Day 125 - Thu 30 Jul 2015
Docked - Riviere-au-Renard, QC

[photo: what it looks like to navigate in moderate fog. This is Zendo arriving at Matane with 200 feet of visibility, but it can get worse.]

It felt great to be able to awaken knowing we would not be moving today. Of course, the weather check this morning showed it to be a great day to be moving, despite yesterday's forecast, but we are determined to remain here another day. The forecast for tomorrow is not quite as favorable, but we only have a short distance to go against any wind or waves before turning into the Bay of Gaspe, so I am not worried.

We have traveled just shy of 300nm in just 5 days to get through this remote part of our journey. It is possible to get stuck in this region for multiple days with bad weather, even in summer, so we did not want to take that chance. Today was a great day to catch up on a number of boat and personal tasks. There was a lot less mess from the spiders this morning; that is for sure.

Once again, our strange boat continues to get stares and questions from the daring. I had given several tours already before 1100 this morning. By then Diane and I were ready to explore the town and pick up a few grocery items. If you are going to walk for enjoyment and exercise anyway, getting fresh food every day makes a lot of sense. That is the old European way.

As Jon and Lynn had informed us from their excursion last night, however, it is definitely a working class town with essentially nothing here geared towards charming visitors. That is not a put-down; not all towns need to be charming. First we stopped at the local fish market and Diane was disappointed not to find any picked, canned crabmeat. We did agree to get a bag of fresh mussels for me to make steamed mussels in white wine tonight and would pick that up on the way back.

The next phase of the walk was quite disappointing, with one funny note. I saw a sign on a building that was hand-lettered in a funky style and it actually read, "Mer de Souvenirs" which would be 'memories of the sea'. Read quickly from a distance, however, it seemed to me like "Merde Souvenirs" which would be 'shitty souvenirs', an assessment I make of most of the so-called souvenir shops I have ever been dragged into. A photo would have made the blog, but our camera apparently can only take about 30 photos before the battery gets too low. We need to remember to recharge it daily.

We continued and found no grocery or bakery, but when finally I asked someone that was not zipping by in a vehicle, he pointed way up the hill to the Ami. Diane spied a shortcut that saved a half mile, but took us through a muddy dirt road. The store looked brand new and was basically a nice, modern grocery store in miniature. Take a typical supermarket and make it one-eighth the size, with a commensurate reduction in variety of foodstuffs. We did find everything we wanted, however, in some form or another.

We took a different route back, but still found no charm except for the church on the hill. We stopped for the mussels and headed back to Diva Di by 1300. The sun had been shining brightly all day and it was very hot for me in the boat with the windows uncovered. I found reading on the flybridge with the cool breeze to be a better choice, but Diane was happy below.

It was long past time to trim the beard and buzz the head, so I took my trimmer to the marina office and found an outside outlet where I could do the deed in the wind and not have to worry about a mess indoors to clean up. The shower afterwards was wonderful. I was also able to give away a cleaning product that is not needed on our boat (teak cleaner) to a very worthy and helpful guy who was very appreciative.

By 1600, I was bored again and decided to cook the mussels and sauce, to be gently heated later. I counted them and we got 96 mussels of various sizes for less than $10 US. Every one of them was closed when I started steaming them and every one opened. Some were small, but they were all great looking specimens. Since I did not need to make an elegant presentation, cooking the mussels an hour ahead allowed them to rest and for me to gently remove them from the shells. The wine, butter, shallot, and garlic sauce turned out great and later for supper we enjoyed it all with a fresh baguette and some nice wine.

It was a very enjoyable day to do things at leisure. I love being underway much more than Diane, but we both do enjoy the times when we are in port (at a dock or anchor) and can relax a bit. Clyde certainly enjoys his options for his many hours of sleep when we are stopped. Underway, he only stays in one spot and although he appears to be sleeping, we have to assume it is not quite as restful as when the engines are off and he can really stretch out.

At 1900, the music started playing and we walked up to get a seat. Although the songs and lyrics were not familiar, the music definitely had a 'county' flair to it. For 2 songs, the words were sung in English, and it was actually pretty hard to understand what was being sung. I am not saying my French pronunciation is always wonderful, but I hope it is better than the English singing we heard. I need to make sure everyone understands that such an observation does not in any way detract from the immense enjoyment we had tonight.

There was one teenage girl (who Diane pegged in the slight 'special needs' category) who wanted to dance very badly. Eventually she got up to do some solo dancing, but once Diane and I got up (the only couple of the night to dance, by the way), she kept dragging first Diane and then me up to the so-called dance floor. The only available space for dancing was the sloped ramp to the raised deck, so dancing on a 10 degree angle was what we did.

Usually when you are doing something that nobody else in the crowd is doing, it is not a good thing. We did get a lot of verbal appreciation from the singer, the organizers, and a few from the audience for our dancing, however, so we don't feel too crazy. Afterwards, we both separately approached the singer to thank him and he already knew we were from Florida. Apparently, word gets around. He gave me a CD of his music for free, even though I offered to go back to the boat for some money.

I entered some very complimentary notes in the guestbook and said goodbye to the manager, Marie-Mai, and her boyfriend, Ivan. They wondered why we did not stay longer, but I explained that on a voyage of so many (4200) miles, it is necessary to keep moving, and then they understood. Ivan has our card and perhaps he will contact us for a visit to FL sometime.

Diane took Clyde on a long walk on the docks and then hit the sack. Tomorrow, we plan to get to Gaspe before noon and spend a few days there. Jon and Lynn from Zendo should be renting a car and we will split expenses to do some land touring.