We woke up at 6:00am to a beautiful sunrise. Rob and Karen had already been up for a short while and in the daylight (and calmer waters) Rob had been able to identify the source of his engine trouble and get it running again! That was a great way to start the day for us all. Rob and Karen joined us on Ananda for a continental breakfast. We all discussed our plans for the day and prepared to weigh anchor. Our plans were to try to get in to the Beauharnois Canal, down river from Valleyfield, Quebec and Beeper’s plan was to try to do the same. We said our goodbyes and set out for the day. With us having to hoist our anchor, attend to some daily motor maintenance, etc., Beeper had about a 45 minute head start on us but we knew we would catch up to them soon.

We were underway for about an hour when we saw a familiar boat headed our way—Beeper! The marine weather radio was broadcasting strong wind warnings for the area between Montreal and Cornwall so Beeper was wisely headed for cover prior to the winds arriving. Ananda can travel considerably faster than Beeper so we decided to continue forward to Valleyfield and then make a decision about what to do. By the time we arrived in Valleyfield, the weather radio was broadcasting wind warnings for gusts up to 50 knots so we decided to head for cover ourselves. We broke off our course for the Beauharnois Canal and set out for a marina in Valleyfield. By the time we arrived at the marina the waters behind us were full of whitecaps and it was going to be a wild time for anyone who was out there. We were glad to be safely tied up to a dock and prepared to make the most of our situation. I learned an interesting thing from our French-Canadian host at the marina. While I was completing the dock registration paperwork for our stay, he commented that the bay was “full of sheep today” and that almost everyone stays in the marina on those days. I was puzzled by what he said and asked for a further explanation. He pointed out the window to all of the whitecaps in the bay and asked, “don’t they make it look like a field full of sheep?”.  The saying immediately made perfect sense to me and I think that that is much more colourful than simply saying whitecaps.

The Valleyfield Marina is huge, with dock space for approximately 750 boats. The majority of boats in the marina were sailboats and it was very cool to see so many masts in one location. The winds continued to howl through the night along with some pretty hefty rain showers—but we were safely tied up on a dock behind the breakwater and had no trouble resting up for the next day’s adventure.