Mon Aug 8: Portneuf to Trois Rivières anchorage

Rick here:  After our tough day yesterday I spent most of the night anxious about today.  The weather forecast called for 100% chance of rain and this was the day that we had to go back up the “rapids” - which is a very narrow, shallow section of the river with very strong current.  To top it off the wind was blowing hard in exactly the wrong direction for us to get off the dock.  I was a nervous wreck….fortunately Melanie came up with a plan for our departure and with a little adjustment of the lines and the bow thruster we exited the marina safely at about 12:45…Unfortunately that was one hour prior to a favorable tide and the current was strongly against us.

Melanie here:  You never really know how slow time can pass until you are in charge of the elementary school Talent Show and have to listen to 120 kid audition with acts of 3 minutes or less.  Suddenly 3 minutes turns out to be way waaaay longer then you realized.  It’s turns out that the fight against a current so strong as to reduce your speed to 2mph is also INTERMINABLE.

This is NOT good.  We need to be there by sunset.

This is horrible - Now we're getting there at 3:33am...  Cue tearing out of hair.

Finally - we might make it. 

Rick again: The rapids were really frustrating and the current was sometimes 7 mph against us.  To top it all off a big freighter joined us in the narrowest section.  We squeaked past him, sloughing all around in unpredictable rapids, with frayed nerves and continued against the strong currents (at the speed of walking). 

Not sure why so many Chinese ships are named “Dong”

This freighter wants to race!  But he’s not going 2mph.  

We pushed on (and on), finally deciding to go to our original goal of Trois Rivieres, bypassing our plan B location of an earlier marina.   We entered the small river and, after dodging some Dragon boats, dropped our anchor in 7 feet of water.  

They are absolutely soaked, but are still working hard and seem to be enjoying it! I guess this is a new type of companionable workout that has grown up in the past few years.

It had drizzled on and off for most of the day but the major rain held off until 5 minutes after we got the anchor set . It had been a long, slow day but at least the rain waited for us… we ended the day with a toast to our brave little Yanmar engine, who ran at 2300 RPMs smooth as silk for six hours straight. 🙏