Day 121 - Sun 26 Jul 2015
Anchored - Anse de l'Orignal, QC

[photo: Lynn's shot of the rest of us braving the cold on the flybridge to have better visibility for whale-watching. The guys still have shorts on, though.]

We spent a pleasant night as the first 2 couples to occupy our boat overnight since we bought her. The rain came and the wind was not gentle throughout the night, but it was comfortable enough at the dock. Jon and I were up well before 0600 and I had the coffee going. Diane and Lynn continued to get their beauty sleep, and it surely worked well. It is not always easy to have others aboard your boat overnight, but Jon and Lynn were great guests.

We could not leave until the office opened for me to return the key to the club and regain my $40 deposit, but the tidal currents were such that leaving at 0900 was a good time anyway. The weather was ugly by most people's standards, but at least the rain was barely a drizzle at times and the visibility for safety was more than adequate. The wind was against us and disturbed the water surface enough to make spotting whales much more challenging, but we did see a few beluga backs at one point. Had we not experienced the magical encounter that we did yesterday, it would have been pretty disappointing as far as whale watching was concerned.

We made the run to Tadoussac in about 3 hours, tied up at the fuel dock to top up the tank, and disembarked Jon and Lynn to get Zendo underway. There were 2 sets of rafted boats ahead of them in the very narrow fairway, so Jon had to maneuver with about 1 foot of clearance on either side to get out of the marina. He did a great job, as expected. We rendezvoused just outside and traveled in company another 5.5 hours to anchor in Anse de l'Orignal (Moose Bay) on the S side of the St. Lawrence River.

Within the first few hours, we had a number of whale, seal, and porpoise sightings. We saw 2 Minke whales fairly close aboard, the head of a large seal within 50 feet of the boat, and several different pods of porpoise. About 500 meters away, we sighted some large spouts, but we have no idea what species of whale it was.

The wind and waves were not as bad as we expected, but we had no sun at all the entire day, only glimpsing a few tiny patches of blue sky in late afternoon. Jon did some research today to find that many weather experts in NE Canada are calling this the worst summer in over 20 years. Well, that is just great. As we always say, though, it could be worse.

We anchored just before 1800, so having awakened at 0530, it was a long day. After a short rest, I got the rice going, turned on the generator to run the heater and use the microwave, and then served up the Thai chicken curry I had made the other day. Hot and spicy was just what we wanted after the cold day we spent underway.

The wind moderated a bit and it did not seem quite so cold before twilight, such that sitting up on the open flybridge with a jacket really was pretty pleasant. That did change after a while and suddenly the cabin interior looked pretty inviting.

Jon and I will confer via VHF radio at 0700 and see if there is any reason not to get underway by 0730 to run to a marina at Matane. Especially with the unseasonably cold, wet, and nasty weather patterns here, we need to make miles when we can do it safely and in relative comfort.