4th July DAing to Montreal

[tribologist]

Trip planned! GPS loaded and Autopilot serviced! Pulling up to Rouses point in Lake Champlain on Friday and from there we take Richelieu River and Chambly Canal to St Lawrence Seaway to Montreal and are staying there three nights. Dunno if we go back to get trailer so we can go up in the river towards Ottawa or if we will boat back upstream in Richelieu.

[DCatSea]

Nice one. Looking forward to some pix eh.

[tribologist]

Thanks Doug, We were back and forth between Montreal or go to Alexandria and go up towards Ottawa. Yours are there, right? We might do that later this summer

[tribologist]

Prepping! Made a mugholder for front windows using the suction cup from a Camco mugholder

[DCatSea]

Love to see you guys in Alex. Gove me a PM and we can meet up.

[DesertAlbin736]

Could you go up Ottowa River to Ottowa from Montreal then down the Rideau back to Kingston & downstream on St. Lawrence back to Richelieu. That's something we had considered tor 2020 before COVID first hit.

Warning about Chesapeake in July-August: been there, done that, & like last year on Erie Canal, can be hot, muggy, & stormy.

We enjoyed meeting last year, but no plans to "DA" back east again in foreseeable future. PNW remains our favorite cruising grounds, specifically San Juans, WA, Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound, & maybe Broughtons, BC next year. All you have to do is "DA" from CT to WA.

[tribologist]

Could if we had time but a week and two weekends are more manageable. Next would probably be Alexandria to Ottawa to Montreal and then trailer from there. No intent to lock in St Lawrence. PNW is to far. maybe if i coukd rent a A25. Been thinking of renting one in Sweden. $100 ich/day

[DesertAlbin736]

Love to see you guys in Alex. Gove me a PM and we can meet up.

I think there was a bit of confusion between Alexandria, VA vs Alexandria Bay, NY. I took the bait & confused the two as well when I mentioned Chesapeake Bay cruising. But in fact a fall cruise this year or a late spring/early summer Chesapeake Bay cruise next year could be doable. Say for instance making a one day 418 mile DA trailering road trip (roughly equivalent for us to trailer out to Marina Del Rey, CA) from Hartford, CT to a Crisfield, MD launch point that avoids the worst of NYC & Philly traffic by crossing Hudson River at Tarrytown, NY & the Delaware River from NJ to PA north of Trenton & on down through Delaware to Crisfield at the southern end of of Maryland's Eastern Shore on the Delmarva peninsula almost directly across from the mouth of the Potomac. Along the way through Delaware you could stop at Wilmington & see the replica of the Kalmar Nyckel tall ship that was used to transport settlers to the short lived Swedish colony of New Sweden in Delaware from 1638 to 1655.

The Kalmar is interesting in that it's steered with a "whipstaff" rather than a tiller or wheel, something common on 17th century sailing ships. A whip staff is a vertically mounted lever with the lower end attached to the end of a conventional tiller and a pivot point below deck somewhere near the center. The helmsman stands in the waist with a limited or zero view ahead and steers by compass or commands from the quarterdeck. So in this case an order of "hard a starboard" or "hard a port" would mean moving the lever to port or starboard as the case may be and would turn the ship in that direction. Later with wheel steered ships (like the Titanic) a command of "hard a starboard" would be taken to mean as if moving a tiller to starboard, in effect turning the ship to port.

whipstaff.jpg

From Crisfield you cross the lower Bay with a stop at Smith Island and on up the Potomac River to Washington DC. If done in the spring a good time to arrive in DC would be for Memorial Day celebrations.

hartfordcrisfieldmap.jpg

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crisfielddock.jpg

crisfieldlaucnramp.jpg

smithisland.jpg

We did something similar in 2015, trailering from Weekapaug, RI to Seaford, DE on the Nanticoke. Barnegat, NJ was my original childhood home town. Had we launched from Crisfield instead of Blades on the Nanticoke we might have had a better chance of getting up to DC in time for July 4th.

Jersey Route Map.jpg

[tribologist]

Doing progress! Made it to Chambly via St Jean. Just got a quebec flag so i will fly that as courtesy flag for rest of trip! DA. Not sure when we will be going south. Was considering goin Albany to Mays Landing in NJ but figured we should give Canada a try. Really like the canals here! Small locks and a nice pace.

[DesertAlbin736]

Very cool! Bon Voyage!

[tribologist]

Nice trip from chambly to Montreal and two nights stays there. We went from Chambly to Bellerive marina near Sorel, from there we stopped at Marina Rive Nord in Repentigny where we got guidance on how to negotiate the current in Montreal thats about 7-8 kt now.. Today we took a 90 mile stretch back to chambly, just to end up 14 miles from where we started. This way we get an extra day in Chambly. Was hoping for an albin in museum of fine art. Only a snowmobile and an Ikea watering can