August 3, 2010

Last night I called and connected with Joan Murphy and Joe Mainguy, friends of Bill and Judy Rohde. Joan and Joe live in Quebec and have sailed these waters for years. They have gone the route we are taking and will be leaving in Oct to get back to their boat that is currently in Virginia. Joan called this morning and offered to take me on a grocery run. Bill was tired of cleaning decks so the three of us spent part of the afternoon driving through parts of Quebec City which we hadn't seen on our tour and doing grocery shopping at a very nice IGA near Joan and Joe's home.

After stowing the groceries, we got our selves ready for a dinner out with Joan and Joe at a typical French restaurant. They took us on a drive through more of Quebec and LaValle University before we ate. We had a lovely evening with Joe giving us many helpful hints and drawing charts all over the paper on the table. What a joy to meet such great folks and for them to share so much knowledge with us. While we were eating it literally poured outside but we were comfortably inside and could watch it will talking and sipping our wine.

When they dropped us off at the boat, the movie about the history of Quebec was being shown as it is 5 days a week on the grain silos right by the port. There are 4 sets of silos with a total of around 75 silos and the movie is projected across all of them. There are speakers all over and we had one quite near the boat. It was wet in the cockpit so I opted to catch it the next night but Bill did watch part of it. It is quite the thing to see and we have a prime viewing place on the boat.

August 4, 2010

After we woke up and got our day started, I noticed that an Antares 44 catamaran had docked in the next slip. It's name is Samuri and it looked terribly familiar. I then realized it was the catamaran that was docked aft of us in Montreal. We finally met Christian and Evelyne the Swiss couple who bought the boat in Miami and are planning to circumnavigate. They had come up from Charleston and were making the same return route as we are. It will be fun to connect with them along the way.

Our package came in the morning with the caps for the heater exhaust so Bill spent some time getting them ready and attaching one of them to the chain on our rail. That problem is now solved.

Joan called and asked if we needed anything else so we made arrangements for another afternoon trek with her. We thought the battery on our navigation PC wasn't holding a charge so we went to check that out. They couldn't tell us much without keeping it and taking it for several days and they did not have the battery we needed. We had thought we would buy and extra one but that wasn't going to happen. So we decided to just keep going as we were and see if charging it with the 110 power rather than the 12 volt inverter we were using would work better. (It turned out the battery and the inverter work you just have to make sure the 12 volt connection is a solid one.) We also did a pharmacy, ATM, and postal run then we took Joan to a late, light lunch before she took us back to the boat.

I tracked our package of rail cleats that were coming from the US and discovered that the package was in Montreal waiting for us to come to customs to pick them up. Well, that wasn't going to happen so UPS put a rush release on it and said it wouldn't get to us before Friday so we paid for another night in Quebec with new plans to leave on Saturday, August 7th.

That evening we ate on the boat and were relaxing when we discovered just how out classed we were in the mega-yacht slips. A maybe 90' YACHT, 4 decks including the main deck and two internal levels below the main deck came sliding in with all its lights aglow and music piped on all the decks. The captain just used all the engines and slid it in sideways on the long pier that our slips jutted out from. Mystere had a Georgetown, Grand Cayman registry but who knows where it was really from. We saw 5-6 crew of various kinds over the next few days and the owner, his wife and their two young children. This wasn't a charter or cruise boat. But at least now there was some other boat for the people walking along the quay to stop and gawk at. We were no longer the big boat in the area.

August 5, 2010

After a leisurely start to the day and a call to UPS to see if the package had been released from customs we found out it was still there in Montreal. So they put another rush request through and told me to call back later in the day. If they could get it released they would try to get it to us by Friday afternoon. When I called later there was good news. It had been released and would get to us Friday afternoon. If it hadn't we would have had to stay until Monday since UPS didn't deliver over the week-end.

Joan called and invited us to dinner at their home that evening. They have been such wonderful hosts in so many ways and they were doing all of this as they got ready to go to Nova Scotia, Joan's home, for several weeks. We are all hopeful that we will be able to connect with them in NS.

Bill and I spent the afternoon wandering to find another post office and then we went over to the large lovely tent farmer's market that is right by the marina. We didn't need anything but what a fun place to wander through. I couldn't resist buying something so we got a lovely bouquet of flowers for Joan.

We had a relaxing and wonderful evening at Joan and Joe's. Grilled salmon and vegetable on the BBQ as well as a lovely spinach salad and sherbert and cookies for dessert. All of this except the dessert and salmon were the things she was cleaning out of her refrigerator. My but that woman can do wonders with the "dregs" from her refrigerator. Wine and stimulating conversation topped off a delicious meal. The weather held off and it didn't rain so we could enjoy it all on their deck.

August 6, 2010

We had another leisurely start to the day and discovered that Christian and Evelyne were going to Cap-a-l'Aigle Saturday. That is when we hoped to to go also if the package came in.

