Month: July 2019

Yesterday was the scheduled trip up du Fjord-du-Saguenay.  That would be the fjord cut by the glacial ancestors of the Saguenay River.  We got up fairly early, and after hours of dithering about (1) whether the wind and tides would allow travel up the river and, if so, (2) when a departure would be safe, we settled for 12:30.  Which would’ve been quite reasonable if we’d been sleeping instead of dithering.

Unfortunately, the sun peeked out only sporadically, which meant a lot of grayish photos.  But the scenery from the water still was spectacular.

Back in the days of early exploration, sailors ventured out past the borders of nautical charts to what they understood might be the place where sea monsters guarded the edge of the world.  They must’ve been terrified heading into the gray abyss.  We know exactly how they felt.  Because we were in their exact situation.

We were sort of surprised to learn that we hadn’t paid for electronic charts to get us deep into the Canadian frontier.  As if that wasn’t enough to scare all but the foolhardiest into turning back, our depth gauge decided to show 16 feet when the last charted depth we could see was 863 feet.

The good news is that the edge of the world is at least out past Baie-Éternité.  Eternity Bay.  Our destination yesterday.  We have proof, because here’s Misty Pearl in the middle of it.

Bay Eternity is guarded on one side by Cape Trinity, so named because it has three steps.

The story is that some dude fell through the ice here in about 1881.  He prayed to the Virgin Mary to save him.  There’s no way for us to know whether it actually was intercession by a woman in a sexless marriage who gave birth some 2000 years ago or just luck that saved him, but he attributed his survival to the former.  As thanks, he commissioned a huge lead-coated statue.  The dude then paid some slob to lug the statue part way up the mountain.

A lot of people hike up there to see her, but we found a zoom lens and a drone to be much more efficient.

Supposedly there’s also a giant cross up there somewhere but we didn’t spot it.

Rather than return to Tadoussac yesterday, we stopped off at Anse-Saint-Jean, a tiny village some twenty-five miles into the fjord.  Very cool little place.

The fantastic restaurant part way up the hill had a balcony from which we could see both Misty Pearl  and the storm clouds bringing the rain and thunder that slammed us moments after we got back to her.

Somehow we’ve got to figure out this whole foreign exchange-rate thing.  Or maybe it’s because Canada uses the metric system.  Either way, up here zero percent chance of rain clearly means 100%.

Today we traveled back down the fjord to Tadoussac.

We read somewhere that the name “Tadoussac” comes from the native word for breasts, because of the hills around here.  We wouldn’t make that up.  However, if the hills around here looked substantially more boob-like than, say, every other hill in the world, we’d have pictures.  We don’t have pictures.  We figure either the story isn’t true, or they gave naming rights to a preteen boy whose mother had taken away the magazines he thought were well-hidden under his mattress.

The marina promised us our old spot on the T-head but when we pulled in today, they instead jammed us up in a corner by the fuel dock.  We do get a good look at all the people who pay upwards of a hundred dollars each to go out and look for whales, however, so there’s that.

Tadoussac and Anse-Saint-Jean are two of the most beautiful villages in Quebec.  We know this because both of them are in the Association of The Most Beautiful Villages in Quebec.  If they’re beautiful enough to be two of the thirty-eight members in the Association, they’re beautiful enough for us.  Anyway, we had time this afternoon to see more of the local sights.

For example, the Oldest Wooden Church in Canada—Petite Chapelle de Tadoussac built circa 1747—is in Tadoussac.  After the debacles with old trees in South Carolina and boat speed records we’re kind of leery about even mentioning claims like this, but the church is pretty cool.

We also popped in to the historic Hotel Tadoussac.

The Hotel Tadoussac was the main location used in the The Hotel New Hampshire, starring Rob Lowe.  Apparently it was way less costly to shoot in Canada rather than New Hampshire.  The movie wasn’t a huge hit—quite possibly because it starred Rob Lowe—but we plan to watch it tonight anyway.

Tomorrow we’re crossing the Saint Lawrence to Rimouski.  Maybe see some more whales.  However, there’s a zero percent chance of rain tomorrow, which probably means we’ll be unable to travel because of rain.

Last night was cool enough to skip AC, so we slept with the windows and hatch open.  When it wasn’t drowned out by the clanking burgees we forgot to tie up, we could hear either the wonderful sound of a mountain stream or the terrifying sound of water bubbling into the engine room.  This morning we found the source of good news some fifty yards from our cabin.

Which set the stage for a heck of a day.   We’ve read horror stories about the Saint Lawrence River being rough and nasty.  Knock on wood, based on our experience it’s a piece of cake.  Albeit a really fast piece of cake.

