Perce Rock, Gaspe

Left Riviere au Renard under sunny skies, light winds, and mildly high seas after last night's storm.  As we left the harbour, I saw 2 whale spouts on the horizon, too far to actually see the whale, but we hoped it was a good omen!!

The morning's cruise was lovely as we sailed past the cliffs of the Gaspesie, making our way towards the Baie de Gaspe.  En route we passed the Cap des Rosiers lighthouse, Canada's highest light house, at 34 meters.  The Cap Gaspe cliffs became more impressive as we made our way along the Forillon peninsula, leading to Cap Gaspe.  At the cape we were treated to yet another lighthouse, appropriately named Cap Gaspe lighthouse, right at the top of the 700' high Gaspe cliffs!!  I wondered how the lighthouse keeper could actually help anyone he saw in trouble, when I think I saw a very steep, long zig-zag trail leading from the house to the small beach at the base of the cliff!  The cliffs are very interesting to look at, as the 'sea' side of the cliffs are very steep and high, while the 'bay' side swoop down to a relatively low height by the time they reach the water!

Cap des Rosiers Lighthouse

Gaspe cliffs

Cap Gaspe

Cap Gaspe Lighthouse

Cap Gaspe seen from the Baie de Gaspe

As we crossed the Gaspe Bay, the winds started to pick up and the wave height was growing.  We decided, despite Environment Canada's prediction of decreasing winds in the afternoon, to put a reef in the main.  By the time we crossed the Gaspe Bay, and were starting across the Malbaie, we were putting in a second reef!  Malbaie is impressive because this is where you can see Perce Rock starting to show on the horizon.  The mainland has Mount Blanc and Mount Sainte Anne rising up from the little village of Perce at the seaside, directly facing the Perce Rock.  As we sailed past Perce Rock, we also admired the flocks of gannets flying around the rock, and the beautiful Ile Bonaventure, just the other side of the Perce Rock.  It is abandoned now, but there is an historical fishing village maintained as a tourist site on the island now.  It is also home to many of those gannets, as well as puffins and seals.  We sailed between Perce Rock and Ile Bonaventure, but ended up motor-sailing, as the winds were now quite high and the seas over 2 meters, breaking over the bow and soaking us in the cockpit!!  Fortunately it continued to be sunny, so with all the wind we dried out between soakings!  I became soaked again dropping the main and staysail for our entry in to L'Anse au Beaufils, so we were very happy to get behind the breakwater and tie up to the quay!

Perce Rock and Mount Sainte Anne from Malbaie

Perce Rock!

view as we passed the rock....I love the grass on top!

Ile Bonaventure

L'Anse au Beaufils is a cute little harbour where all the Perce Rock tour boats also stay at night, as Perce offers no protection from the weather.  There is a micro-brewery here, so George sampled their wares and we put a few on board!  Also there is a nice little restaurant where we had a nummy lunch 'al fresco'; George had clam chowder and a crab club sandwich with the local beer, and I had an open-face shrimp, pear, and chevre sandwich with a Mirage cider.  We also went through the little store upstairs above the restaurant where all kinds of local artisans sell their products.  I think, actually, it was an artist co-op?  Either way, nice stuff, so we did end up buying a few things!!  Finally we went for a beach walk and came back with a pocketful of rocks!!  This area is well know for it's agates and jaspers that wash up on the beach, but we were not so fortunate as to find any of those!!

Our second night here there was an amazing storm that blew up and we rocked and rolled like crazy on the dock, so we were both up most of the night, adjusting the lines on the boat.  The next morning, as I was lying in bed thinking about a nice breakfast at the little restaurant and then maybe another beach walk where I could look more actively for agates,  George came back to the boat after meeting Dennis at the shower.  We had not had a chance to connect with the internet yet, so weren't sure what the weather was doing in the next couple of days, but Dennis was able to let George know that today there was a weather window that we might want to take advantage of in order to make the crossing to the Iles de la Madeleine!  He and Jane had decided that they were going to take advantage of it, and due to the dynamic nature of the weather on the Gaspe, we, too, decided that we should make the jump today, as we ran a chance of being stuck in L'Anse au Beaufils for a few days waiting for the next window......so much for the relaxing breakfast!!!

