Saturday July 28th

A frustrating day today!  We were sailing on Lake St. Francis, 45° 06.0N 74° 28.0W, part of the St. Lawrence, which is 5 miles wide in parts.  Unfortunately the navigable channel (even for us) is only 1/10 

mile wide.  And we had an easterly wind on the nose, over an east setting current, and as every sailor knows, a wind over tide results in a nasty choppy wave pattern.  Our mighty 10hp engines weren’t making much progress so we attempted to sail and soon discovered that, in the narrow channel, we’d be tacking every 10 minutes or so, which would have tired us out pretty quickly.  A real bummer, since it was MUCH more pleasant sailing.  But we had a distance to go so resorted to motoringL. 

Navigation was fun though.  We still don’t have our chartplotter, so decided to navigate the whole day (pilot actually) without using the backup phone app, just like we used to in the old days.  The channels were all extremely well marked with buoys and transits, so it was really easy.  Teresa was not quite so sure though, I saw her switch on her phone app as we were entering Coteau Landing to make sure we were in the right place! 

We tied up to a wall in Coteau landing, 45° 15.44N 74° 12.00W, and on stepping ashore we figured that Coteau must mean Goose Poop in French.  Explored the town on bike – very quaint - and found a restaurant for dinner – they were even showing the Olympics on TV – that was a treat!

Ship’s log: 1965.2 Today's log: 20.3nm, Season total: 329.7 nm