St-Ours to Ile aux Fermiers, Montreal - 46 nautical miles sailed, 1 lock, 1 mast raised
Dawn arrived in St-Ours, awaking the birds, the bees, and the goddamn mosquitos that had infiltrated SeaLight last evening, providing for an annoying night's sleep where I hid my head under the sheets for most of the night as protection from the bloodsuckers. As light penetrated the cabin, they reanimated like the undead. They rose from the bilge, the cracks in the floor, from between the cushions, out of the cupboards, from within the precious conch horn, out of the electrical panel, up from the toilets, down from the ceiling, from amidst the leaves of the pineapple sitting on the counter, and I swear one pulled itself out of the hair matted into one of Ana's brushes. I went on a killing spree like a berserker viking, smashing them on every surface, whipping them with towels, double hand slapping them out of the air, sucking them in with the hand vaccuum, and mashing them with Ana's decorator cushions - the ones with the fancy black and red patterns so she'd not notice the bug tissue and blood spatter. I felt elated after the mass murders, very unlike me.
After a leisurely breakfast of pesto, ham, and egg sandwiches, we were relieved when at precisely 9 am the lock gate opened, the green light shone, and six boats creeped slowly and carefully into the massive lock. The lock was the largest we've seen yet and could have held at at least another three large boats. It was also different in that there was a floating dock inside the lock to tie your lines to, as opposed to hanging onto slimy ropes strung from the concrete of the lock itself. It was a very classy operation, and they charged us 53 bucks for the privilege of a single passage.
We proceeded northward on the Richelieu River, happy we'd completed the final lock of this leg of the journey. We only had seven more to go in the coming week on the St Lawrence Seaway, but Magnus and I would have to handle those on our own as Curtis had a plane to catch in Montreal at 5 pm today, his part of this adventure story coming to an exciting close. I wasn't worried as we'd built up a wealth of lock experience since our start in Coxsackie, which felt like a year ago.
We hit the big waters of the St. Lawrence River at around 11 am and hung a right into the Sorel Yacht Club where we'd arranged to use their mast crane for the incredibly low price of $60 Canadian. This made the US $100 we paid back in Castleton look like a royal rip-off, never mind the Hop-O-Nose marina there who charged US $500 - $600 for the full service option. It's good be be back on home turf.
There was one boat already at the crane station so Curt and I helped them while Magnus worked with the dock hand to fill our diesel, do a pump-out, and pay for everything, then later came to join us. The mast raising went well and as we did it the Quebecer couple told us a harrowing story of how they had lost their rudder in the middle of the ocean between the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos and had to abandon ship and be water rescued by the US Coast Guard and dropped off at the Bahamian island of Inagua. Incredibly, their disabled boat showed up 24 hours later a few miles from where they were and a fishermen found it and towed it in for them. This made the few misadventures we faced look sad and lame in comparison, so I should have just made up a great story like that. But then one of y'all would have felt like punching me out and probably done it.
Our own mast raising went perfectly and we were done in under an hour. After the fourth time raising and lowering it, I feel I'm becoming quite proficient so if anybody needs help with theirs...
Curtis's Uber arrived at 1:30 to shuttle him to the bus stop for the long ride to Montreal. We took a final photo of ourselves, shared a round of hugs and sadly sent him off. It had been an incredible week. So many hours chatting, lots of laughs, a few surprises, delays, conquests, tight spots, victories, a little bit of drinking, and a chance for him and Magnus to spend a significant amount of time together. My brother is a cool cat and a deep thinker and it was a real privilege to have him onboard.
After disassembling the two wooden horses we used to support the mast and depositing it into a tidy pile for the marina to dispose of, we returned to the boat, pushed off, and headed upstream towards Montreal. The current was not as bad as I expected and we managed a respectable five knots. We took turns at the helm while the other did boat jobs; Magnus cleaned the deck with glorious clean lake water dipped from a bucket (I appreciate fresh water far more now) and I organized the deck lines and tuned the rigging, and started reconnecting all the mast wiring. At one straightaway the autopilot took care of steering while we both wrestled the boom back onto the mast and installed the sail pack.
We arrived to the Ile aux Fermiers anchorage just north of Montreal around 7 pm, dropped the hook, then finished off a couple boat jobs before Magnus took the dinghy out for a high speed rip around the bay and I assembled some leftovers for dinner.
It had been another huge day and having the mast back up made SeaLight feel like a sailboat again.
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