Category Archives: Sailing in the St. Lawrence

A very happy birthday to Nick who turned 25 today! Please check him out in our Rogues Gallery!

Yesterday (July 8th) we spent the day in Tadoussac. We got up early because the boat was pretty cold! So, I did the laundry and got the fleece sheets out for the bed. The floor of the boat is really cold, so you always need slippers . We keep the fruit and vegetables under the floorboards near the fridge and for the first time since we’ve had the boat, they are the perfect temperature! The water temperature in Tadoussac is 8 degrees.

A couple of funny things happened yesterday. Dennis was up early at 5:00 and wandered around. He could hear some snorting and huffing and wondered what it was. Well, he saw a big whale right in the harbour. Sadly though, he was unable to get a good picture of it but did spend some time searching the internet for pictures of killer whales and put them on his phone in order to fool me. It didn’t work.

I went for a bike ride but only lasted an hour – the hills are wicked! Plus, there really wasn’t a lot of places to go as Tadoussac is in a giant gully surrounded by steep cliffs.
We went shopping and then went to the interpretive center for whales. There, we learned all about the types of whales that are in the marine park. The guide told us that we might see belugas and that they were very curious and may come up to the boat. If that happened, we were to cut our engine so that we wouldn’t injure them.

While we were at the interpretive center, we saw a man taking a picture of his wife facing the building. Meanwhile, there was a big whale right behind them, blowing water. We had a good laugh over that!

We went out last night and heard a French band called The Travelling Fish (Les Poissons Voyageurs). They had two accordions, a guitar and a bass – they were pretty good.

We didn’t stay out late though because we knew we had to leave early today so at 5:15 am, we set out. The water was very calm and we saw quite a few whales, porpoises and seals from a distance. At around 11:15 though, we spotted a beluga off the bow, so we slowed down and noticed that it had a young one with it (the babies are grey). They were quite near the boat so Dennis put the engine in neutral and we drifted towards them. They swam towards the boat and then popped their heads up right in front of us! We got pretty excited about this and within a few minutes, another one arrived. The three of them hung out right near the back of the boat, they could have been touching the rudder or the prop. Then, they dove away for a bit but kept coming back. We then spotted another one, so we had four swimming around the boat.

Beluga and baby

The whales stayed with us for about half an hour while we drifted around. We counted seven in total – three babies and four adults. They definitely had distinctive scars on them and were very beautiful to watch. At one point, one of the babies rolled around on top of its mother a few times. We had to pull out the sail because we didn’t dare use the engine but we were drifting back towards Tadoussac. Once we started moving, the whales started leaving and we watched them swim away.

Here’s a video of the whales:

We made it to Rimouski at about 4:00 without any difficulty. The marina is very nice and everything is close by. We met up with Dale – he met Dennis while in Quebec City.

Dale – a fellow sailor whom Dennis met in Quebec City

I went for a bike ride – Rimouski has a very nice trail along the waterfront. Tomorrow we are going to stay here and go to the museum. It has a submarine (I guess we haven’t had enough boats! 🙂

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.

So, it really was Moving Day in Quebec on July 1st. We celebrated by riding our bikes to Montmorency Falls on the beautiful bike path. Many, many people were out riding – there was actually traffic to deal with!

The falls are definitely worth the ride but we were glad we went early as when we left, the tour buses arrived. We parked our bikes, went inside the building and looked around to pay someone our admission. It’s free unless you want to use the cable car. So, we walked across the bridge and went quite close to the falls. Luckily it was warm day because were sprayed by the mist!

After going to see the falls, we did a bit of shopping, boat chores and then rested up for the evening entertainment – The Ghost Tours of Quebec. I would totally recommend this as the guide showed us some really interesting parts of old Quebec that we would never have found on our own. Plus, we learned about the history – it was not all “The Order of Good Cheer” by Champlain. We learned about murders, executions, ships sinking, the cholera outbreak and of course, the many ghosts that haunt Quebec. Our guide, William Black, was excellent! We ended the tour inside a dark church.

The above picture is the view of Quebec from the top at about 9:00 pm. In the far right, is the mill that shows the movie (we will watch tonight).

I am glad that we did our cycling and ghost touring yesterday because the weather has turned. There is a strong NE wind and rain is on the way. This will be a good day for groceries, laundry…

The Split Crow at Port de Quebec

Dennis has had quite the time being the advance party for getting the Split Crow ready. The wind metre actually still works and he has been watching it constantly. In the Port de Quebec, the wind has been gusting to 45 knots. The new dock has broken loose so the marina crew has been working like crazy trying to secure it. There was a close call of all the boats crashing into each other…Dennis was sitting in the cockpit drinking his rum 🙂  when he noticed that one of the boats was moving. The dock had broken free so he ran over to the boat and alerted the owner who was down below and hadn’t noticed that his boat was on the move. So, he moved his boat over to another dock and then added many lines to secure it. The next day, the marina crew was out in full force adding chains, bolts and other things to ensure that the docks stayed put!

It has been VERY cold and rainy in Quebec and Dennis has warned me to bring warm clothes. People are wandering around in the their winter parkas! Yikes! So, my duffel bag is full of fleece. I guess I will not be setting any fashion trends. 🙂

I do see that the weather is improving though (Quebec City forecast).

Quebec City Forecast – June 29 – July 5

We are hoping to bike over to the Montmorecny Falls – maybe on Monday when the temperature is supposed to be 27! We will take turns on Dennis’ folding bike with very small wheels. (I have a normal sized folding bike and use it a lot for groceries and sight seeing but his is brutal for going more than a five minute ride as I discovered on Pelee Island).

We should be leaving Quebec on Wednesday or Thursday morning at about 3:00 am. It will take us nine hours and we have to leave at high tide, so this will be a whole new adventure for me!

Stay tuned for more…