 We got up at 4:00am and left Chandler at 4:30, headed for Shediac, New Brunswick. Au revoir, Quebec & hello New Brunswick! After being out on the water for about 45 minutes we were greeted by another beautiful sunrise—how lucky are we! Once we were underway, Chris went back to bed to catch a few more zzzzz’s and Joan and I stayed up and keeping an eye on our course. |
| We could see the sun rising and Percé rock off in the distance behind us. Our objective today was to take a straight line from Chandler, across the Baie de Chaleur and then “hang a slight right” when we got to the middle of the track leading down the Northumberland Straight. |
| This route would take us out on to the ocean for a bit & we could not have had a better day for it—light winds, a gentle swell behind us and no worries at all about shoals or reefs. Chris got up about 8:00am and we set up the main sail to help us along a bit and to help take a bit of the rolling motion out of the boat. After that it was my turn to grab a few zzzzz’s. The sun was shining & it was warming up nicely so I assumed my favorite watch post on the bow and had a great snooze for about two hours. |
| When I awoke it was interesting to see that there was no land in sight anywhere. For as far as we could see there was only blue water and some clouds over the land way off beyond the horizon. We continued in this manner for another 6-7 hours. It was amazing that during that whole time we did not see one other boat or even an airplane in the sky. It was like we had our own private ocean, with a few seagulls and a couple of small whales or porpoises thrown in for good measure. |
| We had many hours yet to go as this was an 18 hour passage and I thought about working on the blog or taking on a small boat job or two, but the day was so fabulous that the little bit of inspiration that we had faded quickly and we sat there for hours marveling at where we were. We had the wind at our stern, so when we were on the deck it was perfectly still. Great cigar smoking weather, so we broke out a couple of beautiful “La Aroma de Cuba” cigars compliments of Brent Temmer—thanks buddy, they were awesome—the only thing that could make them any better would be if you were here too, to help us enjoy! |
| We finally sighted land about 4:00pm. Our first sighting was a wind farm on Prince Edward Island (PEI), which was off our port bow. It was an interesting perspective because the first thing you can see are the windmill blades but no land underneath them. Gradually more and more detail appears and we start to see the land underneath. We now made a course adjustment to take us south into the Northumberland Strait and towards our destination. |
 The wind began to build and the swells got larger but it did not make our ride at all uncomfortable, we just had more of a sensation of sailing and of being on the ocean with the large gentle swells. Each swell was 2-3 times as wide as Ananda is long and when we were in the “bottom” between two swells, we could see that the wave that had just passed under us was at least 2 meters high. We were continually rideing a gentle up and down motion which was very rythymic and peaceful. |
 As we got further in to the Northumberland Strait we began to see New Brunswick on our starboard side—now we had land on both sides of us. About 7:00pm the sun was showing strong signs that it was headed to the horizon over New Brunswick and it was a fabulous view. However, little did we know, but we would soon be paying a high price for our leisurely day and the approaching sunset! We had about an hour’s light left when we saw our first lobster pot floats on the water—how quaint! Fifteen minutes later we were in a “field” of hundreds of lobster pots and we had to start paying very close attention to them because if we ran over one there was a strong chance that we could get the float rope wrapped around our propeller—and that would pretty much be the end of our trip for the day—or perhaps even longer! |
 The traps were far enough apart that we could easily maneuver away from them as we saw each one but once the sun set it was going to be an entirely different story! Chris moved to the outside steering station while Joan and I gathered up some spotlights to help us when the sun finally disappeared. I stood on the bow and pointed out approaching markers buoys—three sets of eyes are better than one in a situation like this. As soon as the sun went down it got very difficult to spot the buoys and we still had 2½ hours to go to our destination. This was not going to be any fun at all. Thank goodness that water was very calm and there was only a bit of wind or it could have been very messy indeed. |
 I set up a routine where every minute or so I would wave the spotlight in our path forward and look for any reflection from a lobster pot marker buoy. When I spotted one in our path I would shine the light directly on the buoy so Chris and Joan could see it clearly and then call out “port” or “starboard”, for Chris to adjust our course to go around the approaching buoy. This worked pretty good except for a couple of times when a buoy suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I would frantically point to starboard and yell “port” to Chris. Needless to say, it was more confusing to him than helpful, but we got lucky and managed to avoid getting tangled. |
 After 2½ hours of this “fun” we were finally approaching the marina and now we had a new challenge. The Shediac area is very built up along the shoreline and our view ahead was simply a mass of lights. It looked very pretty but it also made navigation to shore extremely difficult. We contacted the marina on our radio and asked for instructions and the marina manager gave us a few tips how to navigate our way in. Following the marker lights, his landmark tips, and with the help of our TIKI navigation system we managed to get to the marina entrance. The light around us was still very confusing but the marina manager was kind enough to hop in his little outboard motor boat, come out in to the last bit of the channel and lead us to our slip. Now that’s maritime hospitality at it’s best! |
