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Rimouski, QUEJul 12, 2009
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We had a nice run to here fro Tadoussac, playing the currents nicely. As we got closer to to shore, after crossing the ten milewide river, we hit some eddy currents which play more fun with us. However, this 8 hr run was one of the nicer ones we've had so far since we left home. We got to see a couple of humpback whales again in the early morning. This town of about 47,000 is mostly commercial, so our plans were to only make it a repair stop for HC's alternator and move on. HOWEVER, the weather had other plans for us and we have been here now for 3 days. We make the most of it again, touring what there is to see, mostly shopping, and waiting out the weather by self-entertaining, which we re getting quite good at. Sue wins again and again at Scrabble, with John only winning once since he met her a few years ago. He does hold his own with Sudoku with Sue winning the last book by a score of 47 to 36 . If you want to root for one of us, respond on this web page and we'll post the results for the next book that we just started. The dock hand, Phillipe, who is only 20 yrs old, reminds us of son-in-law Jesse. Phillippe has a similar beard, hair in pony tail.... and is a hard, and polite worker. He is a huge help to us. We installed the inverter, so we can now watch movies, play WII, etc while on the hook with no generator running. John decided since we had so much time, he dida complete maintenance review of the boat, topping off fluids, testing the batteries, and even practicing his rode splicing, by making up 4 new shore cords. sue stayed busy catching up on laundry, doing much needed cleaning on the flybridge and inside. She is reading a lot, completing another book. We also got boarded by Transport Canada for a vessel safety inspection. Since we are on Canada for more than the allowed 60 continuous days, we are out of compliance in many areas, but all minor ones. For example, our life preservers, while legal in the USA, are not here since they do not have the Canada labels in them. It is not a big deal, but interesting experience. They also state that we need to have an axe on board. We decided to leave at 0530 this morning since the weather looked like a possible. So, we ove the boat to the fuel dock for the night where we can untie by ourselves, since the spot we were in was too tight for just Sue and I to undock. We decide to fill up while we were there and the fuel milage calculated to be outstanding. Well, mother nature decided to change her mind (John says that is just like a woman (LOL), and it blows hard and rains hard all night. In fact, the dockmaster this morning was a little worried that since our boat is so big, he was worried that the wind would push our boat against the dock too hard and do damage. Since we decided to stay, we moved the boat back to our slip, where the wind was pushing us hard. So we line up the boat for a parallel docking between 2 boats, one being HC, and the wind pushed us right into the pier.
We are planning on leaving tomorrow, very early since the prediction is fair, while not great. We will try to do double duty if it works out and skip the next town. However, it must be an outstanding day in order for us to make 12 hrs, but fortunately, we finally have some good options for places to bail out if the weather turns on us. Up until now, we have not had many opetions as to where to stop, ma=eaning, once we committted to leave a port, we had to make the next one since there are not many places to stop, including anchors. Many of the bays dry up at low tide (15-18' in spots.
