So, we had a tiny little bit of excitement this morning after our perfect anchoring situation last night. The anchor actually held and we had an excellent sleep! No having to move in the middle of the night or sudden problems! Dennis mentioned this morning that a transformer on a hydro pole was arcing (shorting electricity and making a racket with some smoke). We had a good laugh because we wondered if that were us. Maybe we hooked the power cable with the anchor and this has caused the lock to break down.
Well, it turns out that the lock has broken down and we are stuck! Not so funny after all…

We arrived in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield (our first Quebec port) and luckily had an easy time docking. The two teenage dock handlers were busy kissing and didn’t seem to notice us (does this happen because we are in Quebec?). We went in the office to register and spoke with a very nice young lady who wanted to practice her English and I wanted to practice my French so we had a good time trying to communicate. Dennis understood about as much as I did!

After we finished registering, we wandered downtown. The guidebook said that the town is filled with boutiques. Well, we obviously made a wrong turn because the town looked like the bad side of Sudbury – rundown and derelict. We found the grocery store (Le Metro) and bought a few things. We were hoping for something new but they had the same groceries as we do in Ontario with the exception of beer. We then wandered around some more and did find all the boutiques. The main street is very pretty, especially being so close to the canal. (The town has incorporated the old locks into their plan it is looks great). We also saw the beautiful church that the town is famous for.

We went back to the boat and I decided to go jogging. I didn’t get more than 20 feet and I saw the boater that we had been rafted to in yesterday’s locks. I asked him what he was doing here. He was supposed to be in Montreal already and he told me that the lock was broken and that all the traffic was backed up. Sure enough, when we checked online, we saw that this was true. If you want to see the ships in real time, go to these two websites:
Seaway Map
AIS – LIve Marine Traffic

So, now we are kind of stuck here. Supposedly, the lock was to be fixed by 4:00 pm and that the commercial traffic would be let through. We will have to wait. We aren’t in any hurry anyway and don’t want to leave until tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully the lock will be fixed by then and the traffic will have slowed down to normal.
In the meantime, the town has great bike trails – over 70 km of paved trails as well as good shopping and a huge public pool, so even if we have to wait for a couple of days, we will be fine. Plus, there is a rodeo in town! That might be kind of fun. 🙂