Day 27 – 31: Riviere au Renard to Gaspe

Another quiet night in the bay of Riviere au Renard turned into a not so quiet night as the winds picked up at about 1130. Wind gusts over 20 kts, kept larry on anchor watch and me awake in bed wondering when he was going to tap on my shoulder and tell me we need to move the anchor. The Rocna hasn’t failed us; it’s just when you set the anchor thinking the wind is going to come from one direction and then ends up coming from the other direction can leave you in a precarious position. VATA was also in the harbour and emailed this picture they took of us.

The marina at Riviere au Renard has perhaps 12 slips, but they will always make room. The manager, Marie-Mae is very welcoming. The bathrooms are by far the cleanest I’ve seen between here and anything on lake Ontario; she even provides towels although I’m not sure if they are for handwashing (since there are no paper towels) or for showering. The bathrooms are so clean I even felt obligated to wipe the floors after drying my hair. The marina has fuel, electricity, hot showers, washer and dryers, all for $45 a night. There is a grocery store, home hardware and SAQ all within a 5-minute walk. Oh and don’t forget to have ice cream on the quai-side – best ice cream around. Larry had ice cream 4 nights in a row. I didn’t since I was suffering from the side effects of the anti-seasick patch. Ironically enough one of the side effects was nausea. The other side effects were diareha and the inability to pee. So we were thinking the one patch may be a good dose for a man over 180 pounds but perhaps for lighter people maybe just use half. I’ve decided to try the cinnarizine tablets that larry brought back from the UK so am taking them every 8 hours. Anything to help.

We stayed there til friday, restocking the boat and getting odd jobs completed and cooking a lovely dish of lasagna for my man. I’m not one to take pictures of the food I make but this one I couldn’t resist, and it was delicous!

Our yacht club has an article called “Cooking on Board”. While I don’t think I would sacrifice the room to carry a crock pot or Kuerig on board, although both these items are decadent in themselves,  I think we eat pretty well without all the modern conveniences. I will be putting an article together describing how I cook while travelling abroad for the club paper very soon.

We also got to enjoy some live entertainment on thursday night. We really enjoyed our stay in Riviere au Renard and I for one was sad to leave (knowing an overnighter was a head of me).

The weather on friday looked promising to cross to les Isles de la Madelaine. With winds strong, but forecasted from the southwest we were guaranteed a nice crossing to the north of the islands, then swing south to St.  Lawrence Bay in Cape Breton.

Of course and true to form, not 20 minutes out of the gate and I was on the bathroom floor. We had prearranged that this would now be my go-to/happy  place for obvious reasons. In addition, the floor space is maybe two feet wide so if the boat is healing in any direction I’m pretty much contained. I just felt bad for larry because these winds that were suppose to be coming from the southwest were actually coming from the southeast. Would have been fantastic if Stephenville, Nfld was our final destination but it was not. I felt bad for larry having to go through this wretched day by himself.

I’m not sure what time (perhaps 3) it was that larry decided to head back to the coast. That is how we ended up here in Gaspe. Look at the chart from yesterday. For those of you who are non-chart readers, we started at the top left and ended up bottom left. If you were to travel by car, Riviere au Renard is 30 kms away! (Larry said he would have preferred not knowing that!).

We arrived at the Jacques Cartier Marina around 7:30 pm. It’s a lovely marina; cost is $47 per night with the third night at 1/2 price. Since larry had such a long hard day, I put on my motherwatch hat and made him a big pot of stick-to-your-ribs Hamburger Helper.

This is an absolutely stunning part of the world and we have it on our bucket list to come back this way one day in a camper van. It is absolutely beautiful. For the boater, there is a little mall containing a cdn tire, IGA, Mark’s etc just up the hill from the marina. Across the bridge you’ll find a Rona, Provigo and Tim’s!

You know the saying “if you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes”? That totally applies to this area. I’ve gone from wearing a t-shirt and shorts this morning, to wearing leggings and “little-blue” this afternoon. Now the sun is out again. That also applies for Larry attempting to trip plan our route. As it stands right now we are looking to depart for the Madelaines on monday morning, anchoring in Harve Aubert tuesday then heading to Cape Breton on Wednesday. That is the plan for now.

I must mention the really big piece of good news was that my sister Monique was told that her cancer was contained so she doesn’t need radiation or chemo. We were happy to receive this fantastic news, even while talking to her from my bathroom floor!

Until next time xo