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! 🙂