Day 124 - Wed 29 Jul 2015
Docked - Riviere-au-Renard, QC

[photo: some of the commercial fishing fleet here]

Following a wonderfully restful night, we awoke early to bright sunshine. The Internet weather check offered good promise for the day's travels and at 0700 Jon and I met to confirm the day's plans. After a nice, hot breakfast aboard, we cast off at 0730 and enjoyed almost unlimited visibility and a chance to really enjoy the northern coast of the Gaspe Peninsula from about ½ nm away. It was actually so hot with the sun beating on the flybridge that I moved to a shady spot.

This far out in the St. Lawrence, there is not too much of an adverse current, even on a flood tide, and with the winds off our stern we had a decent ride. We averaged close to a knot of fair current most of the way. We saw no whales or sea life other than birds, but there was a large eastbound freighter in the shipping channel probably 10 miles away. We have noticed many large church spires and roofs that are covered in tin to withstand the harsh winter. When the sun reflects on a bright day, the intensity is amazing.

After a while, we could no longer see the mountains on the N coast about 60nm away. A while later, it was obvious there was a huge mass of low clouds approaching from the NW. At one point, the freighter disappeared in the mist and we knew it would be on us before too long. I fired up the RADAR to be sure all was well and then communicated with Zendo. Diane is not happy to be underway for 6-7 hours a day, so to reduce that by a bit, I had told Zendo we would run at 8 kts and be ahead of them to Grand Valee, but we would never be more than 40 minutes away at any time.

The fog bank arrived and it was not so menacing once it got close. From a few miles away it looked like a solid grey-white wall, but up close we still had 100 meters of visibility. It did take away the radiant heat and the moisture sapped some body heat, so it cooled down quickly. I went below to steer, partly because we would be coming up to the northernmost point of our travels this year and I wanted to snap a photo of the chartplotter. We reached North 49 degrees 15.762 minutes. It was definitely not worth going out of our way to reach 50 degrees.

Jon hailed on the radio with something for consideration. Since the weather on Thu is not supposed to be good for travel, especially in our direction, perhaps we should take advantage of the good weather today and make miles. Both of the places on our list as possible destinations for today are not known to be particularly comfortable in strong winds and there is nothing to do there.

Diane was not happy to be stuck traveling so long, but it made sense to add another several hours and make Riviere-au-Renard (Fox River). I told Jon that if we did that, I would probably see if we could travel the rest of the way at our high speed of about 13 kts or so. We would be leaving Zendo in our wake for a few hours, but the conditions were not problematic at all.

The boat behaved better at the faster speed since the following waves were not passing us and slewing us around, and we got to the marina about 1545, about 2.5 hours before Zendo. Diane was much happier to be done at a reasonable time. I promised we would stay 2 nights so we could rest up a bit. The guy helping us at the dock was patient with my French, but eventually we switched to English for the things I just do not comprehend in French and it worked out fine. The office staff, however, spoke almost no English, but that worked out fine, too.

I will describe the place better tomorrow, but suffice to say this is a major commercial fishing port. The marina itself has seemingly new docks and power pedestals, and a nice building with terrific showers and toilettes. We had leftovers for supper, plus the lobster meat warmed in butter. It was good and we hope to get more fresh seafood tomorrow. After dinner we showered and then met Zendo as they arrived.

The Club Nautique de Forillon (our marina) had a duo of young ladies playing guitar and keyboard and singing. Every song was in French, but a few were originally composed in English and we recognized them. Diane remarked that there was a wide variety of dress for the evening, with some in heavy jackets, but a surprising number in shorts (like me) and just Tee shirts. Many were eating soft serve ice cream from the truck parked nearby. At least the wind was not too strong and there was no fog or rain.

The farther E we go, the earlier the sunrise and sunset times according to the clock. It did not stay light much past 2000, so we headed back to the boat. It was there that I caught the dozen or so big spiders that spin the nasty webs all over the boat. I was always destroying the webs, but could never find the spiders. I guess they come out to rebuild at dusk. Well, none of them had a building permit, so they were eliminated.

We'll explore the town tomorrow and do some boat cleaning.