We spent most of yesterday (July 3rd) getting the boat ready to leave Quebec City. Dennis had a solar panel installed. This will give us 10 amps of power which will help with about a third of our daily comsumption. We also got our MMSI number (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) so we spent a good part of the afternoon trying to program the new VHF radio so that we can get DSC (digital selective calling) and to setup the foghorn so that it will automatically work. We weren’t successful. 

I did download two different apps on my phone though – Boat Beacon($9.99) and Marine Traffic ($3.99) and these two apps work perfectly! All I did was set up the Boat Beacon app with our new MMSI number and within a couple of hours, we were visible on the AIS website. Now, we can be seen by ships and we can see them. It actually worked very well (as long as we are in cell service range).

The following picture is of us in the lock at Quebec City.

We finally left Quebec City at about 8:00 last night. We got through the lock without any problems and then tied up outside on the wall. We watched the fireworks (Quebec is celebrating the arrival of Samuel de Champlain) and then went to bed at 10:30. We set the alarm for 1:45 am (yuck!) and set off at 2:15 this morning. The guidebook says that you have to leave two hours before high tide in order to get to C’apalaigle in 9 -12 hours. 

We only saw one ship (saw it well in advance on the new app) and the GPS worked perfectly. The night was clear and there was hardly any wind so we motored along until dawn. We put our sail up (with the motor still going) and our speed was about 10 knots an hour.

Here is a picture of a cruise ship – this is along the coast at 10:30 this morning.

We actually saw some beluga whales today. At first, they were really far away and looked like whitecaps, but later on, there were some fairly close to the boat. They must have been diving for food.

The following picture is of where we are spending the night.  Our boat is near the end in the right. We had to have a sleep this afternoon – we were both really tired from having to get up at 1:45 am. Tomorrow, if weather permits, we are going to leave early (4:45) to get to Taddoussac and hopefully go up the Saguenay for a couple of days.