We arrived in Cornwall Ontario today after a trip down the St Lawrence River.
I noticed that there were no navigation buoys (ATONs) on the shorter route to this marina from the Snell Lock in the crosshairs. Yet the route looked “OK” for our 4 ft draft.
Shelly suggested I call the marina for their advice, which I did. They recommend the longer route up and around. See the yellow arrow above around Cornwall Island. “Locals take the shortcut, but with the strong currents here and today’s fresh breeze, newbies to this area should generally go around.”
Add to that the fact that the Mainship 390 is not famous for having a very responsive helm in-current compared to an outboard or a sterndrive.
So we took the longer path and played it safe!
So: 3 locks today:
Some of the St Lawrence Locks are in Canada waters, some are in the US. Today we went through the first lock between Lake Ontario and the Atlantic Ocean, the Canada-side “Iroquois Lock”, VHF-17, reservations and prepayment CAN$25 on their website are required. We did not tie up or anything! We just free floated in the chamber. Easy!
The second lock was on the US side, the Eisenhower Lock. VHF-14. No reservation, cash only. US$60 paid for both US locks today (Eisenhower + Snell). (Snell is on VHF-17.) (Both US locks had the floating bollards.)
After we secured at Cornwall’s Marina 200, a nice protected basin NW of Cornwall Island, we called Canadian Customs (888-226-7277 = 888-CANPASS) and got cleared and a new “Report Number”.
Even though we cleared Canadian Customs on July 2, we had to repeat the process as we stepped, docked, or anchored in the US.
This marina is one part of an expansive park & recreation campus! Very impressive area of a very impressive city.
There is no Uber or Lyft here, because Choice Taxi and another taxi company are on top of their game. Fast, responsive, reasonable to get re-provisioned.
Gilles helped the marina’s dock hand catch Shelly’s lines, on a finger that the crosswind was pushing us away from. So, we really appreciated their help!
We had fun trying to tell our stories each using our “home tongues” of French for them, and English for us.
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Nice Pic – Wow they have current in Canada aye?
St Lawrence… above the locks on the Great Lakes side alway flowing towards the ocean.
I suppose below the eastern most lock, there is some reciprocating tidal currents. The Hudson River goes from NYC all the way up to Troy NY (near Albany) WITH some tide until the Troy Lock.