July 11, 2008: Somewhere on the St Lawrence Seaway

Tom and I are now finding ways to work out on board the boat with some resistance tubes from Brian. We have them looped around things in the upper deck where we spend our day to make them obvious and easy to reach. This is a great thing on days when the bikes are packed up.

As we left the marina this morning we decided to spend the day in the maze of small inlets dividing the delta islands of the St Lawrence. As we cruised along, we saw many small individual cottages built where they could only be accessed from the water. Some were in various stages of being completed as it was obviously a challenge to get the building materials to the sites. You could also see little outhouses behind them indicating the lack of plumbing. Most had small floating docks and looked like terrific getaways.

We spent the afternoon anchored in a bird estuary, Bay of Ile de Grace, just off the Saint Lawrence Seaway which is a nesting ground for herons. The oval lake was reached through narrow channel from a finger of the main river. We expected it to be secluded; however it turned out to be a popular spot for boats with fishermen or sun bathers many bringing their music and laughter to the quiet of nature. While we didn’t see many birds in the broad expanse of lush green marsh grass surrounding the lake, we could

definitely hear them. We heard a variety of bird calls, quacks, honking, high peeping, chirping

songs, cackling, sea gulls strident calls, a woodpecker

raatatat, and strangle whistles and I did think I spotted a white egret flying in the distance. We were also visited by a flood of dragon flies which seemed to glow light blue if the sun hit them. Tom and I went swimming, but even though the sun was warm, the cool breeze made our swimming time short.

There was also a small shiny shallow boat with a huge outboard motor making speed runs through the quiet still lake through the anchored boats. Tom heard in Sorel that there was a race planned on the St Lawrence tomorrow. Maybe he was just practicing.

This little spot is so wonderful; we decided to spend the night anchored right here. There was no music concert tonight... we just quietly watched the glorious sun sink behind the green trees and marsh grass.