Saint Jean, QC to Chambly, QC

Miles Traveled 10.9

Total Miles Traveled 4794

Day 280

We were ready this morning for the 9:30 opening of the Saint Jean Swing Bridge and Lock #9.  The locks are very narrow and only have room for two boats our size.   The speed limit through the canal system is 6 mph but there were several places we had to reduce speed passing through 8 bridges and narrow channels.

Some sections of the canal opened up to large areas of shallow water, but the narrow channel twisted and turned to keep us in deeper water.

When we arrived at Chambly, the last three consecutive locks dropped us 35 feet into Basin de Chambly, a wide body of water at the base of the Chambly rapids.  Our 11 mile cruise took us about 4 ½ hours today.

Our first challenge after securing the boat to the dock was to find a bank to exchange US dollars for Canadian dollars; one Canadian dollar is equal to about 0.77 cents US.  We didn’t think the street signs were going to be very helpful.

I did recognize this one though.

The lock attendant was very helpful; she searched the local area on her computer and printed a map to the closest bank.  When we arrived, the first teller didn’t speak English so we were directed to the next window………. mission accomplished!

About 65% of the population of Montreal speaks French, which makes it the second largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.  This should be an interesting next couple of weeks as Moni and I don’t speak or understand French.

We walked to the refurbished Fort Chambly, originally built in the 1600’s, located next to the Richelieu River rapids.  If we hadn’t have went to the bank, we would have made it in time, we arrived just as they were closing the fort and museum.  We walked back to town to a local restaurant and had their specialty pizza.