Trois Riviere - A bad start, a terrible ending

Each day brings its share of surprises.

7h00 Tac Tac. Metal against metal. That's what woke me up this morning. Daniele pokes her head through the hatch and two sailboats support us on starboard. Our anchor had dragged. 

We re-anchored again.

We left Trois-Rivières around 10h00 with a favorable south wind that would beam us across Lac St-Pierre.

Unfortunately, this will not be the case; we will have to fight against a west wind of 15 knots and worsened by a current of 2 knots. 

A bit after the Laviolette bridge, we will put up a reefed main and full jib sail and tacked through the Seaway channel. 

It was hot and humid and there were thunderstorm warnings.  Most boats were heading east, at high speed, making us thinks they don’t want to be stranded on Lac St. Pierre.

Then we started the engine. All goes well until a noise is heard and that starts to lose speed. This is surely weed on the drive chain.  We put Bellum into reverse and a big salad package frees our keel. now moved freely road a lot and strangely without vibration ... what a joy! Barely an hour later another unusual noise makes us react. It is as if an object was taken around the propeller and hit the hull.  Like a fishing line 

We stop the motor is, Allan plunges to see what happens. The propeller was full of weed.  I pull a hand full and come up, showing it to Daniele.  Again I pull another handful. 

Horror at the last dive, the livid, a small handful of seaweed by the hand, I informed her that the propeller strut was broken. This is serious; we still have some miles to go before they can be anchored. Should we continue to Sorel? 12 NM to go. 

We motored some and decided to put up the sail. Using the cell phones, we called local marinas to see if we can get hauled out.  It was getting late and not all marinas were too helpful.

Deer flies were eating me alive but they were not bothering Daniele.

We sailed slowly until it was futile and then we started the motor for the last couple of miles to get to a good anchorage near Ile de Grace.  A nice shallow cove. We anchored at 19:30.

After verification, the breakage of the motor shaft support does not seem too dangerous for now. 

Good news, no water leakage. What luck, we'll be able to sleep in our beds. Well no! Mosquitoes will begin the game and will prevent me from joining the arms of Morpheus.