We often arrived just in time for the bridges opening. We passed more than fifteen or so per day. Three or four times, we had to hang around waiting for the opening. At a certain bridge which I won’t name, we arrived at 14h34, it should have opened at 14h30, but it never opened at all. By VHF, the official pointed out to us that we had arrived two minutes too late (he would have opened if we had arrived at 14h32…Grrr!). Tired of going round and round in circles, Alex decided to tie the boat up to the posts on the canal bank. They were in poor condition and creaked terribly, but it worked and we stopped. A man came to help us, before asking us for a beer. We offered him a rum and Coke, it was all we had… Finally, thirty minutes pass quickly when you are trying to tie a boat up to some posts and serve a rum and coke! Just as we were leaving, one of the hulls hit a part of a post. The mast got caught up in a tree. The dinghy painter got caught in the propeller. Finally, we got everything back to normal, and were able to pass the bridge which, this time, kindly waited for us, open. We laughed…afterwards. Further north, the bridges are rarer. And certain of them open on request – we like that! The bridges I prefer are of course those which are high enough for us to pass underneath. I have often watched the locks at Chambly or in the south-west of Montreal; now it's my turn to be in the lock, it's funny. And now there are also some people watching the operation; I imagine myself in their position as observers.
Who: Léo, Charlotte, Mélissa & Alex
Where: Florida
Boat: Iroquois MK2, 1971
Blog: www.zenroots.com
