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!