Off to PEI

Hi Everyone,

While we were in Chandler, QC, we found a new weather site with better information on the wind direction and speed. We sat and planned out our overnight trip to Prince Edward Island with the best of intentions to sail most of the way as the winds were to be on our beam for most of the night.

Well we left Chandler on Saturday morning about 6:00, the sun was trying to shine through the haze and it was an easy departure from the marina which I did not get pictures of as my migraine was nagging at me all day. We were once again at the furthest dock from the club house.

The pump out dock was available in about 3 to 4 feet of water at high tide and we weren't going to take any chances going in for the pump out. The lesson here is never wait until the last minute which we fortunately learned from another couple. They were full and the marina they came to said that they had pump out service but it hasn't been working for two years.

Talking about tourist guides for Quebec, many of the smaller marinas must of had a lot of airbrushing done to their photos or they were taken when the marinas were new.  They also embellish the size of the place and the number of docks available.

Finally we are leaving Quebec, skipping New Brunswick as many of their anchorages and marinas  are extremely shallow.

Now our sail to PEI. We had the sails up after about an hour.  The wind was good for about an hour, then too much wind, then wind shift on the nose, then no wind, then drizzle, then rain, big rollers, then no wind, then overcast night with no moon or stars and very dark and then patchy fog.  The rollers were very uncomfortable and hard to get any sleep until they subsided somewhat.  We did have an nice dinner of chicken, rice and veggies though.  Xanadu headed again into the rollers which you would think would help you sleep, wrong.  It was like being in a washing machine. One minute it was side to side then the bow was dipping into a wave and then raising her nose to the sky the next minute.

I (Linda) found the settee in the salon to be the best seat in the house.  I left the table leaf up and with some pillows and a blanket made a little cocoon for myself to sleep in.  Jack said "How did you sleep honey?" when it was my turn at the helm.  I replied that I got some sleep and then he went down and came up shortly after and asked if I was trying to find all the waves just keep him awake.  My response was, "oh well that's how I felt when you were steering."

Well night fall came, it clouded over and patches of fog developed.  But one thing neither one of us gave any consideration to was what phase was the moon in. I didn't realize it could be this dark at night, It was literally black, no lights anywhere.  We could not even see anything in the water except the waves that were coming off of the boat, which brings me to another story. 

One of the couples that we met, caught up to us and told us about their mishap in the shipping channel east of Quebec City.  They were on autopilot during some dense fog.  They were both reading and suddenly they hit something hard that they would not have seen.  They tried backing up, and again another loud bang. They looked over on side and saw a bunch of branches sticking out from under their boat on both sides and it was multi stemmed with a huge root ball.  Yes, that's right, they ran over a tree in the middle of the shipping channel.  They had a hand saw on board and went into the dingy and started to saw branches in very cold water. Needless to say, being in the shipping channel and disabled in the fog with approaching ships coming from both directions is not a good place to be.  After an hour of frantic sawing with his arms underwater, they were able to clear the tree from under their boat.  The fog horns were blasting.  They have a 46 foot Moody.  A beautiful boat, but when your stuck in the middle of the shipping channel it looks real small.  Lesson learned, do not get too comfortable with your autopilot.

So when night fell, I was straining to see anything that might be in the water.  Fortunately our only encounter were some birds.

As we approached Summerside it was like looking at a mirage as they are so close to sea level and the sea was very glassy, you cannot see the land. You think you are looking at a point and as you approach, land starts to appear out of no where and no I wasn't half in the bag. 

We pulled into Summerside Yacht Club and asked for a reciprocal.  Guess what, they had no idea what we were talking about.  But the slip fees were $1.50 per foot. Many local people stopped by as for a change we were right beside the club house and the largest boat in the marina. The tides here were about 6 feet but even at low tide we were still in about 8 feet of water.

Summerside has a downtown which you can walk through is about 20 minutes, and that's with taking pictures and window shopping, but it is cute and has great pizza and wings with spring rolls that don't have any veggies in them but have meat, like a small Gyro or Donair.  Different but tasty.

This is downtown Summerside PEI

This is the old train station that has been converted over to a library

This is a picture of the town when they were still using horse and buggy to get around in. They have several murals painted on buildings depicting of how it was in the old days.

