Coteau-Landing, Quebec

Thursday, July 24, 2008

045-15.480 N
074-12.000 W

Ahoy from Coteau-Landing, Quebec!

Yesterday started out extremely foggy and it didn't clear up until afternoon. When we first left we has less than 1/2 of a mile of visibility and I was very happy that I had a good GPS chartplotter and a foghorn. Within a few miles of leaving the anchorage we arrived at the Eisenhower lock in Massena, NY. After a short wait we entered the lock, which is huge. I'm not sure of the exact dimensions, but many of the freighters that we've seen are around 700' long. Between the Eisenhower lock and the Snell lock, which is just down-river, you drop 87'. According to lock staff, it takes about 25 million gallons of water to empty/fill the lock. That may sound like a lot, but the flow rate through the power generating dam next to the locks is 2 million gallons per second! Believe me, when you're sitting at the bottom of an empty lock, you realize how little you are and how big the freighters are that pass you by.

We had planned on going through the next two locks at the end of Lake St. Francis, but there were regular severe weather reports for the area just past the locks. This increased to tornado warnings and a water spout was spotted in the area. As a result we decided to pull into the little town of Couteau-Landing. It looked very nice from the water, but I think that this was the nicest part of the town. It's a park/RV park with a pretty foot bridge, but the town itself consists of a major road and stores.

Today we have 40 miles to go to Montreal, which isn't too bad. What I am worried about is the 6 kts of current that we have to motor AGAINST for about 1.5 miles. Then I have to make a turn into a lock. BlueJacket only makes about 6.8 kts at normal cruising speed and maybe 7.2 kts at top speed, so it will take us a long time to make it up this section. Then I have to make that turn...can you say crab? This will be interesting!

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 1220