Lots of Wi Fi issues in Canada…so you’ll be missing photos…but here is what’s happening so far….

July 1… Canada Day…Today is the day…we have just a few miles to travel and then we pass into Canada…a stop at the Customs Wharf is required…yellow flag to fly…no one leaves the boat but the Captain. He has gathered passports, Dakota’s rabies info, boat registration, counted cigars and liquor bottles…we are a tad over the limit on that…

It is cloudy, cool…windy…and we are the only boat at the wharf…two very official looking 12 year olds (I’m sure they were older as they wore guns) escorted the Captain into the office…less than five minutes later we were outta there…amazing!!! They didn’t care that he was over his limits…we boogied outta there so fast that Floyd forgot all about that yellow flag until we were 30 minutes out.

And then the rain came!!! The plan was to arrive at St Jeans Marina before it started…yeah, well, that didn’t work so well. We were drenched!!! And docked on the fuel dock…no slip for us…and one electric cord (three attached together actually) strung through the puddles. Not worth the money, that’s for sure. We had wet clothes and coats hanging everywhere…the sun would shine and then the rain would return. During one sunny moment we walked down to Lock 9 of the Chambly Canal to purchase our seasonal canal pass and the seasonal mooring pass. These passes will be good on Chambly, Richelieu, Rideau and Trent-Severn Waterways.

We are excited about this Chambly Canal…10 miles…9 locks and 9 low bridges …predicted 3-5 hour travel time …in what we would call “baby locks”. Hand operated…French speaking…the list of Canal preparations is enough to make the First Mate jittery…they use their own lines but want you to have yours ready…fenders on both sides…boathook and gloves…locks are 21 feet wide and 100 feet long (very small when compared to those we traversed on the Mississippi)…we are hoping no other boats appear.

 Of course, as we walked back to the boat it rained! More wet clothes…though I had opted to just wear my wet ones on the trip…you know who didn’t…LOL…and we kept hearing band music…well, even in the rain, it is Independence Day in Canada…Oh, and we noticed a large U-haul type truck full of pyrotechnics and people 200 yards across from us on an island…you guessed it…fireworks at 10:00PM.

Dakota and I ventured out once more…trying to get our steps in while the sun was shining…only to get drenched again…Don’t know where we managed to hang all these wet items…but somehow we did.

Marina had a nice restaurant...so we ventured up to try it…yes, menu was entirely in French and our waitress barely spoke English…but we were amazed at how much we understood….strangers in a foreign land…had a lovely meal and then waited for those fireworks…cause man-oh-man, we have front row seating for this one. If the wind blows or they have a miss fire, we are toast. Dakota was not impressed. We were sort of looking forward to an early night…we have work to do tomorrow…but just like at Fort Edwards last week…people people people…and fireworks. But then the band music returned…don’t these folks have to work tomorrow??? We don’t really know when it finally stopped…we went to bed.