Scramble

Today is Monday. I start with this as I do each morning when I wake and put the first few words in the log. Date, day, place, barometer, temperature, and what I see out the window. Carrie Rose is tied to the Parks Canada pier in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu. This marks the end of the Chambly canal: Lock 9 and a final bridge. Old Richelieu lies just east behind a large concrete pier.

It is cold and raining today. Charlotte and I became water logged while locking through the last five locks of the Chambly canal. Speed limits of 10k/h have to be maintained because it is narrow and there are bridges that need to be opened and locks. Boats are going north and south, so the lockmasters have to juggle these variables.

If you go a little too fast, you are scolded and if you are a little too slow, you are told to hurry up. Mind you, when a young French Canadian woman with a sweet voice does the scolding, it makes it even more biting.

For us this marks the end of the locks. The Richelieu River will deliver us into Lake Champlain where we will stop and leave Carrie Rose to spend the winter in Vermont’s artic clime. The start of the Chambly Canal was as eventful as its end was not. We pulled out of Sorel early on Saturday morning and 40 nautical miles later ended up tied to the bottom of Lock #1 in the Chambly basin.

Carrie Rose cruised out of the confined river into a bay of sorts and there as usual was the lock tucked into the corner. Our friends on Mutual Fun had warned us on the radio that the tie-up wall was full and that boats were circling.

A lock takes boats in and up, and down and out, so the circumstances are in constant flux. Though in these situations, I want to hold back but I do not. I entered the fray, slowly of course, and see what happens. When I got there the circling boats seemed to vanish. There is a marina next to the lock, and I think they were frustrated and peeled off to dock for the night.

The lock gates opened and four boats came out. This usually means boats will go in and leave space on the wall, which they did. I saw an opening. An open spot on the blue line and I went for it. The problem was that the two boats on the dock were moving up into that space, so in a flurry of French we were pushed off the dock.

I made a big circle amongst ski boats, PWCs, and I kid you not, a person levitating on two streams of water coming from his shoes. In conditions like this situational awareness is the name of the game. I kept turning and before we knew it, the same flurry of French was now welcoming us to the dock.

We were lucky. The lockmaster, once through scolding me because I had not responded to her return radio call, settled us in for the night. Scramble at an end we went in search of gelato.