Day 1

Tuesday. Yes, I still consider this Day 1. But the boat is in the water! We are all ready to go! However, we have decided to take one more day to make sure we have everything and are good and ready. When I told the marina owners they just laughed. They also laughed when i said "we'll get out of here eventually!" I later joked that we were actually planning on staying forever. They might have half believed me.

Getting the boat into the water was, of course, an adventure. It came off the trailer and went into the water just fine, but then trying to step the mast was a bit of an ordeal. Apparently the marina guys were not used to such an "unbalanced" mast as ours. I tried to explain that it was a French boat and the French have  their own way of doing things ;-)

Here's the boat on the travel lift, about to go into the water.

And then we struggled with the mast for half an hour - and by we, I mean David and the two marina guys, with me looking on and making distressed noises when the mast started tipping over.

Here we are, post drama.

Then we got the boat ready, put the sails on, waited a bit while a storm blew over. Around lunchtime we went into town and found a cute cafe for lunch. We did a tour of the town, learned about the sawmills of Lacolle, and went to the German butcher to get steaks for dinner. The food was a bit of an issue in planning since we're pretty sure produce is prohibited when crossing the border. This means that all our produce has to be consumed by the time we leave Lacolle, since the border is only a kilometre away. Then, from what we understand, we check in at the border crossing station, then stop at the first marina to provision.

And now for the best part of sailing: happy hour.

Cheers!