We had decided, after some discussion, to essentially 'follow our noses' for the next few weeks, and then see where we are at the end of August and decide at that point whether we leave the boat for the winter somewhere in the Maritimes and plan for the Caribbean next year, or leave it for the hurricane season closer to the Chesapeake, and then come back to it in November, carrying on to the Caribbean then.

Meanwhile, we prepare to make our first significant overnight trip together on the boat!  We think it will take about 30 hours to cross the Gulf of St. Lawrence at this point and reach the Iles de la Madeleine.  We will, for the first time this trip, be completely out of sight of all land for some time, and be in relatively 'open' waters.  By leaving at ~0800 hrs in the morning, we hope to be in Cap aux Meules, Iles de la Madeleine by early afternoon tomorrow!!!

Too windy!!

Daytime.....

Nighttime!!!

Wow, we did not leave Rimouski as planned.  Awoke to winds in the harbour of about 20 knots, which grew over the day to 25 knots with gusts to over 30!  Went up to the club house to look at the water outside the harbour, and it was wild!!!  It was a beautiful sunny day, however, so spent the day hiding behind our canvas and reading!!  By evening, the wind finally died down and we had a gorgeous, quiet, full moon!  So different from the day!  Welcome to the St. Lawrence and Gaspe!!

Cloridorme to Riviere au Renard

Winds picked up again over night, so put a second reef in the main before leaving Cloridorme.  Waves were about 1 meter in height and the wind steady at 20-25 knots, but with the double reef in the main, we sailed along quite comfortably all the way to Riviere au Renard.  A couple of times we stalled in the middle of our tack as we only had the main out, so slower coming 'round, and we saw these huge waves coming right on our beam, braced for the big soak we were sure we were going to get, and Wyvern just rolled up the wave and not a drop of water in the cockpit!! 

leaving the Chic-Choc mountains behind

looking toward the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula

Riviere au Renard fishing port

We arrived at Riviere au Renard at about 1:00pm, with Dennis and Jane on SV Split Crow arriving shortly after.  It was a lovely sunny day, so wandered the harbour, ending up at the poisonnerie and buying more scallops for dinner and smoked salmon for appetizers!  They also have lobster here, but decided to wait on that.  We plan to be here for three days as George has a lot of work to do on the boat before we leave, and we want to be rested for the next leg!  Riviere au Renard is a real working harbour, and one of the oldest and major fishing ports of the Gaspe.  Lots of big, ocean-going fishing vessels here, catching shrimp, lobster, scallops and crab.  Also big trollers fishing out of this harbour.

We are officially out of the St. Lawrence and in the Straits of Honguedo, named after a Spanish explorer who found himself in these parts!  Anticosti Island is essentially at the 'mouth' of the St. Lawrence river, so the water that flows south and in to the Gulf of St. Lawrence is called the Detroit d'Honguedo and the water flowing around the top of the island is the Cartier Strait, or the Detroit de Cartier.  Riviere au Renard is almost at the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula, so we are at the point in our trip where we start having choices about where we head next!

As most of you know, and have probably guessed, as a result of our transmission problems in Cornwall, we were essentially a month behind schedule for crossing the Atlantic by the time we finally left Cornwall.  In fact we were hoping to be in the Halifax area by the first week of July and we didn't leave Cornwall until June 29!  So crossing the Atlantic is definitely out of the list of probabilities, however there are lots of options now that we are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  We are going to go to L'Anse au Beaufils and will, from there, decide whether we will head across the water to the Iles de la Madeleine, or keep heading south through the Northumberland Strait, which runs between New Brunswick and PEI.

Our decision will be based on, obviously weather conditions in the next little while, and our finicky starter.  "Dit quoi???" you say??  Yes, we thought the starter was fixed, however guess what gave us problems when we tried to start the engine in order to make the harbour at Riviere au Renard?......We are frequently reminded of Wilson's wise words when we were having our transmission problems; "No great adventure is without it's hardships"

Meanwhile, our first night here was lovely and we even had a free, open air concert at the marina!!  It was standing room only, as half the town showed up!!  The chip stand and ice cream truck were doing a booming business!!!  The next day was rainy and windy, as predicted, so stayed in the boat most of the day.  George managed to borrow a 'shorty' wetsuit from Dennis, so went in to the questionable water of the harbour to tighten our anode, only to find it was gone!  So we will have to replace that as soon as we can, however they don't have the right size here, so will check at the next harbour.  We were invited to another boater's birthday party at the marina, so made some chocolate chip cookies for a birthday present.  Afterwards we visited SV Split Crow and had a rousing game of euchre!!.....Girls won!
Hear is a sampling of the concert!

