We left Marina de Gaspe’ at 7:30 a.m. on August 2 to take advantage of the calm weather that seems to occur early each day. The cruise started off beautifully as we traveled past Perce’ Rock and Ile Bonaventure. We went close to Ile Bonaventura so we could see the seals sunning themselves on the rocks. Diva Di had the same idea.
We also wanted to get one more look at the incredible gannet nesting grounds.
It didn’t take long before the winds picked up and created quite a chop on the water with swells from 2 to 3 feet. This was one of those “bucking bronco” seas and it kept up until we rounded a point. These seas are rougher on a catamaran than a boat like ours, so Diva Di decided to pack it in and they went to L’Anse-a-Beaufils for the night.
We continued on for a while longer thinking that we would make it to Grande-Riviere or Chandler. The original intent for both boats was to reach an anchorage in Port Daniel so we could cross the Bay of Chaleur the next day to New Brunswick.
But the ride continued to be a rough one and by 2:00 we were getting pretty tired of it. We decided to duck in at the Grand-Riviere fishing port. This port was well protected but was not set up as a commercial marina. We radioed the harbor master and the Canadian Coast Guard responded. We told them we wanted to tie up in Grande-Riviere and they said they would try to contact the dock master. By this time we were past the breakwater and looking to see if there was anyplace to tie up. It looked as if the only place was either on a wall or rafting onto one of the fishing boats.
Jonny was kind of excited about this because it would give him a chance to use the extra long lines that we had purchased in anticipation of Canadian waters with no floating docks which these looked to be.
Finally, the Coast Guard called us back to say that no one was available to help us but we could dock anywhere we could find a space. As we cruised a little deeper into the harbor, we found a space on a floating dock and a salty, English-speaking sailor helped us tie up. We were surrounded by fishing boats!
We walked into the small town which is a staging port for salmon fishing and stopped at a local IGA to pick up a few groceries. Jonny made a nice stir fried dinner and we settled in for a quiet and early night.
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