Day 117 - Wed 22 Jul 2015
Docked - Tadoussac, QC

[photo: this is the best of the shots of a beluga whale's back at the surface that we got]

It definitely got cool in the boat overnight, but we had decided that snuggling under the covers would be sufficient. In the morning when I got up, however, I turned the heat on since it was only 55F in the boat. I got the coffee going with a new twist. When we are plugged into shore power, I preheat the water in the microwave to save a lot of time and propane gas.

The young boating couple in front of us was a bit later than 0600 getting ready to leave, but their departure went without any problems. There was almost no sun showing in the early morning, but at least there was promise for it and the wind was calm. I had promised Zendo that I would confirm the reservation for them today when the office opened since they did not receive a reply to the telephone message they left. The woman at the desk spoke no English at all, but I was able to convey all the required info, and then I emailed Zendo with that fact before they left Quebec.

I next tried to make a reservation for the Tadoussac marina, but I was told in rather rapid-fire French that they do not accept reservations. You must hail them on the VHF radio to see if there is room. The good thing is that they will raft boats together to accommodate people as they can. The bad thing is that you might not like who they tie up to you. With our beam, they may not be so eager to raft us with someone, or someone with us. That could work in our favor or not; we shall see.

Between 0830 and 1000, we watched a half dozen sailboats leave to head N, with the assumption that their destination is Tadoussac. They need to leave earlier than a faster powerboat, but getting there too early forces you to fight a strong ebbing current down the Saguenay River. Perhaps they are willing to pay that price to get a spot at this very popular destination. When the boating season is short, marinas get full quickly, and let's not forget the 2 week holiday for Quebecois in the construction industry that are on mandated holiday right now.

Our patience ran out about 45 minutes before the "proper" departure time to time the tides. I figured we could always just run the engines at an even lower power setting and still arrive at the right time. There was no longer any sun to be seen, and it was drizzling very lightly pretty much the whole time, so steering from the flybridge was not as much fun. Even from below, however, it was easy to spot the blazing white backs of the beluga whales as they moved slowly against the tide, mainly near the surface.

The rules state you are not to approach closer than 200 meters to whales in general, and 400 meters for belugas due to their endangered classification. We did not get very close to any, but coming up the Saguenay River later on, several suddenly appeared within 100 feet of our boat, so I shifted to neutral and coasted to a stop until we could not see them anymore.

Once the visibility went below a half mile, I moved away from the shoreline. The W wind was blowing air over the colder river water and causing the fog, so it was a little better near the center of the 10 nm wide river. Of course, that is where the big freighters are, too, so the RADAR came in handy. Little by little, even with the engines running at a nominal speed of 7.5 kts, we were passing the sailboats that had left an hour before us.

The biggest concentration of boats close to us, all heading for Tadoussac of course, occurred just as 2 upstream freighters and one downstream freighter were approaching. Fortunately, the river was wide enough that there were no close calls, but one sailboat was a lot closer than I would have wanted. I think I have been very prudent while navigating up here, but apparently most of the other boats don't realize that you don't have to stay in the marked channel entering the Saguenay River. There is plenty of deep water to make shortcuts and some of the guide books even mention that. Their much longer route and slower speed allowed us to pass another 4 or 5 boats as we neared the marina.

I was listening to the closer boats making their calls and the replies by the marina. I got a lot of it, but feared missing some important info. When I made my call, I explained in French that it was not my best language so the dockmaster asked if English was better and he spoke as well as many Americans. With our great maneuverability due to the twin engines spaced widely apart, he elected to have us thread down a narrow fairway and then spin around with 3 feet in front and back of us to dock. The wind was blowing 20 kts, but it all worked out fine.

You have to pay for every foot of dock space you occupy, so our 34 foot boat became 36 feet with part of the dinghy sticking out astern. Once tied up, we took stock of the place and realized that it is often hard to know what to expect from the one guidebook we have for this area. The marina and docks are in great shape, and the little town seems quite lovely from a distance. It is also clear that this is a very popular destination for tourists in cars, as well as boaters. We are, as of today, the only non-Canadian boat here, but we expect Zendo to arrive later tomorrow.

We freshened up, walked to the office and checked in, and then took a beautiful short hike along the rocky path around the point. There were numerous wooden stairs in good shape along the way, but the wrong footwear or a careless step could have spelled injury. Diane was especially enamored with the view up the Saguenay fjord and we were both grateful to have at least several hours of beautiful sunshine. As a side note to those cruisers that have met me along the way so far who wondered how I could stay in short pants despite sometimes very cold and wet weather, well, my streak remains unbroken so far. And to my cruising buddy Robert on m/v Ariel, yes, this is definitely the land of the cold, wet, tides, and fog. Today we got them all.

After the hike, we walked to the Whale Interpretation Center for a visit. All the exhibits are totally in French, but they do have a booklet in English that essentially translates the wording for you. Diane surprised me by getting the gist of the message on many of the signs. I was able to muddle through much without the need for the English book, but the translations came in handy sometimes.

It was after 1700 when we finished and we walked back to the marina's restaurant to have a drink and snack. I had a very nice ale and we shared some decent calamar frits (fried calamari), but they had practically no wine left in stock and a very limited choice to begin with, so she just had water. Back onboard Diva Di, we had a little chili for supper and then the activity of the last week or so caught up to me and I fell asleep very early. Diane stayed up reading and taking in the activity on the dock, where someone dropped an entire set of (house, boat, and car) keys off the dock and was trying many means to retrieve them with no success.

Tomorrow, we will see what the weather allows us to do, but we expect to explore the rest of the town and surroundings.