Montreal to Sorel

Saturday, August 5 -- Montreal to Sorel -- 44 miles 

This was an exciting day because our daughter, Ashley, and her youngest son, Griffin, met us at the La Ronde marina in Montreal to ride with us the next four days to Burlington, Vermont.

They had a long day getting to the La Ronde marinas. Their Boston to Montreal flight was cancelled with short notice and the best alternate plan that Ashley could devise was to drive their car to Burlington, then get a one-way rental from Burlington to Montreal. They were planning originally to do a one-way rental for their return from Burlington, so this plan worked out pretty well. They met us at the marina at 3pm having left Lexington, MA at 8am without a break. We fed them some snacks and then got underway at 4pm for the two-and-a-half hour run to Sorel.

A very distinctive feature in boating in this part of Quebec is the elaborate steeples on the churches, usually painted silver. They are even in the small towns, as the photos from tomorrow will show. Here is the church at Varennes, just downstream from Montreal...  

and here's the church at our destination of Sorel...

The restaurant at our marina in Sorel was booked solid on a Saturday, and the restaurant at Ashley and Griffin's hotel was booked for a wedding, so we ended up taking a cab into town for dinner. That turned out to be a good thing, as Ashley found us an awesome restaurant (Fougasse), and there was a band playing on the square (and a good one for once).

Sorel and it's sister city across the Richelieu River, Tracey, are industrial towns. There is a big factory in Tracey that processes ilmenite ore that is mined in northern Quebec to separate it into titanium oxide and iron. Rio Tinto owns both the mine and the processing plant. The ships at the factory dock must either be hauling in ilmenite or hauling out product. There were also two ships anchored out nearby in the St. Lawrence River, presumably waiting their turns at the factory dock.

We saw a couple upbound freighters during our run on the St. Lawrence. We saw the Evans Spirit of the McKeil line back on June 3 on our way to the Soo. The Federal Sakura of the FedNav line looked like she was recently painted. Both of these are Canadian shipping lines. 

The Blair McKeil that was anchored off Sorel we also saw running loaded upbound on the St. Lawrence upstream of Montreal on July 29. She was probably carrying something from the Rio Tinto plant to a steel mill somewhere on the Great Lakes.