Jump!

From Rimouski there are two choices.  Go 45nm to Metane, or go 90nm to St Anne des Monts.  Monday morning's captain's huddle produced much debate over the expected wind and sea state for the day.  There was a gale warning, but the current winds were only about 10-15kts.  A walk out to the edge of the harbor provided a view of the water and it didn't look too bad, so we decided to go for it.

Going to Matane involves timing your arrival for mid tide or higher to clear shoaling in the harbor entrance.  This translated into a 10:30 or so departure time for a 3:30 arrival.  But for us to reach St Anne at any reasonable time meant leaving earlier and going faster.  We decide to "Jump!", opting to put some of this long part of the coast line behind us.  When we got out, the seas and wind were fine and we reported it back to Adirondack and Ke'Ola Kai, then forged on our way.  But the further we got, the worse the seas became.  There's not much boat traffic around here, and over the entire day we saw only one other boat - a tug pulling a barge way off in the distance heading up river.  I called them on the radio to see what the seas were like up ahead and he reported that they were about the same with about 1m waves.  But things kept picking up as we progressed, and by the time we reached Matane I decided to just put in rather than fight another 45nm. 

But when I radioed the marina he said I'd have to wait until 3:30 to come in because of the water level.  This meant we could wallow around outside Matane for 3 hours, or wallow our way to St Anne for 3 hours, so we just kept on going.  Fortunately, Matane was the worst of it and we pulled into St Anne des Monts right around 3:30 - the same time we would have entered Matane.  That evening I checked with Adirondack and they reported a perfectly OK trip, so it appears we were just enough ahead to miss the calmer seas.

But here was our reward for the long journey

Sainte Anne des Monts