Lobby before......

Lobby after......I hope I can actually eat him!

Today, George has devoted to the engine; changing the oil and the filters.  I have done a little shopping and the laundry.  George is making a lobster feast for dinner tonight, and then we will head off to L'Anse au Beaufils in the morning and make some big decisions!!  I feel, with a name like that, and all of our own 'beau fils' it is a good place to make those decisions!

Mont Louis to Cloridorme

What a difference a day makes!!  During the night the winds picked up from the SE to about 20 knots, so after letting out more chain at about 2:00 in the morning, we weren't sleeping all that well, so decided to get going at about 5:30am.  It is actually light about 4:00 to 4:30, so at least we weren't in the dark, and it was another sunny day!  George had let out a floating anchor marker when we dropped the anchor, so we wanted to collect that as we brought up the anchor, as we did not have floating line, so were worried that the line might get caught around the shaft or propellor with all the wind.  It was difficult keeping the boat in to the wind in order to do both those jobs, but we were managing okay.  We got the marker on board, but of course the other end was attached to the anchor, so the line still a concern as we continued to raise the anchor, when suddenly we saw coming up out of the depths, firmly entwined in our chain and anchor marker line a HUGE  forked (or was that a 'forkin'?) branch!!!!  What the...???  Now we were in a pickle!  We weren't drifting yet, but we knew we were on borrowed time as far as that went with the winds at 20 knots, and although we had some room, there was a huge abandoned breakwater down wind of us......AND that branch was not coming off easily.  It was way too big to break or cut and we had left our saw at home..... I left my post at the helm and went to help George with the whole tree, anchor line, chain mess. As we were struggling to loosen the line in order to free the branch, we both noticed that we were, now, drifting toward the breakwater.  George ran back to the helm and held her steady in to the wind, while I cut the anchor marker line.  This freed the tension so I could unwind the line from around the branch although it was also trapped between the anchor chain and the tree, so had to yank on the chain to get it right off.  Finally it was off and I brought it on board, while the rest of the line sank to the bottom.  Now the branch was only wrapped around the chain, but stuck where it forked off.  As the chain tightened, the branch was jammed up against our second anchor at the bow!  I gave it a couple of hard kicks which popped it off, then pulled it around the chain and watched it sink back into the depths!!!  We then finished pulling up the chain (other end of anchor marker line still attached!) and headed out of our 'safe' harbour to where there was some sea room!  All that before our first coffee!!!

Before the whole anchor drama began, we had decided to pre-reef the sail, which was a good idea, as it continued to blow the 20 knots all morning, with gusts to 25-27, so we had a good sail to Cloridorme, averaging 7 knots.  The wind was supposed to die down about noon, but it didn't, so we came in to the tiny harbour of Cloridorme under high winds.  Fortunately, there was one spot left on the very tiny wharf for visitors, so we swung Wyvern around into the wind and tied down for the night!

Cloridorme is a tiny fishing village, with a little harbour surrounded by shale hills and cliffs.  By late afternoon the wind finally died down and the sun came out (it had disappeared and started to rain a little once we were tied up) so we enjoyed a little walk before having supper.

Chic-Choc mountains and valleys!

