We departed Bic early as we had a long day. The Catabolic winds howled from about 100am until when we left the anchorage. They can really make a noise and caused the anchor rode to bang against the boat right where my head was. Today was about 45 miles to St George de Cacouna. (I know where do they get these names). We put the main sail up almost immediately but waited to see how the wind would react before putting up the jib. In these currents motoring is compulsory if you want to get anywhere. We departed just before low tide and figured we would run the tide up the river. Unfortunately, we had a strong head wind which took an fun out of sailing. We saw a lot of belugas, dolphins and seals. As the day wore on we were getting worried about the lack of headway. Even though we were going upstream with a rising tide we were fighting currents all day. Go figure. At one point the motor was going 2000 rpms and the main sail was up but we were basically parked. By this time there was a severe storm warning given by the Coast Guard. We could see what they were talking about off our starboard side. Tadoussac was getting hammered with thunder, lightning, rain and hail. We dodged that bullet. There would be many more to come as they were all stacked up running down the Saganeuy Valley above Tadoussac. Finally we were released from our penury of going nowhere and we started to rock and roll. That got the spirits higher as we knew we could make Cacouna. One of the things about the river is that there are not many placed to hide. Most bays tend to empty out at low tide. As you can imagine a sailboat laying on its side is not a good thing. So finally we could see the destination. At the same time there was another big storm building on the north shore. We are on the south shore. Now it was a race to get to anchor before that hit. Cacouna is a brilliant harbor, best on the river between Quebec City and Rimouski. They built the harbour but nobody came. It was supposed to be for an LNG terminal but the government cancelled the project just after the basin was built. So the harbour is like a big hole about ½ mile by a ½ mile encased in protective breakwaters but otherwise empty. So we had great depth and were alone, except for a seal off the stern of the boat.
The storm hit just before dropping anchor. Lots of lightning, thunder and driving rain. The anchor was quickly dropped and we got under cover. The storm lasted for about 15 minutes then blew away. We were good for about an hour. Made dinner and were just finishing eating when another storm hit.. Wash, rinse, repeat! Then we got a double rainbow just before the sun set. It was off to bed after sunset as tomorrow could be the most challenging day of the trip. After today's experience we were worried if we could make it and there was really no where to hide except to back track to Cap a L'Aigle on the north shore.