And just like that the trip is over! We drove back to Ottawa yesterday. You know you've been away for a while when you return home and the wall calendar is two months out of date. In total we lived on the boat for almost 7 weeks. The world is still swaying gently as my brain remembers the waves but this will wear off soon.

Here are a few photos and stories from our last week.

Wednesday July 26 Brossard to Dorval

We motored along the south shore canal, and once out on Lac St Louis were able to sail slowly across to the Royal St Lawrence YC under blue skies. The club is bigger than Pointe-Claire YC, with a fancier main building, large restaurant, more extensive grounds and tennis courts. We were warmly welcomed by the harbour master and no one looked askance at our scruffy dodger canvas!

I was impressed by several keel-boats we saw coming into their slips under sail. This is a trick we would never try -- we always drop the sails outside the harbour and motor in. Maybe it was the relatively calm winds that emboldened them but I suspect there are some experienced competitive sailors here. The club lobby is full of trophies and sketches of locally designed racing sailboats.

Photo: Heartbeat at the Royal

Photo: Royal St Lawrence Yacht Club

We went to Eric's for dinner and had a nice visit with baby Adeline.

Thursday July 27 Dorval/Pointe-Claire

We spent the day at Eric's, helping out with babysitting as Adeline had a cold and was kept home from daycare. Around lunchtime we had a bonus visit with Andy's sister Susan, husband Jay, and father-in-law Ron on their way from Boston to Ottawa. It was even Susan's birthday, and dog Bailey got super-excited when we sang Happy Birthday.

Photo: Active Adeline

We had a nice walk in Pine Beach Park.

Photo: Giraffe flower sculpture at Pine Beach Park, Dorval

Friday July 28 Dorval to Pointe-des-Cascades, Lac St Louis

Oops, we forgot our rain jackets at Eric's the day before. It was raining when we arrived and sunny when we left so they remained hanging in the closet. Eric was very helpful in bundling Adeline into the car and arranging an emergency coat drop-off to the boat this morning so we could get going ahead of schedule. There was a strong wind warning and we wanted to get across Lac St Louis before the afternoon thunderstorms.

Photo: Adeline and Eric on Heartbeat

We enjoyed the sail and anchored near the old Soulange Canal outlet on Lac St Louis.

Photo: Rainbow over Pointe-des-Cascades

Saturday July 29 Lac St Louis to Pointe-Beaudette, Lac St Francois

The day of waiting. Our "morning" lockage time, only announced at 7am the day of, turned out to be noon. We sailed the short distance to the Beauharnois lock entrance for 11am only to find the waiting dock full. We sailed back and forth to kill time.

The lock was busy with pleasure craft heading to the Thousand Islands. For the first time in a lock we rafted with another sailboat. We were against the wall, holding bow and stern lines that are must be slowly shortened as the water raises, and the other boat throws dock lines to us to fasten on our deck cleats. Tied together, we had a nice chat with the crew of Fugue from Beaconsfield YC: a father and son (10?) and another man from the second family who co-own the boat. The skipper has been going to the Thousand Islands since he was 6 years old and is now continuing the tradition with his son, nice.

We saw a lot of Fugue that day as we shared some bad luck with bridge timings. After the two locks of the Beauharnois there are two lift bridges to go under. All of the powerboats blasted ahead and had no problem hitting the schedule for the bridge lifts. But sailboats just putt along, even under motor, and the two of us had to wait an hour for the first bridge to open. We were able to anchor so that we didn't have to run the engine the whole time. Then when we got to the second bridge an hour or so later we realized there was no 5pm lift, only 6pm, so again we had to wait another hour. With no suitable anchorage but a decent current, we did many passes of motoring up then cutting the engine and drifting back, repeating this until the hour passed.

Photo: Waiting for the lift bridge

The day was somewhat redeemed by clearing skies and wonderful golden light on Lac St François as we proceeded to a late anchorage, arriving around 8pm.

Photo: Sunset on Lac St François

Sunday July 30 Lac St François to Île Saint-Régis

Photo: Blue skies and sparkling water, Lac St François

We sailed into the wind and current, tacking repeatedly for around 4 hours before eventually giving up and motoring to make progress. Looking at the chart again, see graphic below, we were also running out of width to support tacking. Our track is in yellow, the light blue shows shallow water and the white is the deeper main channel.

Graphic: Track of HB sailing upwind - each tack is a good arm workout for the person running the sheets

Monday July 31 Île Saint-Régis to Crysler Park

Today we had good luck with the wind, as it had a northerly component so we could sail. Moreover this was the first broad reach (wind exactly on the side of the boat) of the entire trip, very pleasant - no tacking into a headwind, and no worrying about accidental gybes in a tailwind.

We transited the US locks, Snell and Eisenhower. Here we experienced turbulence for the first time, pushing the bow of the boat into the wall. I thought I could use the boat hook to push off but the force was overpowering. After the first episode (sorry about the scrapes on your bow pulpit, Heartbeat) we turned the motor on to help stabilize the boat direction - putting the motor in reverse pulls against our midships line and forces the stern in and bow out.

Photo: Tied to floating bollard #6 in Eisenhower lock

Photo: Summum crew on wall duty in the lock

We spent the night at Crysler Park Marina near Morrisburg.

Tuesday August 1 Crysler Park to Prescott

Today we went up the last lock, at Iroquois. For a change we were through earlier than scheduled, yay. They opened the lock for us just as we arrived at 1:30 instead of the scheduled 3pm opening.

Photo: Freighter at Johnstown Bridge

Photo: Battle of the Windmill National Historic Site just east of Prescott

We got back to Prescott in time for dinner and a play, A Midsummer Night's Dream in the lovely outdoor amphitheatre on the waterfront. The huge orange supermoon smiled on us as we walked back to the boat.

Photo: The stage is set for A Midsummer Night's Dream

The next day, Wednesday August 2 we closed up the boat and returned to Ottawa.

Bonus Material

I had fun reviewing our saved tracks to pull out a few interesting statistics.

And here's a table showing how often we anchored vs staying in a marina.

Thanks for reading! We will do some more short trips this summer, but no more newsletters. So until next summer, this is Heartbeat out.