Heading Toward Home on the Richelieu River

August 18, 2011

That title should get your attention! It's time for a geography lesson so that you get a feeling for where we are now heading.

Today we will be changing the northeasterly direction that we've been heading in since leaving from Montreal to a southerly direction when we turn onto the Richelieu River. That's why I said we were heading “home”. We are way far from home and will have some weird twists of fate before we can even think about getting to the Atlantic Ocean, much less Florida.

The Richelieu River mostly ran to Sorel, Quebec, Canada from the upper reaches of Lake Champlain. In the mid-1800s the depletion of American timber supplies sparked an interest in the Canadian timber trade, so the demand existed to make the Richelieu River fully navigable for vessels that could haul timber and related products to the U.S. Thus, a series of locks and canals were built, and those are what we will be traveling on to reach Lake Champlain.

A peek at the little river entrance

We sure were surprised when we rounded the point just ahead of Sorel and saw a big, ugly industrial complex right on the riverfront. We had been traveling on the mighty St. Lawrence, devoid of industry except at Montreal, and the little Richelieu River appeared as just a trickle between two big factory areas. We soon realized that the industry was associated with the St. Lawrence and not the Richelieu.

Within a couple of miles we were away from the industrialized section of the river and on a twisting, scenic, rural river. The whole day, 40 miles, would be a pleasant cruise by many farms with lots of odoriferous dairy cattle and corn fields, small, quaint villages, and only a few modern residential areas.

Flower bank

We kept trying to figure out if this flower planting was supposed to be in the shape of anything we should know. Even though we couldn't decide on one thing, we all enjoyed the bright yellow mass of flowers that almost covered the entire bank.

Double blessings

This is the riverfront church of St.-Antoine-sur-Richelieu. There are those of you who are hoping that maybe I've finally gotten some religion on this trip since I'm posting all these church photos. That is definitely not the case. I marvel over the architectural detail of their construction and what a prominent feature they are in the tiny villages that don't even seem like they would have a population large enough to support them. Plus, the churches really lend such a European feel to the setting.

Many of the tiny villages had public wharves or walls for boats to tie up to, but they were too small or very exposed to wind and/or river wakes for a FLUKE-sized vessel to be comfortable on. It would have been fun to stop and be able to walk around a couple of the villages and see some other buildings, but that would have to wait until we docked for the night.

After we had traveled 10 miles upriver, we came to the Saint-Ours Lock where we would lock up 5'. Unlike the locks on the Rideau, we could call the lock via VHF radio to let them know we wanted to lock through, so they had the lock gate open when we arrived.

Shrub sculpture

This yard had some shrubs trimmed in interesting shapes.

Mont St.-Hilaire

Both the village and the mountain use the same name. The mountain was visible for most of our day on the river, looming in the distance, a huge bump rising upward from very flat lands all around it. I couldn't wait to get up next to it and see what it looked like. We would have loved to be able to hike to the top and look out over the snaked river valley, but there was no safe dock for us around there. Notice the blue and white flag in the photo. That is the flag of Quebec. A lot of the villages only flew this flag, not the standard national flag of Canada, the red and white maple leaf flag.

Just one more

I just couldn't leave this one out, especially with that prominent bell tower.

8 miles from the end of our trip for the day we came to the Pont Beloeil railroad bridge with a 27' clearance, so we had to lower our antennas; no big deal. However, you have to go under the bridge span closest to the west bank. The opening is very narrow, only room for one boat at a time, and with the angle of the bridge to the bank, visibility is very limited for the hard turn that has to be quickly made after going under the bridge. The current raging under the bridge is the worst on the Richelieu, so you have to be very careful to have full control while going through. Fortunately for a slow boat like FLUKE going against the current gives us the best control. I would have been very fearful with that current behind us. We announced our presence on the VHF and sounded our horn before approaching the span, but were still nervous that another boat would be coming from around the corner. We breathed a sigh of relief when we had cleared the bridge and the turn and could fully see upriver again. It can't be over-emphasized how dangerous this passage really is for slow and underpowered vessels.

Our day would end when we reached the village of Chambly, site of the fort by the same name and the beginning of the Chambly Canal. We didn't pass any other cruising boats in either direction the whole day.

Since this is a short post, and I've concluded that I won't be seeing any more Canadian loons, I'm declaring the 2011 Loon Photo Contest officially over. Out of 22 photos taken, the following is my best shot. It would have been a lot better if the eye had shown up more distinctly. If any one reading this has taken a better loon photo than this, let me see it and tell me how you managed to do it.

The winner

Two-headed mutant loon

Hey, I just had to throw this one in too. On one of the rare occasions when the water was calm and glassy, the light was lousy. So, the still water allowed for the reflected head shot.
I'm glad that this chore is finally over and hope no one had any great expectations on the outcome. At least now the guys will quit calling me a loon-a-tic!