Brockville, ON to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC
We were up by 0730 hrs. and both took showers before breakfast. As we left the harbor at 0835 hrs. we saw the “pirate” ship from yesterday moored near the entrance; it’s obviously a tourist boat out of Brockville. We reached the Iroquois Lock only to see a big freighter going in, and so settled in for a long wait. Instead, the wait was very short, and then we remembered that the Iroquois Lock only drops about 18”. In fact we are small enough to go through the sluice gate at the dam and save ourselves $25, but I wasn’t sure of the clearances at the time. We passed the freighter a few miles downstream, and were mooring at the pleasure craft dock at the Eisenhower Lock when a pick-up screeched to a halt above us and the driver told us to get into the lock quickly or we would have to wait for the freighter. We obeyed with alacrity, and they got us through quickly and held the Snell lock open for us, where we joined two other boats locking through. The two other boats then sped off but, after quite a rough trip through Lake St. Francis as a brisk SW breeze built up the chop over the long reach, we caught up with them again waiting with a trawler at Lock Beauharnois. We got to talking as we waited there about an hour (the lock men were painting something and wanted to finish before opening the lock!) and they gave us a lot of good advice on the Rideau. The owner of L’Express even said he would lead us to the channel around Ile Perot at the intersection of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers, but in fact he sped off again, and Mary and I had a hard time finding the channel. When we stopped to decide which way to go the engine warning buzzer went off. I had no idea what was wrong, and so just stopped and restarted the engine and everything seemed OK. Worrying though. We arrived at the lock wall in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue at 1830 hrs. and walked around town before having pizza for supper. The noise from the nearby train bridge was a little loud, but we slept well anyway.