It's a south-easterly wind that took Olive back to the border, where we were lucky enough not to have to tie up to the Canadian Customs dock. We had heard horror story about that dock and I must say, even 12 feet away, it is still a scary sight: all corrugated steel and concrete. We were glad we had prepared a wooden plank to put on top of the fenders and even happier that we didn't have to use it.

So, it is in late afternoon that Olive came back to St-Paul to find very shallow waters all along the Richelieu River and even more so, within the marina itself. The depth sounder gave us a few readings of 3 ft 9 in on our way to the dock, we draw 4 ft 3 in... Were we ever happy to have emptied the 200L water tank before the trip. So far, no bumping or scraping to report. Let's hope we can follow the same path on our way out at the end of the week.

We left Treadwell Bay with a non-functioning wind meter and discovered en route that the whole assembly was held up by something a little shiny... Some mighty spiders we have on Lake Champlain! A quick attempt before diner to go up in the mast to remove it failed miserably, the spi lift halyard stopping just above the spreader bars and my broomstick being somewhat short of 15 feet. So, the next morning we did what we had to do and took down the mainsail to use its halyard as my backup line. That early morning exercise made us realize that a furling main sail is not that great after all. It's no fun to have to raise and remove the main sail while tied up at the dock... We were lucky enough that there was only a light breeze this early in the morning. Next boat will have regular reefs, but don't tell Olive.

When I finally got up there, I must say I almost burst out laughing. That mighty spider web was the masterpiece of a spider the size of a dime. I had to congratulate it before killing it and cleaning up the mess it had made. Now, lets see how effective the spider repellent I sprayed on the mast head will be.