Can the days get any better? The morning was calm and clear and we left the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club for our trip downbound the St. Lawrence River. But first we had to zig zag across shallow Lake St. Louis.   Then it was through two seaway size locks. The first was the St. Catherine lock. After waiting for an upbound ship to pass through, we entered the lock. The locks are built for 730 foot ships so Meander seemed miniscule in the giant lock chamber. The process only took a total of 10 minutes to lower us 32 feet. Then it was on to the the St. Lambert lock which lowered us 18 more feet.  

From there it was summer cruising with temperatures in the 70's, sunshine, and not a breath of wind all day. We were flying down the river at 11 mph with a 3 mph following current. We were too late through the locks to make Sorel before dark so we decided to try our first anchorage of the trip. We pulled in behind La Grande Ile, across from the small town of Contrecoeur. It’s a perfect night to be on the hook for the first time with no wind and a 1 mph current to keep us from swinging on the anchor. The only problem is ferrying Charlie to the town dock for him to do his business. We haven’t been able to train him to do it on the boat. But he doesn’t seem to mind the dingy ride to shore. Tomorrow we’ll make it to Sorel and the Richelieu River that goes up (not down as I mistakenly mentioned in an earlier post) to Lake Champlain.

It feels like today began the home strech for Part 1 of the Great Meander. It’s been a lot of fun and I (hopefully we) are not in a hurry to see it end.