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| St. Lambert Federal Lock |
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| St. Catherine Federal Lock |
Twelve hours to go 24NM. To make matters worse… it rained all day. There are two huge “Federal” locks we had to transit outside of Montreal whose priority is commercial ships. Pleasure craft must wait at small docks outside the locks until the lock authorities have the time to pass pleasure craft both up and down river. Yup. There is no set time for locking pleasure craft through so you get there early and wait. We arrived at the St. Lambert lock around 8:00am. The electronic sign said pleasure craft must wait until 12:00pm. Five container ships were locked through during that time at the St. Lambert Lock. By noon there were seven of us. The dock is large enough for five to six small boats or three to four large boats like Splash Down. Others boats have to raft to those boats. We had three boats rafted to us. We finally got into the St. Lambert lock around 12:40pm. We were the fourth boat to go in. Since we are going up river, we at the low water level in the lock. We are to be raised 15 feet in this lock. Men in orange rain gear tossed two lines to the boats agains the lock wall. We saw the two large boat that had rafted to us at the pleasure craft dock rafted to each other on the lock wall. No one had to raft to us. But, the three small boats had to raft to each other. There were strong eddies in the lock pushing and pulling the boats. It took the three small boats a long time to get rafted to each other. As the lock filled, everyone handling the lock wall lines struggled to keep the boat and boats from being push against the lock wall or pulled to the other side of the lock. We finally exited St. Lambert lock at 13:10pm. Every boat then made a speed run to the next lock. A hurry up and wait scenario. When we arrive at the St. Catherine lock the pleasure craft dock was full. So, we rafted to another boat and waited while it rained. The wind was picking up and the temperature was dropping. The pleasure boats were allowed to enter around 4:50pm. This time we had a 42 foot boat rafted to us. Linda and I didn’t have to worry about our finders scraping along the lock wall the way the eddies were flowing around our boats. We did have to work hard to keep us and the rafted from moving to the other side of the lock. We were lifted 30 feet to reach the water level of Lake St Louis. We exited the lock around 5:25pm. Lake St Louis is a big lake in size, but is shallow in depth. There is no direct channel from one end of the lake to the other. So we, as other boats, have to follow the narrow channel in a zig-zag pattern. We got midway across the lake and then zig-zag to our destination. Moving against the current and wind, we arrive Yacht-Club Royal St-Laurent around 7:00pm just behind a sailboat
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| Yacht-Club Royal St-Laurent |
who we thought were locals. We tied up at the club’s fuel dock after the sailboat move back to give us room to dock. After getting Splash Down settled we met Roger, Lin, and their dog who are from Seattle, Washington on their boat Schatzie. After talking to Roger and Lin we went up to the club house. This club is massive. They have a two story clubhouse twice the size of Hampton Yacht Club, a swimming pool, tennis courts, two story sailing center, and boat yard (for putting up all the boats in the club for the winter). The only thing that Hampton Yacht Club has over the Royal St-Laurent Yacht Club is the number of and size of boat slips. We went in to the club where we found a faux fireplace with a simulated fire and smoke. There were huge sailing trophies in display cases throughout the downstairs spaces. We learned from the bartender, Veronica, that the club received it royal charter from Queen Victoria 125 years ago making it one of the oldest yacht clubs in North America. After relaxing at the bar, we returned to Splash Down for sleep.
