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Breaking free!
Leaving home port!

Finally, at 9:00 a.m. on the 9th July, 2001, after a busy, busy year of planning, purchases and the preparing of Chinook, our sturdy YoungSun Westwind 35 sailboat, we left our home port of Niagara on the Lake (photo left) sailing at six knots almost due east in Lake Ontario. Our great adventure had at last begun.

There had been a frantic last week of completing last-minute jobs and saying goodbyes. Our drop-in “open-boat” party the previous weekend gave us a better chance to say farewell to many good friends who had thought we were crazy and now had it confirmed. Early on the departure morning we had a super send-off breakfast on the balcony of the sailing club with the McCreaths, Corvinos and Cavers/Genge gang, and with a noisy clanging of pots and pans we motored out of the Niagara River mouth. Quite an emotional leaving with tears and photos.

Photo: our open boat party 1:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m!

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The first week was markedly uneventful by long-distance cruising standards, but we did have excellent sailing – good winds gave us 61/2 – 7 knots to Whitby, Cobourg, and Presquile on Lake Ontario. Low lake water levels at Presquile Landing had us aground for a couple of hours until a tow out by a local power-boater. Wapoose is a pretty place with free muffins and coffee in the morning courtesy of the "marina mamma" and it marked for us the end of our Lake Ontario leg. From there to Kingston, anchoring off Endymion in the Thousand Islands with Mark and Janice Holmes (Marquis) from NOLSC - a chance meeting and a never-to-be-forgotten happy hour ending with Janice having an unscheduled swim leaving Chinook. 

On to Brockville!

At Brockville we checked our transmission oil, as one should do periodically. Well, wasn’t it “frothy coffee”! Water in the oil!  It was Friday afternoon, but Chris the mechanic (all 350 pounds of the nicest guy) sauntered down, looked at it briefly, shook his head ominously, said “Have a nice weekend, I’ll be back on Monday to take your tranny out.” To clip a long story, water had been getting in to the transmission through an ice- damaged cooling loop and seals. $1000 and sixteen days later we were on our way again. Steep learning curve number one. Yes, we did manage to extricate Chris from the engine compartment – he is no longer with us.

Chinook at Brockville.

We found Brockville to be a super Yacht club and one we would unreservedly recommend to cruisers to stop at. Friendly and helpful members who are very proud of the facility they have built themselves. The town itself is pretty, historic, and we frequented Tait’s Bakery daily for their delicious bread and baked goodies. The supermarket, liquor store and fresh seafood shop are all a five minute walk from the club. Eric and Anne (Sea Bird) took us under their wings and made us feel particularly welcome.

On August 6th from Brockville we headed toward Iroquois and our first lock (all of six inches in fall) then to Chrysler Park Marina in high winds, two more locks the next day to Cornwall, then to Valleyfield in Quebec. We felt we were finally getting somewhere “foreign” at last. High winds kept us in Valleyfield for three days; then began the journey through the locks to Montreal with all the commercial traffic. Quite interesting, but bear in mind that the whole journey thus far had been with huge salties and lakers and their tons-of-water bow waves. Often the wait time to get into locks was hours, but being tied up with fellow boaters and trading information with them passed the time.

Five-knot head-on currents prevented us from actually getting to the old port of Montreal (we tried – for an hour we just sat in one place with power-boaters whipping past us), so turning back we found the pretty town of Longueil almost across the river and moored ($10 per night with use of the showers etc.) A ferry service took us across to the big city and we spent a day exploring the old section.

The Blues Festival was to begin later in the week, and we debated staying for it or pressing on to Quebec City. Unfortunately, we had to move on, for by now, mid-August, we knew we were out of time to go around the Gaspe to PEI and Nova Scotia. The transmission troubles took a big chunk of valuable travelling time from our schedule. Low water levels in the St. Lawrence River reduced drastically our choices of marinas and anchorages. We even decided against going to Quebec City for this reason, as this would mean a very long haul there without stopping – the return being the real problem against winds, river current and possibly tides.

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So we reluctantly have decided to turn south at Sorel into the Richelieu River and Canal System and motor with mast down to the Hudson River, thence to New York City and into the Atlantic to the Intracoastal Waterway.

We ate healthily, but missed the in-season fresh (and cheaper) fruit of Niagara and were only able to buy French wines inexpensively in Quebec. We became accomplished at showering at anchor using our garden sprayer in the privacy of the cockpit. It is a great little device. Painted black and placed inside a plastic bag it produces really hot water in a few hours We did not chance river swimming/bathing in Quebec as many towns (including Montreal at that time) have no sewage treatment.

We managed to fix some of our leaks - we discovered that a leaky foot pump in the head (toilet for you landlubbers) was draining our water tanks in five days, and a sizeable hole chafed in the engine cooling water hose was making our bilge pump work overtime. Refitting the stanchion bases stopped a couple of leaks from the deck.

We frequented internet cafes and public libraries in many of the towns we stopped at to check our email and find out about the local history. We met many friendly people and helpful fellow boaters The beautiful weather we had to date (almost too hot) made the start of our trip an excellent one.

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Chinook in a quiet anchorage in the Thousand Islands east of Lake Ontario

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