Sainte Anne de Bellevue

Lock walls where we are docked at Sainte Anne de Bellevue, you can see that most people prefer the restaurant side, only a few of us on the park side.

Some areas where the water is "skinny" or shallow on the way into Sainte Anne de Bellevue. The rocks here are just outside the channel markers, so we were very careful to stay inside the marked channel. Even then, there were places where we were down to 2.7 ft. under our boat.

In the Beauharnois lock. From the front deck of our boat, you can see the front decks of the other two boats that we are tied up to. The lady on the far end had to hold the rope to keep their boat close to the wall as we descended about 40 feet.

Left Marina 200 just after 8 this morning, beautiful sunny morning, but cool in the flybridge of the boat. Got through the 2 bridges with little delay; we were lucky, talked to some other people who waited 45 minutes for one of the bridges to open. Got to the Beauharnois locks by 1 pm, and a huge commercial freighter was coming through. The lockmaster said two other commercial boats were coming, he hadn't  decided whether we would go through before them or after. In the end he decided to make us wait, so we didn't get through until about 4:30, and then it was about 5 by the time we got through the 2nd lock. In all of the locks we did during the great loop, we have never seen another like these. The people on one boat take ropes from the top of the lock, the second boat rafts off the first boat, then the 3rd boat rafts off or ties to the 2nd boat. We were 6 boats in lock, so the next 3 did the same thing. Wayne kept the engines running so he could move the boat forward or back to keep the three of us in line. In most locks each boat would have a set of ropes to hold on to.
Another hour run and we were in Sainte Anne de Bellevue, where the Ottawa River meets the St. Lawrence. We will go through the lock just ahead of us in the morning, then start up the Ottawa River.

Boats tied along the wall at St. Anne de Bellevue, beautiful evening.

We are tied along the lock wall right in the town. Across from us is a whole row of restaurants and bars, we are tied on the side with park land, much quieter. We walked across and had dinner at a very nice place, may even go out for breakfast in the morning before we head out. First full day on the water, we all find that we are tired, even though we feel like we spent most of the day waiting for the lock.