visitor's wharf in Cloridorme

harbour of Cloridorme

shale cliffs

inter-tidal zone

Ste.-Anne-des-Monts to Mont Louis

Left Ste-Anne-des-Monts on July 16, glassy calm day!  The wind picked up slightly around 8:00am, but quickly died, so today was a motor day!  It was so calm we were able to stay fairly close to shore, so took advantage and got another lighthouse picture at Le Martre.  The mountains continue to be beautiful and the day was spectacular!!  One we may take for granted on Lake Ontario, but certainly doesn't happen very often on the St. Lawrence!!  We anchored in a bay beside Mont Louis and spent the afternoon lying about on the deck, reading and falling asleep!!  That night we had the lobster I had bought in Ste-Anne-des-Monts....delicious!  We really felt spoiled today!  Even had the Mediterranean Cafe mix blasting from the cabin!!!  George took advantage of the calm waters and heat and took a quick dip under the boat to discover the cause of the tapping sound we heard the other day as we were sailing......loose zinc anode!  The water was way too cold for George to stay in and try to tighten it, so we decided to try at the next harbour and hope it didn't fall off before that!  Afterward we tried out our portable shower.....worked great!!!!  Was a bit fresh, as we didn't leave it out in the sun long enough, but it is going to be a great thing to have!!

passing the Chic-Choc mountains on a glassy sea

Le Martre lighthouse

The harbour at Mont Louis where we anchored

Relaxing!

showering!!

et homard!!!!!!

another beautiful sunset on the St. Lawrence

Matane to Ste. Anne des Monts

After a 'rocky' night at anchor, we set off at about 6:00am, heading for Ste. Anne des Monts.  The river is really starting to open up here, and the coastline is rising steadily with the Chic-Choc mountains of the Gaspesie National Park.  It is lovely to sail beside such scenic vistas, with the little villages and their churches nestled along the shoreline!  The day started off with very soft winds, but by the time we reached Cap Chat, the wind was up and blowing at it's predicted levels of 10-15 knots from the SW, which was perfect for our direction of sail.  Once we raised the sails, however, we noticed a tapping sound from the shaft/propellor area, which stopped if we put the transmission in reverse.  I took the helm and George went below to see if there was anything obvious that we should be looking at.  After a few minutes, he asked me to turn the engine back on.......wouldn't start AGAIN!!  I was not a happy sailor!!!!  The winds were pretty strong, and although we were doing fine sailing, we wouldn't be able to enter the harbour with our sails up.  The harbours here are wonderfully protected from the wind and waves, but they do it by building great big stone breakwaters with narrow entrances, so engines are really handy things to have when you are trying to get in to a safe harbour!!!  Anyway, long and short, George managed to get the engine started again, but this was not a situation we were happy about....I believe you should be able to rely on your engine, not be grateful that it started!!!

Cap Chat (head lying on its side, so one ear almost in the water, other ear pointing up!)

Ste Anne des Monts and windmills in the distance

We finished our sail at the mouth of Ste Anne des Monts with the winds freshening to 20-25 knots and gusting to 30.  Ste. Anne des Monts is a very small, but lovely little harbour with a marine electrician close by!!  George lined him up to come and look at our starter and see if he could figure out what was the problem, and he came by the next day and put in a new wire to the starter.  The starter itself seems good, but the wire was sending a weak signal, so the electrician seemed pretty confident that was the problem.

Meanwhile I took advantage of the day and did some re-provisioning and laundry!  We found a lovely little store with fresh bread and fresh fish, so took advantage of both!!  Had lime and pepper scallop stirfry with rice and roasted veg for supper that night with more saumon fume avec sirop de l'erable with our appys!!!!!  While the electrician was on the boat, I finished the laundry and wandered around the marine centre just behind the marina.  All kinds of great carvings out of driftwood around the building, and then this GREAT playground with all kinds of maritime-themed play structures!!  I couldn't help thinking about our grandsons and how much fun they would have there!!  There was also a nice souvenir shop at the centre, with a nice collection of local handicrafts and art, but with everything else going on, decided not to indulge!

Finally, as an added interest of note, the big yacht we saw in Cornwall, we saw again in Quebec City (they arrived the day we left) and it came in to Ste. Anne des Monts and parked beside us on our last night!!!......I think they are following us!!

Here are some pictures of the playground for Ash!!  Also for Ozzie and CJ, but they might be too young??!!

Here is a sampling of the driftwood carvings.

This fish actually swings in the breeze, so looks like it is swimming!

this one reminds me of Gandalf!

Ste. Anne des Monts harbour

If you look closely, Wyvern III is waay at the end!

outside the marina harbour, with the town in the distance

Rimouski to Matane

Left Rimouski on the 13th on a peaceful, calm morning with some fog in the distance.  Decided to sail by the spot where the Empress of Ireland sank.  There is a memorial erected in the water that you can see.  It was eerie sailing over the spot where we knew so many people had lost their lives and be able to see land so close.....

