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???