Author Archives: JH

Our second day of visiting Montreal has been excellent. We took the metro to the Atwater Market. Of course I figured I knew better and got us off at the wrong stop so we walked for quite a distance, actually passing the metro station that we were supposed to get off at. Oh well, we needed the exercise – we had to wear off yesterday’s poutine!

We wandered around and eventually bought some bread (excellent!), lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and sausage. We will have this for supper tonight. (We have had enough poutine!)

Our marina, Port d’Escale, is right downtown old Montreal, so all we have to do is get off the boat and walk up the ramp. Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is of a mime – he had a sign out and it said, “Coin Operated”. He stood on his little stage until someone dropped some money into the container. I gave him a toonie and he played a song with his accordion. It was fun to watch!

The next pictures are of old Montreal. Very pretty city!

This afternoon, I went biking. According to the Montreal cycling map, there are over 350 km of trails. I cycled down along the old canal. The path was paved and once I got out of the congested area of downtown, it was easy riding. Now, there were some cyclists who rode like they were in the Tour de France, but the majority of riders rode at a normal speed. Here is a link to the cycling paths.

If you want to rent a bike, there is the Bixi bike program running in the city. Dennis might do that tomorrow.

We are having a lot of fun here – I would definitely recommend Montreal as a stop for anyone!

Here is a picture of our last lock! We are now free to float out to the Atlantic if we want (maybe next year…).
When we woke up this morning, I checked on the horses and they were still down by the river. They weren’t tied up so who knows why they were still there.
We left at 8:00 and did the last two locks without any problems.

I thought that I had better include the highway sign as we won’t see that again!
The last 15 kilometres or so to Montreal is actually a canal so that the Lachine rapids can be avoided. You can’t see much though, just glimpses of the skyline so when we rounded the corner and approached Ile Saint-Helene, we got our first good look.

The most exciting part of the day was when we went past the island and went on the other side of it to get to the marina. The current was very strong and our progress slowed considerably. Dennis had the engine almost wide open and we were only doing 2 knots (we would usually be doing 6-7). It seemed like it would take forever to get to the marina! The water was very turbulent and I was worried that we would be pushed around. The Split Crow made it though and as we passed the monument to sailors (of all things!), the current stopped and we eased into old Montreal.

We called Port d’Escale on the radio and the lady told us to put our fenders on our port side. They were already rigged for starboard so Dennis had to go and change them as well as the lines. We spotted the attendant and he pointed out the slip. We could see that we needed to switch everything to the starboard side, so while I did circles in the marina, Dennis switched the fenders and lines again (he was not pleased!).
We eventually got tied up without too much trouble and spent the afternoon wandering around old Montreal. What a difference from Toronto! Lots of shops, restaurants, entertainment, street vendors and horses right at our doorstep. We sampled poutine (ha!) and tonight we are going down rue St. Catherine for supper. So far, so good!