Today was no different.  Smooth.  Fast.  The scenery just gets better and better.  The Cap au Saumon Lighthouse, for example, is one of the coolest we’ve seen.

There are houses on hills with views, and then there’s this house on a hill with a view.

Probably sucks to shovel the driveway in the winter, but in the summer it’s got to be pretty awesome.

At one point the rain came and chased us down to the pilothouse, which was fine because we were cold anyway.  Plus it gave us yet another palette of most excellent scenery.  Eat your heart out Ed Mell.

But who are we kidding here?  Today was all about whales.  Most of the trip to Tadoussac was through a marine sanctuary.  The plankton grow on proverbial trees at the point where the Saguenay River meets the Saint Lawrence, and where plankton grow on trees, supposedly whales gather.  Because whales eat plankton.  Which is weird by itself but that’s another topic.

Our first whale was a beluga, off the port side.  These guys don’t really jump so they’re hard to pin down from a photo perspective.  But Dana still got a tail.

When we got to the Saguenay, however, we found ourselves in the middle of Minkes.  We stopped the engine and just watched them splash around us.  One of the coolest half-hours we’ve had so far.

Dana took a bunch of pictures but since we’ll probably see and photograph whales until about Connecticut we aren’t going to overdo it now.  Like some would say we did with rivers.  And dolphins.  And old trees.  Etc.

Usually—unless the marina has a map on its website—we check out Google Maps as we start getting close.  That gives us the approach direction, landmarks, and the dock layout.  Sometimes we even can see the fuel pumps, which marinas frequently use to guide us in.  This was a first.  The dot is us on Maps after getting tied up at the end of A-Dock.  In the ice field.

Thanks for nothing Google.  In real life the good folks at Marina de Tadoussac put us down at the end of A-Dock after the guy who spoke mostly French realized at the last minute that in fact Misty Pearl is too wide for the opening at A-13.

By the time we tied up, got power, and Oscar completed his post-travel poop and pee routine, the sun was out.  So we hiked the Park of Ancestors Trail through Tadoussac.

Then we visited the Whale Interpretive Center, which—given our nonexistent ability to read French—required two distinct levels of interpretation.

Tadoussac sits at the mouth of the Saguenay fjord, which we’ll be exploring tomorrow if the fog clears out.

So yeah, basically it was a great day.  Would’ve been a perfect day if Doug hadn’t lost his last pair of prescription sunglasses and Dana hadn’t lost several hours of work she thought was saved on her computer.

So maybe it’s a smidge audacious to bastardize an iconic line from a literary masterpiece to use as the title of a silly blog post, but like Captain Ahab we’re in search of whales now.  Today was supposed to be the day.  The couple of boats ahead of us both reported seeing them by the bushel.  For us, maybe tomorrow.  Because there barely was a ripple in the Saint Lawrence all day, and certainly nothing that was caused by anything remotely Moby-Dickish.

In order to play the tide/current game again, we left at 5:45 as planned.   At least by then the sun was high enough to sort of light up Chute Montmorency, so that made the early departure somewhat acceptable.  We found it odd that this huge waterfall is right by a city.  Locals drive past it every day on their way to work, probably cursing at the tourists who stop in traffic to take a picture.  Too bad for them.  If we were in a car, we’d stop in traffic to take a picture.

While in Quebec City we feasted several times on vegetables and wine from the farms and vineyards of Île d’Orléans.  Today we cruised past them.

Pretty quickly the topography changed.  The prevalence of churches remained the same, of course, although the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré was extra cool.  Interesting factoid from Google: the convent someplace right around the Basilica has been the home of Redemptoristine nuns since 1907.  Now they’re all dead or dying or leaving, so the convent was abandoned until some dude decided it would make a good mortuary.  Anyway, the church is still a church, although apparently the cost of upkeep is stressing the Redemptorist brothers responsible for it.

When we get sucked into the scenery, sometimes we need stuff to remind us we’re on an enormous river.  Cargo ships and lighthouses do the job nicely.

Hey here’s something we haven’t seen in our 7,000 miles of traveling by boat, a ski resort.  Le Massif de Charlevoix has the highest vertical drop in eastern Canada.  Which sounds pretty awesome except to the one of us who isn’t a big fan of snow skiing.

What feels like only a week ago, we boasted of riding current downstream to Quebec City.  Fourteen knots.  Fourteen knots!  Boy were we proud of that record.  It lasted only until today.

