I’m sitting in Cap a L’Aigle right now waiting for the tide and wind so I can make the next jump to be in Quebec City this weekend should any of my friends or family like to meet there. I’m deciding whether to get a dock and spend the weekend there or just anchor and push on to Trois Rivieres.

These guys are now honorary citizens of Zeelandia.

I haven’t been able to post for the past few days because the Gaspe Peninsula has no Rogers coverage (Bell dominates, Telus appears to be making inroads..)

Click here for my latest route track     1716 nautical miles (3179kms) to date. approximately 85% sailing, and 15% motoring but it looks like I’ll be doing a lot more motoring from here due to the fact that there’s a lot of current to battle from Rimouski to Montreal and the prevailing winds are SW but we’ll see what happens.

Sailing straight from Magdelan Islands back to Riviere au Renard (~100nm) was fairly uneventful and the winds were perfect for reaching almost the whole way.  About 14km out there’s a small island called Morts Corps (Dead Body) hmm… I wonder why? I did hear that it’s a great place for snorkeling and seals.There’s no commercial shipping traffic lanes on my route so I tried my hand at sleeping for short periods while under sail, waking up every 20mins to look around. Technically this is illegal according to the ColRegs (International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea) because all ships must keep watch at all times, but singlehanders have no choice. I’ve come to learn why sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

I made it back to Riviere au Renard, where I found a guy who runs a little hole-in-the-wall hunting&cycling shop with his wife and son and he was able to fix my rear wheel for $10 labour and $25 parts. He also spent a good two hours going over everything and tuning my bike up like new, a real wizard of a bike mechanic with all the special tools! I tipped him $50 which he tried very hard to refuse. Gotta love the people in these remote little towns.

I left R au R on Thursday evening, having waited all day for the strong NW winds to die down but was met with a horrible swell still running NW so I put in to a tiny fishing port 7 miles up the coast, Anse a Valleau, at about midnight. But it was, well, a shithole, so an hour later I proceeded another 10 miles to Cloridorme which was a bit better and I slept there until Friday morning when I motored out into the calm but shortly after the winds kicked up, on the nose of course! and I found myself tacking into the strong winds not making more than 2knots VMG when I saw a sailboat coming out of an uncharted port. I hailed them on the VHF and they told me, in a typically difficult french to english conversation, that I’d have enough depth to get in. It was a very tricky entrance surrounded by exposed rocks but I bit the bullet and entered. I was glad I did because it turned out to be a great little harbour!I walked the beach and found some cool spineless sea urchins A couple cute little kids were catching sole right off the dock with worms!There was a great little restaurant right there and I spent the rest of the evening in an old fishing boat transformed into a kind of enclosed porch where I chatted for a long time with a retired french teacher from Sudbury who was now a guide for the nearby salmon run and defunct papermill. He told a mean story and offered me a free tour (and french lessons) at 7am the next morning but I had to decline and get going at 9pm that evening, headed for Sainte Anne des Monts.

I made it to Sainte Anne des Monts the next morning around 9am, where I slept for 6hrs and then left for Rimouski. The reason I was pushing along so hard is that the only time you can get easterly winds, which are favourable for sailing south westward up the river, is when low pressure systems come through. The only problem is they bring crappy weather and the infamous nor’easters. I was doing fine running downwind in 15-20kts making good time all day when one of these so called “nor’easters” decided to hand me my ass and kick up to 40 knots, during which I accidentally gybed the main before I had time to reef. The preventer failed and the full main crossed the boat with a vengeance, all I could do was watch in horror, (thankfully, I do have a boom brake which slowed it down a bit) When I looked up, I was glad to see the mast was still standing but it did rip the mainsail (again!) and pulled the boom vang out of the base of the mast. Then a torrential downpour, followed by the wind dropping off and leaving me and Zee broken, soaked, and rolling around in 6 ft seas. We limped into Rimouski under the iron jib (motor) and a double reefed main. Just another day at the office! 🙂

As I sailed out of the Magdalens, I noticed a familiar hull anchored over by the beach (this beach was the biggest I’ve ever seen, stretching for miles and miles and wrapping around a giant sanbar point.)That’s a Beneteau First 235!!!! by the name of Capitaine D’o Bard.                                      (Paul, Chris, Jon and I all owned one of these at one point.)

