20 Jul 15

It was a dark and stormy night last night. After sunset, with the heavy overcast and no moon, it was dark as a tomb outside. And about 02:00, it commenced to thunder and lightning like nobody’s business and woke us both up. There were a couple of strikes close by, but Neptune or Zeus, or whoever, missed us. Since it was blowing from the east this morning and the last forecast we saw showed E15 - 15 on Tuesday, we decided against moving another 22 miles west to Baie des Ha! Ha! (although the name is intriguing) and be faced with a 50 mile upwind slog on Tuesday to be in Tadoussac for the St. Lawrence crossing on Wednesday, when the forecast shows westerly winds; so, we just went straight to Tadoussac with the morning ebb. The wind was on the nose all the way, of course, but not too strong and we made the trip in under 4 hours. In Tadoussac, we loaded up on essentials (fuel, food and booze) for the next week’s slog across the top of the Gaspe peninsula. Tadoussac is the whale-watching center of the St. Lawrence River and Bay. Although we did not see any whales today, we hope to see some tomorrow. The time-lapse video of the run from L’Anse St. Jean to Baie Eternite to Tadoussac is here:

http://youtu.be/91uDiIm6css

48-08.316’N, 069-42.949’W

21 Jul 15

It was COLD (48 F) when we got up at 6:45 to consider the day’s forecast; last night’s forecast for today showed S 8-10. But, the wind was still SE this morning and predicted to stay that way all day; plus, there was a thick fog (i.e., visibility less than 100m) out on the St. Lawrence - the fog later moved right into the marina, so we decided to stay put. And, it continued foggy and rainy and cold all day long. The Admiral got a load of laundry done in the morning and I took care of a few boat chores. We ran the heat on the boat all morning and afternoon. After lunch, we bestirred ourselves to venture out as far as the Cetacean Interpretive Center, which was quite interesting, followed by a short walk up to the Society Postes de Canada (aka, the Post Office) to mail a few letters and post cards. We dipped into a local restaurant for tea (and to avoid another shower) on the way back, then got back to the boat soaked through. The marina has filled up with boats from all over hiding from the weather; they are rafted on several boats, but, thankfully, not ours, as we still hope to get away with the morning ebb tide. Late in the evening, the wind shifted sharply around to the SW and cleared the fog out a bit; hopefully, this is a good sign for tomorrow.