 We finally tied up on our dock at 11:00pm local time (we are now in the Atlantic time zone). As soon as Ananda was secure on the dock we had high fives all around, breathed a huge collective sigh of relief and said “time for a drink!”. As I was registering our boat for the stay in the marina the manager told me that we were lucky—lobster season has just started and the pots just went in the water last Monday! |
Daily Archives: August 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 11
 We left Riviere au Renard about 6:30am—destination today: the actual peninsula at Gaspe and Percé rock. Once we reached the rock we would alter our course and head on to Chandler, Quebec which was about another 2 hours beyond. |
 This part of the Gaspe Peninsula is very dramatic, with cliffs rising steeply from the water to the land hundreds of feet above. Percé rock is massive. It stands on its own out at the end of the peninsula and it has no trees on it. |
 It got its name from the predominate hole at the base of the rock (“percé” translated from French means “pierced”). This hole is huge, larger enough to take a small boat through it at high tide but there was no way we would try to take Ananda through it! |
 We all took turns banging off lots of photos of the rock (ya gotta love digital cameras) and took our time passing it so we could enjoy the view for as long as possible. I was very grateful for having been able to come so far (from Goderich) without a lot of stress—and of course there is still lots more to come. |
 My TIKI navigation system had a lot to do with this safe arrival so, in a moment of inspiration, I took a shot of Percé Rock with my iPhone and emailed it along with a short note to Fred Jenssen, the creator of TIKI Navigation, in Norway. Thanks Fred, TIKI is awesome and I have been singing its praises to other sailors all along the way. FYI – Fred is awesome too! |
 When I was first shopping for navigation software, many of my contacts in the Nauticat Owner’s Association strongly recommended TIKI. I contacted Fred by email and asked him lots of questions about it. He very patiently answered every question and I downloaded the software. |
 When I was installing it on my new computer it had some difficulty finding the GPS antenna because of some compatibility issues between Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems. I emailed Fred about this and he quickly replied back with a solution to my problem. However, I missed one important step so I had to apply certain settings every time I started up the computer. |
 I emailed Fred about this and he said he would help me—and help me he did! At 10:00am on Boxing Day morning (December 26th) Catherine and I were sitting in our pajamas in the kitchen having a quiet coffee together. The phone rang, Catherine answered it and then passed me the phone, saying “its for you”. I was greeted by a voice saying, “hello Wally, this is Fred from TIKI calling from Norway, have you solved your problem and what can I do to help you?”. Now how’s that for customer service! I was blown away. Fred talked me through my problem and we exchanged season’s greetings. I think you can all understand now why I am such a big fan of TIKI Navigation and Fred Jenssen. |
 Anyway, back to our journey. Our passage to Percé was a bit rough, the winds were on our stern and we were getting bounced around a bit. We could see Perce for over an hour as we approached it. After we rounded the rock it disappeared from sight in about 15 minutes! |
 It took a minute to figure out that our perspective had changed with our course and the rock was now “behind” the end of the peninsula. We would have liked to have stayed longer at the rock but we still had a lot of miles to go, so on to Chandler we went. |
 We chose Chandler because this marina has a fuel dock and we were approaching the ½ full mark on our tank—with a long distance to cover the next day and no gas stations along the way. |
 Chandler is a very nice community with a great little marina. We were warmly greeted by staff who helped us tie up to our dock and show us around the marina. Annie, one of the staff members spoke excellent English and Spanish too. I told her that I had a couple of Spanish speakers aboard (Chris & Joan) and that she should pop by the boat to say “hola” to them. |
 We were just settling in for our afternoon libation and Annie appeared. She joined us for a bit, gammed with Chris and Joan in Spanish, and then told us more about the community of Chandler and about herself. We really enjoy meeting the local people when we are in a port. You learn so much more about where you are and what the community is really all about. |
 The entrance to Chandler harbour has a small reef just in front of it. Over the years this reef has claimed a few unfortunate victims and the marina has an interpretive display about the notable shipwrecks. The display’s prominent feature is the masthead from a shipwreck in the 1980’s. Thankfully no one died in that shipwreck. |
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Tuesday, August 10
| We got up at 5:00am, made coffee and prepared for another early departure. The weather forecast was great and we were looking at another beautiful sunrise. Destination today: Riviere au Renard, which is about 90 miles away and very close to Gaspe point. |
 Joan spotted more whales about 7:30am. They were too far away to see their bodies coming out of the water but we could see their blows very clearly. Awesome! |
 We arrived in Rivere au Renard about 3:30pm. This community is the largest commercial fishing village in the Gaspe region. The pleasure craft marina is small but very well equipped and there is an interpretive centre incorporated in to the marina office and facilities. |
 We were also in for a treat because tonight there was to be live music on the front deck—bring your own libations—this is Quebec! (in other words, moderate and inconspicuous consumption of your own alcohol is acceptable—ya gotta love the Quebecois culture!). |
 With this knowledge at hand hurried to get our showers, laundry and a light supper finished so we could go and enjoy the music. A small crowd had gathered and we were treated to a woman playing the fiddle and singing and accompanied by a fellow playing the guitar and mandolin and another fellow playing traditional drums. |
 What a show! Chris and I were so inspired by one jig ‘n reel that we got up and danced with each other—much to Joan’s embarrassment and to the amusement of the locals! |