Chambly to St. Blaise-sur-Richelieu

Monday, August 7 -- Chambly to Marina St. Tropez -- 19 miles plus 6 locks

Today was a very different day on the Richelieu River. It was a Monday and overcast with scattered rain showers, so there were very few boats out. We spent the morning doing the 12-mile long Chambly Canal and its six locks at 6 mph. All the locks again were hand-operated by friendly and bilingual Canadian National Parks personnel. We locked through with another boat that also spent the night with us on the wall at Chambly. There were two couples aboard, both from Longueuil and very friendly with good English. They were on their way to spend a week cruising on Lake Champlain for the second time, so they had some helpful advice. 

We left Chambly just before 9:30 and tied up at the public dock at St. Jean-sur-Richelieu at the end of the canal four hours later to get lunch ashore. We found a nice brew pub right near the dock. The photos below show us docked for lunch and the nice flowers along the canal bank in St. Jean-sur-Richelieu.

The photo below shows how the canal runs right alongside the Richelieu River (visible on the left beyond the trees). There were lots of bikers and walkers using the path along the canal. 

The canal had a number of lift bridges, including a couple newer ones with this very interesting design. 

Our final destination was the St. Tropez Marina about seven miles upstream from St. Jean-sur-Richelieu. There was no town to speak of, but the marina had a nice restaurant and two pairs of flotels. Each flotel barge had two rooms, each of which was built out of an old container box. They were not as roomy as the one in which Ashley and Griffin stayed in Chambly, but they did have an outdoor firepit, which we enjoyed after dinner.