So now that you know I’ve turned Zee’s bows around towards Toronto and should get back mid August, there’s nothing left to see here, move along right?.. LOL JK. I’ll continue to blog anything that’s of  interest. I definitely plan on hitting Tadoussac.

I left Ballantynes Cove on Friday July 18 and pointed due north, leaving PEI to port and on to the Magdalen Islands. I arrived at the Havre-Aubert anchorage at 3am, dropped the hook and went to bed. When I awoke and took a look around, I realized I had arrived in paradise! A giant sandbar  with grassy dunes that wrapped around the anchorage to the south and west, and a little marina and village to the north. I launched lil’ “Gout” (the dinghy) and sailed over to the sandbar. I found starfish and jellyfish, crabs and clams and snails while wading in the bathtub warm clear water. Who knew Canada had a place like this?!

I sailed Gout around all weekend, anywhere and everywhere. On shore, the little road was lined with artist boutiques and cafes. I ate croissants, souvenir shopped, and chatted with the locals.

When it came time to leave, I cruised some bays and super scenic shoreline before finally letting go of this little paradise and I was off across the gulf for a 30 hour sail, full circle back to Riviere au Renard, where I was on Canada Day.

Well, a few days ago, back at Ballantynes Cove, NS, a mere 20miles from the Canso Straight,  I had to make the very difficult final decision to not go ahead with “the crossing”. I just couldn’t pull the trigger and commit to one year away from Johnny. While dreaming up this adventure, I had convinced myself that one year away from Johnny would be perfectly doable, but good ol’ reality has convinced me otherwise, what more can I say.

Sailing down the St. Lawrence and all through the Canadian Maritimes has been a much larger and more fulfilling experience than I anticipated and it seems I’ve found everything I was looking for. My itch to “sail far and live free” has been scratched, for now. And who knows, if I continue to work at it, maybe I can get Johnny to like sailing enough that we can do some cruising together when he gets a bit older. To be continued..

I tacked out of Summerside on a moderate sou’westerly wind. The coast card cutter, Cap Nord, came out of the harbour at the same time and I heard them on the VHF, they were coordinating practice work with the plane and a coast guard RIB. The plane was circling overhead.

I sailed under the Confederation bridge and onto Cape John, across the strait from Charlottetown. A stunning red cape with seals sunbathing on the rocks in the entrance to the bay. A rainbow appeared and it just so happens that I anchored right where it shone.

It was a windy night. I sailed off the anchor at 8:30 on Wednesday morning and headed towards the Strait of Canso. It was a windy day and the wind was in just the right direction, SW, so it was easy to put about 65 nautical miles behind me easily during daylight. I rounded Cape George and the wind just howled on the nose. I had been warned this cape had it’s own weather system! It was all I could do to round the cape and enter Ballantynes Cove, the prettiest harbour I’ve seen yet.

Ballantynes Cove is a tuna fishing harbour but, judging by the lobster traps stacked everywhere, they do a lot of that too. I woke up on Thursday morning and got my bike together for a day of exploring. There is a really great trail, they call it the mini cabot trail, that takes you up to the Cape George lighthouse and provides one breathtaking view after another.

The trail is tough and I ended up grenading my rear hub. Luckily this happened at the top (500ft) and it was a downhill run all the way back to Ballantynes Cove marina. see those little guys? those are the pawls that allow your bike to ‘freewheel’. These ones have been destroyed by my herculean thighs. lol 😉

I left Shediac yesterday at 3:30 and made the 40 mile sail across the Northumberland Strait in 6 hours flat. That’s an average of 6.5kts. I blew straight into Summerside PEI at full speed and docked at the Summerside Yacht Club which is operated under the same roof as the Silver Fox restaurant and pub.

I rode my bike all over town and did some trail riding as well. I have red PEI mud in the treads of my tires! Turns out I’m just in time for the Lobsterfest here when I only just left one in Shediac.
I paid a visit to the Summerside College of Piping and took in the show “Highland Storm”
The celtic music was powerful in that outdoor amphitheater as I listened to the pipes and old sea shanties on a windy evening on PEI ..having sailed there me-self. 🙂

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The couple I met way back in Riviere au Renard, Pedro and Brigitte aboard Sardine, arrived here in Shediac yesterday and docked on the same dock. It’s amazing how quick sailors can become friends. I was very happy to reunite with them and discuss where we had been in the two weeks since we had last seen each other. We bought a couple 2lb red(cooked)lobsters in town and ate them in the cockpit of Sardine with a couple bottles of wine.