Again we checked the weather and it was rain in the morning thunder showers in the afternoon and evening, so once gain we stayed put and enjoyed guess what ice cream at Tim Horton's,

Now it is the evening, the day has clouded over but nice and it is just starting to rain.  We spoke to a local resident and he said that when thunderstorms are predicted they either go to the north side of the island or south to Nova Scotia.  He said they have very few thunderstorms on the south side of the island.

So weather permitting we will be off to Charlottetown in the morning.

Here is one more closing tip do not leave you log book in the cockpit unless you are fully enclosed.  Ours is now twice the size that it once was.

Late is better than never

Hi everyone,

Everyone must have thought we gave up on the blog, but no we are still at it. I'm blaming the internet service and then sometimes, I am just too tired to stay awake.  So here we are again catching up on the blog up with a drink of cranberry and club soda plus a little extra.  Those who know me, know what the extra is. The sun is shining and for a change it is warm out you don't even need a jacket today. 

Well it has been a few days since we left Rimouski, probably a week in my calculations. Our plan was to go to a small town of Matane but the water depths were a little too shallow for our liking so we changed plans and decided to sail overnight to Ste. Anne Des Monts.

The French love their churches.

As we past Matane commercial harbour we were in touch with our new found friends Mary and Kevin  on Rolaro and they stayed in the commercial harbour but as planned we choose to move on.

We were on three hour shifts until 2 in the morning I (Linda) was on my shift when it became pea soup fog.  As fog is not one of my favourite things, I woke up Jack.  We got the radar on and spent the next 2 hours not able to see 20 feet past the bow.

Sunrise was at 0420 but it starts getting light out at about 0345 and fortunately the fog had cleared by then to allow us to get into St. Anne Du Monts where at 0515 we secured our lines and went to bed.

They still have barber shops

Later that day we went into town had lunch at the Bass Pub. Just took a walk and nothing really exciting happened this day.  What a nice little town.

The next morning we are preparing to leave St. Anne and the fog rolls in so we waited for it to lift but again the wind is blowing us onto the dock and we have to ask the boat in front of us to move up some so could get out.  They like to parallel dock in Quebec. They were very accommodating and knew we would meet up again.

Today's sail had a mix of fog patches in the morning then increasing seas in the afternoon.  The waves were about 6 feet on the stern and made for a lumpy ride but increased our speed a full knot.  We arrived at Riviere de Madeleine at 1645 on July 7.  This is one of those harbours that you are glad that you are arriving to get in from the lumpy conditions, and glad that it is high tide.  If you seen it at low tide, you may change your mind about coming in.

Well this is when you think you are in a movie.  It seemed like a nice little rural Quebec village at first, but then that wares off and you want to get outta here.  There was no internet service, no stores, no cell phone service and the nearest pay phone was a 15 minute walk.  They had a canteen ashore that sold junk food and everyone in town came down at some point for poutine and to check out the boat from Toronto.  The weather forecast was always bad.  It seemed they did not want you to leave here.  This is the farthest we travel north.  From here on, the latitudes will be decreasing and hopefully, the temperatures increasing.  Jack has had long pants on for a week.  That never happens.  The weather forecasts that we listen to on the VHF radio say that the normal highs are around 22 C and the lows 12 C. 

Low tide in Riviere de Madeleine

On July 8 we stayed put in the dead zone as there were small craft high wind warnings. We did go to dinner at the only restaurant in a 5 mile radius and I must say if was very good but pricey. Then July 9 rolls around and now they are calling for a gale with winds 30 kts. gusting to 40 kts.  So once again we stayed put but went for a walk to see how bad the winds were. They were bad.

Yes I am still here

Jack checking the wind during gale

Well needless to say the winds finally died down and we were ready to get going.  Once we left the harbour the chop was very uncomfortable but we made it out and decided to continue on to Riviere Au Renard. Well in less than 2 hours the wind was at 25 knots gusting to 30 knots with 6 to 8 foot seas.
 Another day that showed us what items were not secured down below.  It's bad enough keeping everything put away but now the wind and the pounding finds ways to open lockers and have things come flying out.  Well my solution is bungee cords. Thanks Howard for suggesting that we get the large package of bungee cords in Belleville, as I am putting them to good use now.