Empress of Ireland Memorial

Afterwards we set up our fog horn as there was fog on the horizon and we wanted to be prepared.....too much Empress of Ireland story in our heads!!  As it turned out we never did run in to fog, and in fact managed to get a little sail in before the wind died down again!

Wyvern III Foghorn!!  Hey it works, AND it's automatic!!!

About 6:00 pm we arrive at the harbour of Matane.  We had decided to anchor just outside behind a breakwater instead of going in to the harbour.  When we arrived, though, there, right in our planned spot was a sailboat!!.....the first one we had seen all day!!  Wouldn't you know it!  No big deal, we went for a second choice (there wasn't a lot of room for choosing due to depth of water, prevailing winds, etc)  and just as we dropped the anchor, we saw a mysterious floating object...what the heck??  We assumed it was a giant 'deadhead' (a water-soaked piece of wood that floats 'upright') but it also looked like the tip of a rock, and it didn't seem to be moving! Hmmm.  We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and we picked up our anchor and moved to yet another spot!  That deadhead would have been right in our 'swing circle' and we didn't like the idea of hitting it in the middle of the night!  After we moved, the deadhead disappeared!  We looked for it again the next morning with the low tide, but still no mysterious deadhead!  We finally settled down to dinner and a beautiful sunset!!!  It was a fairly 'lumpy' anchorage with lots of water movement, but hardly any wind, so we were rocked to sleep under a starry sky!

Matane Lighthouse

Appys!!

Sunset at Matane

Rimouski

After spending a relaxing day at Cap a L'Aigle, we left early in the morning and had a beautiful motor to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay river.  The wind appeared to be picking up, so we shook out our sails, only to have the wind disappear again!!  The scenery here is beautiful...the shoreline is quite spectacular, as it rises out of the water.  By the time we reached the famous Prince Shoal Light, at the mouth of the Saguenay, the water was glassy calm, without a breath of wind....perfect for whale watching!!  We saw numerous Minke whales swimming around us, but keeping their distance, and then also a number of belugas in the distance...they seemed to prefer the shallower waters.  Where the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay meet, the rivers are both amazingly deep.....up to 900 ft. deep in the Saguenay and 200 ft. in the St. Lawrence!...with steep shelves meeting at the mouth of the Saguenay and rising steeply and suddenly to about 60 feet.  This makes for great feeding grounds for the whales as all the krill and other sea life gather at these shelves.  There were so many whales, we decided to shut the motor off and drift, hoping that not having the engine on would mean we might see some whales even closer.  It really was a perfect day....the water was like glass and not a breath of wind, however the tide was coming in, so we were slowly drifting back from whence we had come!  Eventually we had to turn the motor back on and make our way in to Tadoussac.......only to find our engine didn't want to start!!  George immediately went into the starboard cockpit locker to examine our starter while I readied the anchor to throw, as we were rapidly drifting to shallower water, and eventually rocks!  After an anxious 5 or 10 minutes, George had discovered there was nothing obviously wrong with the starter, so checked the engine belt and manually moved it a bit in case there was a worn spot, tried the engine again, and presto! the engine started!!  Whew!!!  We made our way to the Tadoussac Marina, tied up, and went for a drink and snack at the marina restaurant!!!

The town of Tadoussac is a beautiful little spot, which started out as an important trading post for the french and natives back in the 1600's, and eventually became a holiday destination for the 'steamship liner' set, who would come for their summer holidays from Montreal and Quebec and stay at the Tadoussac Hotel.  Although the original burned down, a rebuilt one is still there and dominates the skyline as you sail in to the harbour!  There is also the original Jesuit church still there and a rebuilt trading post.

