The Entertainer's WakeJourney from Ontario to Nova Scotia 2009

12:30pm coming to the start of the Beauharnois Canal.

1:30pm we are through the valleyfield bridge and the st-louis bridge. They are lift bridges and we are getting a good laugh as the large powerboats are racing past us and hours later when we arrive at the locks or the bridges they are still waiting. We are the only ones using the call in points listed on the charts and the bridge and lift operators are waiting for us. Seems we have priority today since there doesn’t seem to be many cargo ships.

-weather today is much nicer. sun is up, slight cool breeze and the water is calm.-

2:15pm we have arrived at the first of the beauharnois locks. Much nicer experience than the american locks of yesturday. They have a really nice floating dock with lots of room for boats. We are tied up here with a family from montreal, there is an automatic ticket dispenser and we only need to buy once for both locks. There is a message board and it says that the locks are delayed and we will be ready at 2:30.

3:45pm we are tied up in the lock with a 40min wait – minimum. The two performance boats that we locked through with yesurday have caught up to us. The family from montreal are ruturning from a weekend down in valleyfield. The drinks started to flow as soon as we found out the wait time – including the deck hands who asked for a couple drinks. A new experience is waiting for us when we finally drop, there is a large ship waiting just outside the doors between us and the next lock.

5:45pm cleared the last lock of the day. We will be in Kirkland shortly and Ray’s brothers place. The family next to us where Benoit, Isabelle, and their son Jeremy Charron. Their boat was Jeremy’s 2.

We have turned off the beaten path and are headed towards a marina in beaconsfield. Hopefully they take boats our size or we could be heading on later into the night.

Captain has announced “WE HAVE REACHED” (quoted from his good friend Peter)

We are docked at the point claire yaght club.  Very shallow water getting here once we left the main shipping channel but it was nice to be out of the traffic.  Ray has started dinner and it looks like we could be in for a fun night.  The weekly race night is tonight and I would say the bar looks prepared.  We have been greeted constantly since tieing up and welcomed aboard several boats already, and most are still out racing.

We got going around nine this morning. Rick has promised me to a fresh fish lunch with the bass I caught last night. I am on his good side again now that I have let him skunk me and take a two game lead at crib.

10:00am we had our first cargo ship sneak up behind us. Radar is now on and being watch a little closer. We will be at our first lock at Iroquois shortly and may even have to share the lock with the same cargo ship.

In case some of you are wondering, here are a few facts about what we are getting into.

They are the tallest water staircase and they raise ships from the St. Lawrence River starting in Montreal to Lake Erie, a total of 552ft. Built in 1959.

All locks are 766ft long, 80ft wide, and 30ft deep. Largest ship allowed to use them is 740ft by 78ft (tight fit)

The locks work on gravity and hold 91 million lts of water and still only take approx. 10 minutes to fill or empty.

We have no idea what we are in for. The turbulance from the empty and filling and being in these chambers with massive ships has everyone aboard resting and preparing. Not much is being said aboard the entertainer this morning.

Must have been the cargo ship catching us off guard, the atmosphere has come back around. First beers have started, boat is being cleaned (rick is tackling the spiders and I am almost finishing cleaning the ceiling in the back deck. We just passed our first barge and tug.

I told you about us reaching 8.6 kts yesturday but I didn’t mention that I was at the wheel. It turns out #1 likes a little competition (not just at trying to pick our miles and anchorages) and he was able to get us skippin along at 9 kts today.

12:10pm arriving at our first locks.

12:53pm cleared the Iroquois locks. What a disappointment, we never even had to tie up. We paid $25 to enter into a large concrete sturcture, a guy reached out with collection bin on a stick to take our ticket and the gates open in front of us and we leave. We didn’t even stop moving and as far as we can tell there was no drop.

3:40pm arriving at the Eisenhower Lock.

4:15pm still bobbing around waiting to get in. A tug just passed us and loaded in, not sure if we will be allowed to travel with it or not. A couple that went through at Iroquois with us must have been sitting here for hours waiting, and there is a sailboat as well, plus to speed boats that are travelling together.

-weather is not very nice today, overcast, few raindrops, and cool-

6:20pm exitted the Eisenhower Lock. On our way to Snell

7:50pm cleared all the locks we are doing today. We are anchored on the american side in grassey river. We can still see the Snell Lock. Tomorrow we will probably head into cornwall for fuel. Maybe head further down the river since there is a strong current all around cornwall island.

We left Kingston after checking over the entertainer and setting the steadying sail. 9:40am we took the passage between milton and spectacule islands. Our plan was to take the northeast route behind howe is. Once we reache the point were we had to make a decision the waters in the deeper waters did not look inviting and the trip behind howe island turned out to be a very good choice.

12:12pm we entered the main shipping lane of the St. Lawrence.

The homes in the thousand islands range from monstorous castle like buildings to tiny little cottages that look like they have been built entirely on a man made islands. Every island here has something built on it.

Lots of mahogany run-abouts tied to the docks in this area (my personal favourite).

The currents in these islands got us moving almost 8 and a half knots. Engine was loving it.

We found an island called Stovin Is. The St.Lawrence parks have docks on all the islands and it is a first come first serve idea where you pay by the honor system. Rick and I went fishing in the tender for a bit, more of a site seeing and beer driking trip. However I did catch my first bass.