Fri July 22: Trois Rivières to Marina of Portneuf

Huh.  Alone on the boat again - just the two of us...  Weird.  There has been no time to process Mike/Linda, much less Rick's bike trip and my cousin trip.  Actually I don't think we have ever even had time to process Antarctica.  I guess that's a first world problem...

Now I have to write the blog again, myself.  Grump, grump...  I liked having help with the blog, the lines and the fenders!  Duffys make excellent deck hands - highly recommend.

We were excited to see what the St Lawrence had in store for us today.  Rick had us off the dock pretty early in order to take advantage of the out-going tide.  Take a look at this map and join me in being amazed at the fact that Trois Rivieres, so far west, has serious tide from the Atlantic Ocean (really, from the Gulf of St Lawrence).

Sanctuaire Notre-Dame Du Cap - on the outskirts of Trois.

We were not disappointed by the current!!  On a good day we run at 1800+ RPMs in order to go 8+MPH. Once we hit the outgoing tide we had to slow the RPMs to keep from getting there yesterday!  We had a 5MPH outgoing current - for free!!!

We got speedily to our marina in Portneuf, which was tucked in behind a HUGE S-shaped breakwater, to keep the current and commercial barge traffic from, er, rocking the boats.  Sweet little marina, with super friendly people.  We were on the 'party dock', as it was a Friday night and everyone was having a soiree on their boat.  We really get looks out here, with our Florida registration, and many people want to talk about the boat, and their dream of one day doing the Loop.  This is a good chance to gather info about our next few stops, which reassures Capt Rick.

The marina is in the middle of not much, so we spent the afternoon indoors (too hot to walk) on housekeeping tasks, like trying to find a new glass shower door (not for the boat), deposit a check not actually physically present (William sent us pix) and email marinas for the next few stops.

I've never seen one of these before - Rick says it is a fold-up catamaran.  The pontoons fold in so that it can fit in a normal slip. 

On the dock in Sorel we met a Quebecois who said we HAD to stop at this marina in order to eat at the restaurant, La Perle du St Laurent. Rick kept trying to ask for details on boating in the area, but Michel just wanted to talk about food!  He was def focused on the priorities....  So, for dinner La Perle it was.  It certainly wasn't anything to rave about - but the view was nice, the help darling and..... escargot, baby!  It might be THE restaurant in Portneuf because it was the ONLY one..?

 

After dinner the temps dropped, and it was lovely out.  It was the first night in sometime that we haven't needed AC. 

Partly this was due to a quick but vicious storm that came through.  For a minute there it looked like it was going to be a Wizard of Oz tornado sky.

But then it passed and we had a lovely sunset.

Our cute little neighbor enjoyed the sunset also!