This current is ridiculous.  At one point we throttled back to 1200 rpms.  We still were doing the 14 knots that we’re now embarrassed we ever mentioned.  It’s like that thing with old trees all over again.

The good news is that even speeding along like a pontoon boat with a small outboard, we were able to get sucked back into the scenery.  Like the field of yellow something-or-others on top of a green hill.

Just before Cape Eagle we passed another one of those cool Château hotels.

There’s a casino next to the hotel but we didn’t bother with a picture since we figured they wouldn’t let us in, what with Doug taking a cool $200 (American) off the Golden Nugget when we were in Atlantic City.  Word gets around.

Then on into the marina.

This has to be one of the most picturesque settings for a marina we’ve seen.  It’s a tiny joint—and the current at the entrance brought a few seconds of unexpected excitement—but it’s very cozy.

The restaurant was a delicious oasis of middle-eastern meets seafood fusion served by the owner’s daughter because they can’t afford to hire outside help.

Later the three of us sat on the shore for a while to give the whales a final chance to show themselves, to no avail.  Oscar was particularly sad.

We did see seals and ducks, though, so didn’t leave empty handed.

All in all, a solidly enjoyable day.

Tomorrow, however, rain or no rain we’d better see frickin’ whales, or we’re lodging some complaints.

Quebec City is a way cool city, which shocked the one of us who didn’t expect to find such amazing culture and history outside of East Tennessee.  It originally was an outpost founded by Jacques Cartier but later made into something more by Samuel de Champlain, a Frenchman who either was a great explorer or a native-killer, depending on who you ask.  There are statutes and paintings and logos galore depicting Old Sammy, most of which have faces that resemble Guy Fawkes.

Here’s the interesting part.  There aren’t paintings—and certainly no photographs—that actually show what he looked like.  It’s kind of like pictures of Jesus or Santa Claus.  Nobody really knows.  Anyway, he saw the high bluff on the Saint Lawrence River—after somehow sailing up it against the current that Misty Pearl almost surfed to plane—and figured it would make a good fort.

Plus after the long trip from France he probably wanted to stop at some of the great shops and restaurants we found over the past few days.

Quebec City—the old part at least—remains mostly walled.  It’s the only fortified city remaining in North America.  There’re roads and doors and stairways, of course, so it probably isn’t very secure, but it’s damn picturesque.

At the top of the hill—which we know from extrapolation would be quite hard to climb without stairs while carrying 17th-century battle implements—is La Citadelle de Québec.  The Citadel is an old fort, but unlike the other old forts we’ve visited on our trip this one remains active.  It’s still home to the Royal 22^e Régiment, whose storied past is detailed in the fort museum.  For example, there’s a huge iron emblem they took off the Nazis.

Normally it costs $16 Canadian per person to enter the fort and the museum, but we lucked into an Open House.  Everything was free, which saved us something between $2 and $80 U.S.  We’re still unsure about this whole exchange rate thing.

The official motto of the Royal 22^e—as well as all of Quebec—is “Je me souviens,” which means “I remember.”  Our French-Canadian friends from Trois-Rivières take this motto very seriously, as sort of a rallying cry for those dedicated to preserving the French culture of the province.  We thought the flowers were pretty.

The Citadel also contains a house, which serves as the official secondary residence of the Governor General of Canada and the Canadian monarch.  Who is Queen Elizabeth.  Which is really, really weird, since (1) Queen Elizabeth probably doesn’t give a hoot about Canada, (2) she’s got plenty of houses in her own country, and (3) the people here all speak French.  Go figure.  Maybe she just loves maple syrup.  But hey, the Open House included the actual house, so we went on in.

In addition to her house having fine china with a view, Her Majesty also gets credit for hanging up some of that third-grade art little Charlie brought home and everyone pretended was really good.

She’s probably got some pinch-pots from Harry’s kindergarten pottery class packed away as well.

Although most everything around here is French, right next to the fort are the Plains of Abraham, which doesn’t sound French at all.

The place got its name because some poor slob named Abraham Martin had the bad luck of seeing a large and important battle between the French and the English take place on his farm.  The English won a decisive victory, which may in part explain why Queen Elizabeth has a house inside the fort.  Now mostly the Plains of Abraham serve as a concert venue.  Battle of the Bands and all that.

Did we mention that the town is full of narrow paths and streets?

Our food tour took us past the famous cannonball tree, although we looked it up and this is not a cannonball at all.  It’s a firebomb.  It’s been there a long time, however, so nobody seems concerned about it going off.

Did we mention the food?  Paillard is a famous bakery.  We actually bought croissants there every day.  Yum.

We don’t know if puns are a thing in French, but we ate at one of those as well.