The next morning we went to the Cafe Boheme for breakfast.....funky little place that served a great breakfast!  We also bought some homemade chocolates and then went for a walk around the point.  The day turned out to be quite cool and overcast, so went back to the boat and made banana bread and soup for supper!  Was going to download my video of the whales to share with everybody, but huge disappointment!!!!  For some unknown reason, my computer would not recognize my SD card from the camera and wouldn't download any of my pictures or video!!!!  I am SO unhappy about that as I was really hoping to share them with you...........So no pictures of Tadoussac or whales I'm afraid.

looking up the Saquenay

Prince Shoal Light; entrance to Tadoussac and Saguenay river

The next morning we left early so we could explore a little up the Saguenay fjord.  Unfortunately, it continued to be cold and overcast, and with the incoming tide, we decided to head back out to the St. Lawrence so that we could make our next port of call, Rimouski, without being too late and also use the tides to our favour!!  I had a new SD card in my camera, so was hoping to catch some whales in action, but of course, not a whale to be seen that day!!  We crossed the St. Lawrence in good time, and proceeded down the south shore of the river now.  The wind started to pick up and moved to the SW, so we raised the jib as we sailed by Ile de Bic.  Then the wind really began to pick up and we had steady winds of about 15 knots, but gusting to 30+!  One gust caught me unaware while I was steering and had pointed to far up in to the wind, and knocked the boat over past 45 degrees!!  Scared the ***** out of me!!!  The boat managed it well, however, and I made sure I kept the wind on my quarter for the rest of the trip and let out the jib a bit.  Outside of the Rimouski harbour, the wind was now really howling so we brought in the jib and followed four other sailboats in to the marina!!  George did a great job of docking the boat in an off-jetty wind and the two guys who caught our lines did a great job of tying the boat safely to the jetty before she blew away!!!  Needless to say, another night where we decided we deserved a night off, so headed to the marina restaurant and had a GREAT meal!!!  Wonderful seafood!  It was a real treat!  The guys behind us had each ordered the seafood platter...a huge plate full of lobster, scallops, shrimp, salmon and crab!!!  They were taking pictures of their meal and I don't blame them!!!

The next day continued to blow hard, so we walked in to the mall and re-provisioned and then had a quiet day on the boat.  Rimouski is a town of about 50,000 and has the marine biology and oceanography degree programs for the University of Quebec, so is quite a bustling little place!

Today was sunny and not so windy, so we borrowed the bikes from the marina and rode to Pointe-au-Pere to see the museum dedicated to the Empress of Ireland and the light house there.  An excellent museum with a really good movie about the disaster...complete with fog and cold winds!  For those not familiar, the Empress of Ireland is Canada's biggest passenger ship disaster and occurred off of Pointe-au-Pere on May 29, 1914.  She was carrying ~ 1400 passengers, including crew; most of whom were immigrants returning home to Europe.  It was her first night out from Quebec City and she had just dropped off her pilot at Pointe-au-Pere when she sighted the coal ship Starstad coming in to pick up her pilot.  Suddenly both ships were surrounded by fog, lost sight of each other, and the Starstad ran right in to the Empress of Ireland's midships.  The Starstad pulled out of the Empress with almost no damage, as she had an icebreaker bow, and ended up picking up some of the survivors from the passenger ship, but the Empress sunk at 0200 hrs in the morning, only 14 minutes after impact, killing 1012 people......all but four of the children and over half of the women.  600 are still in the ship.  It really was a horrible disaster.  And then all but forgotten because of WWI starting shortly thereafter.

Afterward we climbed to the top of the Pointe-au-Pere light house....second highest in Canada at 33 metres!, but no longer in use.  There is actually a lot of history in Pointe-au-Pere around the maritime industry.  Not only did it have a light house here, but it was also the place where the pilots would join the steamships going in to the St. Lawrence, as it was considered the start of the river.  There was also a large division of fusiliers who trained here during the war and were active in keeping track of enemy submarines trying to get in to Canada.  23 got in and sunk 12 ships!!!!  Eventually we figured out how to catch these guys and they stopped coming in!!  They also have the old Onanadaga submarine there as a museum, but we decided not to bother seeing that.....I think we may actually have been on it with the boys back when she was still active and one of George's classmates was her captain!

Pointe-au-Pere Lighthouse

View to the east from the lighthouse

view to west of the south shore of the St. Lawrence from the lighthouse

On our way back to the boat we stopped at the poissoniere and bought maple syrup smoked salmon (NUMMY) and shrimp for appys and supper!!!!  Tomorrow we head for Matane and possibly some anchorages???