At doing 7 plus knots we arrived in Riviere Au Renard at Noon but we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon tied up to a dock.  This is a major fishing port with a fish processing plant at one end of the harbour.  Luckily, we were upwind of it

Largest fishing port in Quebec is Riviere Au Renard

So now it is July 11, 2012 and we are headed to Gaspe' Bay it looks to be a good day for sailing we even had the sails up for awhile but in this part of the country the winds are constantly changing so the sails are up and down and up again.  At 1025 this morning, we officially left the St. Lawrence River and are now in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

When we were in Gaspe' Bay, heading for the town of Gaspe' we had several large whale sightings and a harbour seal as the depth is close to 300 feet in the bay.  One of the whales surfaced right in front of the boat, about 50 ft. ahead, it was about 30 ft. long.  We needed to stop here and take on fuel and water. We arrived in Gaspe' at 1500.
We have noticed that each slip we have gotten is the furthest from the clubhouse.  Are you guys radioing ahead and letting them know that is where we like it?  We stayed at the bar for a couple of drinks, they have beer, and wine from a box.  Wouldn't the members at PCYC be upset, especially with wine in a box and they put a slice of orange in your beer.  One of the residents offered us a ride to a local restaurant and we had dinner then back to the boat and guess what we had internet service but we had a bunch of catching up to do so the blog had to wait.

On July 12, 2012 we left Gaspe' at 8:00 to a calm start for the day, glassy seas and we thought that we would have more whale sightings, but it wasn't to be.  We set our sails for about 15 minutes and of course the wind changes  right on our nose once again.  The sails come down.
At about 11;30 the winds pick up and it is very lumpy but at least we are heading south. We go by Perce' Rock and Bonaventure Island which is a bird sanctuary.  I wonder how the birds know it's a sanctuary.  We have seen birds that look like seagulls but they have yellow heads.  There is such a variety of birds here, we actually looked for a book to identify them, but they were all in French.  Yeah guys Jack was trying to identify the birds.

Perce' Rock

We are now in Chandler, it is a small town but friendly.  About a quarter of the people speak English here, but I must say during the whole trip people have been very accommodating with speaking English.  This will be our last stop in Quebec and our second day here.  There is a heat wave today, 76 F.  There were 8 people in the water at the beach and about 20 ashore on a beach half a mile long.

It is now July 13, 2012 and we were going to leave for PEI today but we didn't realize how tried we were and I came down with a major migraine so we delayed our departure for PEI until tomorrow.  It looks to be a good choice, as the weather and winds will be in our favour at our departure from Chandler and good throughout passage until we arrive in Summerside PEI.  It will take us about 28 hours to get to Summerside from Chandler.
Well I am going to add a few pictures and let Jack add his comments.

Jack and Linda

Bonjour from Rimouski

Leaving Cap A L'Ailge and heading for Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River, we had to once again have our departure timed with the low tide at Pointe-Au-Pe're.  This is so that we don't have to fight the flow of the tide and river current coming out of the Saguenay, it can be very choppy and a 3-6 knot flow against you on top of that.  Shortly after we departed we spotted a seal swimming along the top of the water, then about 15 minutes later we spotted our first pod of Beluga whales.  They are easy to pick out on a calm sea, with them breaching the surface and being white and all.  After the first sighting, it seemed like they were all over the place and one pod of about 5 or 6 surfaced right beside Xanadu's cockpit, 5 to 15 feet away.  We didn't even have to pay admission.  Before the day was through, we must have sighted a hundred whales, 80% Belugas and the remainder Minke and Pilot Whales, a couple of Harbour Porpoise and six seals.  One of the guides told us that this is the best start to the season that they have had for years.

Beluga whale about 15 feet away from boat

On the way to Tadoussac

Tadoussac is a great little town to visit and there are all kinds of excursions to do whale watching.  The entire area is a protected marine sanctuary and it is very strictly controlled with regards to the whale watching and how close they can approach the whales.

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Hotel in Tadoussac. This is what you see as you approach the marina

Leaving Tadoussac, in company with our new friends from Que Sera Sera, we had to once again time it with the tides and currents, for the last time.  From here out we just deal mainly with some tide issues.  We couldn't leave until 1400, so we got to an anchorage at Anse L' Original at about 2230 in the moonlight using the chart plotter and radar.  It wasn't that tricky. The night was uneventful, that's a good thing, and we were up early the next morning and moved down river to Rimouski.  We walked into town to pick up a few provisions and other things, everybody is very friendly and they speak a lot of English here, they apologize for their poor English and we for our lack of French.