We also discovered the Fromagerie des Grondines, which simultaneously was awesome and sad.  It was awesome because we picked up some delicious fresh local cheeses.  It was sad because in our post about Campbellford, Ontario, we wasted a reference to the Cheese Shop sketch.

Back to Guy Fawkes and the logical progression to Anonymous and then to Scientology.  We found the Quebec City “church.”

How do you say “ridiculous cult” in French anyway?  Also, up here are their absurd thetan-finding tester thingys called E-meters or E-metres?

Until today, we were docked in the marina with the Old City off our port side.  Easy walking to stuff, except for the insane hills.

We also got to witness the famed aurora borealis.  Not the real one, of course, but the one they showed every night on the silos along the waterfront.  Mostly it looked like Las Vegas, but without people trying to lure us into strip clubs.

Our first day or two we were the only U.S. flagged boat in the marina.  Then Dana came back and announced that another one had just pulled in.  That wasn’t the odd part though.  The odd part was the flag on the bow.

What the hell?  The boat is No Drama, and that’s the first Arizona flag we’ve seen in two years.  Let’s go knock on their hull.  Turns out Jeff was a Phoenix attorney of some renown, although our paths hadn’t directly crossed professionally.  Now we consider them friends.  Jeff and Ann make our decision to chuck everything to cruise around the east coast look like kindergarten play.  When they chucked everything to cruise around, they went around the world.  For five years.  In a sailboat.

Later Laughter and then Drift Away came in, bringing the Yankee Doodle contingent to four boats.

Tomorrow high tide is at 7:45.  To get to Cap-à-l’Aigle efficiently we have to leave two hours before that.  Wait, that’s 5:45, which isn’t quite as bad as the last travel day but it still sucks.  And the lock guarding the marina doesn’t open until 7.  So today was our shortest travel day ever.  We cleverly timed our lock-through to avoid the crowd and then stopped just on the other side to tee up the early departure.

When the sun rises at 5 a.m., getting up before dawn is terrible.  Actually it’s damn terrible.  However, a massive volume of water goes up and down the Saint Lawrence with the tide.  Fighting that water—rather than riding it down—is worse than losing a bit of sleep.  Plus in a pinch there’re naps to be had.  So we shoved off at 5:30.

We weren’t the only ones who decided on this strategy.  Cargo ships from Montreal apparently copied our plan, which we realized when the Nunalik came barreling up from behind and passed us at almost 16 knots.  Since we can’t communicate effectively in French we just moved out of the way.

Have we mentioned the churches?  Seemingly every mile or two we pass a small town with a distinctive steeple.  Dana has photographed just about every one, but mostly they all look the same.  Judging by the churches, this is quite the religious bunch up here.

Have we mentioned the current?

Today we blistered along at between 10 and 12 knots at the rpms that usually get us just under 8.  The Richelieu Rapids—which oddly we encountered on the Saint Lawrence River rather than the Richelieu River—were a swirly-churny mess of rushing water.  That was enough to push us to 13.5 knots, which was faster than we could recall Misty Pearl ever going before.  Wheeee!

Shortly before we reached Quebec City, however, we zipped under the Pierre Laporte Bridge.  This bridge has the longest suspension span in Canada.

Pierre Laporte was the Quebec Minister of Labor—or Minister of “Labour” in these parts—when the equivalentof the People’s Front of Judea kidnapped and killed him?  The bridge name probably is small consolation to Pierre’s family, but it’s something.

Anyway, at the bridge we caught another surge.  We actually touched 14 knots.  That’s faster than we can recall Misty Pearl ever going before.  Two records in less than three hours!  Wheeee!

Around the bend we passed the Château Frontenac.  

This historic hotel is the east coast bookend to the Château Lake Louise, which we recommend highly as a reward for anyone who (1) backpacks through Banff National Park and (2) has a high tolerance for annoying photo-blocking crowds of Asian tourists.

Arguably the biggest downside to current is docking.  (We say “arguably” because going up the Ohio River against the current arguably was worse.)  Quebec City solves this problem by jamming a lock between the river and the marina.

We had no problem at all getting in.  It’s the getting out that seems to be a problem.  First, you have to make a reservation.  Second, they pack boats into the lock in a way that would make sardines uncomfortable.

We’re not looking forward to the leaving part.  What we do look forward to is exploring more of Quebec City.

We’ve been excited about Quebec City since we decided to do the Down East Circle.  Heck, we even scheduled a walking food tour for Tuesday.

We’re tucked in just below the Old City and don’t plan to move again until at least Thursday.