to visit for a while and it did not disappoint. Well, actually, it disappointed a bit as the queue to get coffee was a mile long and there were no available seats, so instead we found a quiet cafe down the street and sat at the streetside patio enjoying their five dollar blueberry muffin and coffee special.
From here we circled a few more blocks and found a lunch spot - Van Winkle Sandwiches - and sat down for Montreal smoked meat and poutine, which we enjoyed at a leisurely pace as we people-watched the many tourists passing back and forth on the street.
Our three hours passed quickly and soon we were back at the marina to meet our friend Tula, who is Magnus's age, and one of the two daughters of our friends Dave and Kira. She is in Montreal attending university and her and Magnus have been great buddies for many years. It was very nice to see her again.
The dinghy ride back to SeaLight was choppy as hell as the hundreds of Sunday boaters had waked out the channel. I was a bit worried for Tula as I remembered she was prone to seasickness, but she did fine and seemed to actually enjoy the rollecoaster ride. We made it back to the boat in one piece and settled in for an afternoon beverage and some long conversations. I left Tula and Magnus alone much of the time but popped in frequently to take drink orders, deliver snacks, or join in the conversation. It was Tula's parents who visited us in Bahamas for a week in February and I told Tula it was probably the best single week of the entire trip as we experienced so many things and covered so much ground, with fancy gin and tonics along the way. I also told her how we'd spent hours discussing the journey to adulthood our combined four kids were undertaking and how immensely proud we were of all of them. After I said my piece, I used the incredible pineapple slicer to eviscerate the pineapple resting on the countertop and delivered a perfectly cut stack of pineapple slices and a fancy rum drink mixed in the hollowed out pineapple chassis. They seemed to like it.
Our snacking and drinking rolled right into dinner and I made the kids a big cockpit feast of roasted chicken, beans, broccoli, and corn and we washed it down with rest of the goon bag - good to the final drop.
8 pm arrived and as promised, I set out to dingy the kids back into Montreal for a night on the town. Unfortunately, we only got a few hundred feet before the engine (which had been acting up the last few outings) decided it would go no faster than idle speed and sputter out every thirty seconds. We hobbled back to the boat and I tried the few tricks I know to fix an outboard but none of them worked. I did manage to get them into shore where they called up an Uber to meet Tula's sister Esme and their friends downtown for some Montreal shenanigans.
I played around with the engine for a while then gave up and retired to my bed for a call with Ana then a bit of doom scrolling then a gentle nap. Magnus called me for a pickup around 1 am and I managed to drag myself out of bed and collect him at the dock. He'd had a great night and discovered a fantastic "new to you" hobo beer - Colt 45 that he wore on his breath proudly.
I shielded my face and scurrried back to my cabin.
No comments:
Post a Comment