 

We decided to stay another night here because of the weather.  We'll get caught up on some boat chores and pick up some other items that we need.  I couldn't resist buying a lottery ticket here, it seems that their is always a winner from Rimouski.  We met another couple in Rimouski that are from Toronto, Kevin and Mary aboard Rolaro and are headed to Halifax.  We will see all of these other boats from time to time as we move along.

Rimouski is more of a commerical port with ferries and fishing boats.

Jack and Linda
Xanadu

         

Quebec onward

Hi Everyone,

We left Montreal and headed to Quebec City.  We had a heck of a time crossing Lac St.Pierre.  For the past four or five days, the wind was from the SW, I read one of the guide books and it sys that the lake can be very uncomfortable if the winds are out of the NE. So as soon as we a mile or so into the lake, the wind shifts to the NE at 10-15 knots, right on the nose.  The lake is very shallow off of the shipping channel and not much room to maneuver.  Throw in a two hour thunder storm, an overheating engine and it's starting to get dark.  Not a good day.  We made it to Trois Riviere just as the sun was going down, got dried off and warmed up.  The next morning cleaned out the raw water intake hoses and the strainer of weeds.

We left Trois Rivieries at 10:45 thinking that our overheating problems were behind us only to have it raise it's ugly little head again after a couple hours.  We decided to pull into Batiscan Marina a little ways down the t. Lawrence and try to fix the problem. 

The harbour master said that he had room for us and he would give us instructions once we were in the channel.  This marina is a half a mile up the Batiscan River.  I would assume that rivers fflow out to the sea.  They don't fo this on the St. Lawrence when there is a flood tide, the smaller rivers flows backwords.  With a language barrier and a VHF cooming unplugged at the worst time, Xanadu was very close to getting swept into a 25 foot hiigh bridge, It wasn't to be.  After docking safely and changing my pants, I went to work on the cooling problem again.

They call themselves a marina with facilities, except the restaurant was closed for renovations andd the bathroom facilities were out houses.  We didn't leave the boat at all.  You have to really watch these small river marinas the depth was fine but the currents are very strong.  This was our first experience with this type of flow. Another lesson learned, I think there could be book borned by the time we are finished.

Needless to say it was an experience one we won't forget quickly, but on the other side we know what to do if we have no other choice but to stay at one again.  Anchoring is preferable over river dcking against the tide. On a good note we got our overheating problem resolved.

When we got to Quebec City, we received a reciprocal at the Yacht Club De Quebec but it was a hike to town, out come the bikes.  They has a bike path from the yacht club to right doowntoown Quebec, no cars to deal with, was good especially for me.  We wnt sightseeing as I have never been there and Jack was a couple of times when he was in the navy.  I'm not sure how much of the city he seen back in those days. it is quite a beautiful city.

For the Next leg of the trip, you have to plan your departure from Quebec City at least two hours before hiigh tide or you will have to fight the flood currents for quite awhile.  High tide was at 14:10, so we were leaving at 9:00 to 10:00.  We were advised against this by some of the locals that said we should leave at the next high tide that was at 03:00 the next morning, meaning at 1:00 departure.  We did get to see a beautiful sunrise. They were right on the money.  We got to Cap-a-l'Aigle at 1420, a half hour before a massive thunder storms.

During this leg, we only had to deal with currents and ships that can sneak up on you.  Some of the ships have so many lights on deck, it's hard to tell if it is a ship or something on shore.  The navigations lights blend in with every other light on board.  We have seen more commerical shipping than we have seen pleasure craft.  A couple of times during weekdays, in a twelve hours on the river, we don't see one pleasure boat and one day all we saw was one ship.

We are officially in the greater part of the St. Lawrence.  It is much like Lke Ontario with the exception of having more greenery, mountains, currents and tides.  We are still on the north shore of the river but will be crossing over to the south shore in a couple of days, weather permitting.  Tomorrow we will be going to Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River.  This is a protected feeding ground for whales and they say that you can see up to eleven varieties here.  It's a good thing that I brought along my fishing rod.

The television reception has been very good everywhere that we stopped.  It's just all in French but the books and movies are being put to good use.

Well we are up to date going to have dinner and get some shut eye.

Jack and Linda