Bill and I then wandered over to the lower town where the Festival of New France was taking place. There were crafts and costumes and such from the French regime in the 17th and 18th centuries. We ate lunch and met a couple from Montreal who spoke a little English so we had a conversation with them in English and sign language. Then we wandered back into the cobblestoned streets and enjoyed the flavor of the festival.

Our package of cleats did arrive that afternoon so Bill spent doing the necessary modifications so they could be installed on the rails of our bulwarks. Now it will be so much easier to move the fenders around.

Joan and Joe stopped by later in the afternoon and finally got a chance to see Eos. The parking is minimal near us but this time they found a place to park so they could come down to the boat (illegal but they got away with it for a short time). We feel like we have made friends with a wonderful couple and so hope to catch up with them in Nova Scotia and hopefully further down the road in the US. Thank you Bill and Judy for making sure we called them. We would really have missed an opportunity had we not called.

Later than afternoon Christian and Evelyne came over and we talked about the plans to leave. I had forgotten about day-light savings time and was an hour off in my calculations. The lock into the marina closes at 0030 and we needed to head down the river at 0200 in order to catch the best tide and currents to Cap-a-l'Aigle. They were going to go out early and tie up to the docks provided just outside the locks and then go to see the Circus de Soleil that evening. The Circus started in Quebec and their tents were right beside the marina. We understood that they were always sold out and that we wouldn't be able to get tickets at such a late date. As it turns out Christian got some of the last tickets. (LESSON LEARNED: Don't presume you can't get in. Always check. Bill and I both were disappointed that we wouldn't be able to see it and we might have been able to. Darn!)

So we all decided that Christian and Evelyne would call us when they got out of the circus and Bill and I would call the lockmaster and exit the lock and we would raft up with Samuri for a couple of hours before heading down river. They had told us that we could just raft up earlier while they were gone but we weren't comfortable doing that. It was a good thing we didn't try it because their deck is so much higher than us that it would have been very hard for Bill and I if not impossible.

So at 2300 Bill and I took Eos through the locks and by 2330 both boats were settled in and the four of us were trying to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

August 7, 2010

At 0200 I heard Christian call my name and we were all up and getting the boats untied and heading down river very soon afterward. There wasn't much of a moon but for quite awhile we had the lights of Quebec City around us. And, of course, we had our chart plotter on to make sure we stayed in the channel as we went from one red buoy to the next green one. We had the current against us for a couple of hours and then the tide turned and at times we were going 6.5 knots over the water and 11 knots over the bottom.

Samuri and Eos motored along together for quite a while and then we pulled ahead later. They were going to anchor in a bay just past Cap-a-l'Aigle while we were going into the port of refuge at Cap-a-l'Aigle. Some friends of Joe and Joan's were expecting us and were planning to help us out with translations. The staff at Cap-a-l'Aigle speak either no or very minimal English and my French is limited to "I don't speak French. Do you speak English, please?"

About 0400 the sky started to glow on the eastern horizon and by 0530 the sun had risen. We were now a ways ahead of Samuri who were motor sailing trying to make extra time I presume. We could go faster than they and we were making good time so we just kept motoring. Both Bill and I were pretty tired by this time and so no need to put the sails up.

We arrived in Cap-a-l'Aigle at 1100 and sure enough there were Norm, Marcel and Bob waiting at the dock with Evan from the marina to help us get tied down. After Eos was all tied up, Bill got us hooked up to the electricity while I checked us in and then we both crashed until 1700. Those 2-3 hours of sleep a night were hard enough to handle when we were young but they are even harder now. Before we crashed we decided that we would stay another day at this small, lovely, quite port of refuge.

After recovering some from our nap we went to the local restaurant for dinner. We met a lovely couple from Montreal who were on holiday and another woman who was on her way to meet friends at a home near Tadoussac that they rented every other year for a get together. After a good meal, some pleasant conversation and a glass of wine I was wiped out and we were both in bed by 2100.

August 8, 2010

We both slept in until almost 0900. It had cooled down over night so nestling under the covers for an extra hour or so was lovely. Now that we are moving north it is starting to feel like Lake Superior weather.

I had a hard time getting going in the morning but Bill was busy cleaning our port holes. Finally I got enough gumption to go up and start a load of laundry. I spent the majority of the afternoon doing the laundry and updating the blog.

We did take a break and went over to thank Marcel and Norm again for their help. Marcel had to do some business but we joined Norm on his boat and had a nice hour talking about sailing and life in general. Norm offered to gather a couple of fellows and help us get Eos over to the gas and pump out dock and get her turned around so we can head out forward tomorrow when we leave for Tadoussac. If we can convince them to join us for dinner at the restaurant then we will do that. If not, we will have a quiet dinner on the boat and get a good night's sleep. The trip to Tadoussac is only 40 miles and a couple of days after that when we reach Rimouski we will no longer have to worry about the tides. We will try to get the pictures posted in Tadoussac.