Last Updated 10/24/05

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On a clear, bright, and calm Sunday, 7/11, we departed Oswego and set our waypoint nearly due north across a very flat Lake Ontario. It’s 50 miles to Kingston, a city of about 155,000, at headwaters of the St. Lawrence River. We crossed the international border and arrived at Kingston’s Confederation Basin. It’s a very large municipal marina at the heart of downtown, a perfect location. Customs was by phone and a snap (unlike our experience 7/13 returning to the US).

We spent a delightful day and a half touring, walking around, engaging the locals who were universally friendly; the shops and restaurants were wonderful. Sunday was the last day of a national convocation of buskers, or street performers. Roads were closed to make room for them. Corny but entertaining.

We left in clouds and showers on Tuesday, traveling to Alexandria Bay. On arrival we were told multiple conflicting stories about clearing US Customs, but finally discovered that there was a picture phone at the town dock. We went there with ships papers and passports, interacted visually with a Customs agent somewhere in cyberspace, and finally were told it was ok to stay. The border is so porous I don’t know why they assume bad guys would go to all the trouble we did to clear in. Awaiting was a new motor for our anchor windlass which I installed and got our ‘hook’ working again.

Wednesday the 14^th (Bastille Day) we departed in light rain and ran all of 10 miles down river to Cedar Island where we were guests of Jeff and Dave, my former business partners, who own it. It looks like we are about to tow the boathouse away, but in fact we had a “Golden Pond” experience in the peace and tranquility that only an island in the St. Lawrence can provide. It deserved the champagne toast that we gave it. We enjoyed it so much we hung around for three full days, exploring nearby waters and actually, because of daily rain, getting a ton of little chores done that had been piling up.

We departed Cedar Island on Saturday, 7/17 bound for Montreal with stops in Massena, NY, Lac St. Francis, and Ile Tekakateka before arriving in Montreal on Tuesday. The Canadian customs are pretty strict on things brought into the country, including spirits. We left a couple bottles for our friends at Cedar Island and otherwise dispensed with the dregs of some hooch that probably we'd never touch again.

The trip Saturday was in perfect weather - clear, calm, warm. The shores of the St. Lawrence on both sides are beautiful with attractive towns and gorgeous homes. We slipped through the Iroquois Lock with ease - probably a one foot drop, but they were still happy to collect the $20 fee. On to Massena, we discovered the marina

we thought we would stay at could not accommodate a vessel our size, so we found a great anchorage near the Eisenhower Lock and settled in. Andrea prepared lines for locking, Chuck scrubbed the accumulated scum off the waterline. The water is crystal clear and 72°. When we reach Montreal, we will be back in tidal seawater and the temp will be about 20° less so this was likely the last dip for a couple months!

Bright and early on 7/18 we called the Eisenhower Lock and were amazed to be immediately invited to lock through. Huge lock but the most helpful hands. It also helped to have floating bollards which eliminated the need to tend lines. This was the first of six major drops on the St. Lawrence Seaway that took us down an average of 45’ per.

Exiting the second we were effectively into Canada for the duration of our DECL, not to return to the US until September.  We also began to get a taste for the 1-2 knot “tailwind” that the natural river current provides and seeing 10-11 knots on the GPS became routine.

We stayed that night at the Creg Quay marina, in a boating region, although still in the province of Ontario, was really a Montreal suburb. We were warmly welcomed and adopted by more than a dozen very sociable boaters – all of whom were Quebecois, meaning that most spoke both French and English, but some only spoke French. After a suitable amount of socializing on the dock, nothing would do but for fourteen of us to hop in cars and go out for some of Big Luke's famous BBQ ribs in nearby Lancaster.

It was a wonderful harbinger of coming experiences with French Canadians who universally were friendly, fun, engaging, helpful, and tolerant of our poor command of their language. Whether in large cities like Quebec and Montreal, or small villages like La Malbie or Montane, even if none of us had a single word of common language, there was mutual respect, humor, helpfulness. Everyone should feel entirely comfortable in this vast region of our northern neighbor.

7/19 was a long day – ten hours, but we got to Montreal a day early as a result of the push. We exited the seaway there, passing an up-bound freighter, and turned back upstream (~5 knots against us!) and crawled to Port d’Escale – a huge municipal marina smack in the center of downtown.

The next five days were not enough to do more than scratch the surface of this sophisticated “Paris of North America.” With bike paths galore, parks, several universities, the former Olympic Park, the former Expo, etc., it is arguably the San Diego of Canada in terms of being recreation-friendly. It is also clean, safe, historic, charming, and full of too many good restaurants.

With some regrets we cast off on 7/24 for Trois-Rivieres some 70 miles downstream, and the following day made another 70 to Quebec. We clicked over the 6,000nm mark on our way down the St. Lawrence’s wide, deep (150’) and swift (often 3-4kts) waters.

The river cuts through rolling countryside with many farms and villages. Each had a huge church; all are neat and clean. Throughout most of our trip, Andrea was able to stay in touch with friends and family, as well as continue her coaching practice via cell phone.

Arrival in Quebec was dramatic as the city with it’s citadel, the Chateau Frontenac, and government buildings towered over the water on a plateau atop 200’ high cliffs. The marina is right in downtown and is protected from the 8-10’ tides by a lock. Well, guess what? On that Sunday afternoon around 5:00 p.m. we were not the only ones wanting to enter the marina. So, with 13(count 'em) other boats ranging from 20-60’ we stuffed the boat into the lock and made it through with minimum problems but maximum excitement!

As in Montreal, we could have spent more than the 4 nights we did in Quebec. It is old (400 years) and beautifully preserved in this 21st century. There are some salutes to modern

times, though, but the Burger Kings and McDonalds were in as much harmony with the environs as possible. We walked everywhere, excepting the 25 km bike ride to Montmorency Falls (higher than Niagra). The marina had a complimentary DSL line and we caught up on a little email. Chuck’s laptop died and was shipped to HP in Toronto to get fixed. (Yes, I did have backups of most everything).

Thus ended Leg 3 of our arbitrarily divided Down East Circle Loop. Every mile has been a delight with welcome surprises nearly every minute.

Leg 4 will see us out the entire length of the St. Lawrence, around Gaspe, down to New Brunswick, and finally to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where we will park the boat for a week to go to Connecticut and celebrate Roger and Marcie’s wedding. Stay tuned.

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