July 20, 2025 Rain, Cold and an Unexpected visit from Dense Fog

 Sunday July 20, 2025  Rimouski to Ste-Anne-des-Monts  105 miles and 10.1 hours

Overnight rain came in as expected, starting at about 5AM.  We woke to find two sailboats docked behind us, not sure exactly when they arrived, but they appeared to be staying put to wait out the rain.  We, on the other hand, have plans to leave at 7AM.  We knew that rain was forecast for most of the morning, but no wind and seas were flat calm, making for a pleasant enough ride from the pilot house.  Temperatures may get into 60's shoreside but water temps still mid 50's so that's what we feel on the water. It is cold and damp despite our best efforts at layered clothing.  Most marinas only have 110V/30AMP power which runs everything on the boat except the Heat/AC system which requires 220V/50AMP.   Midship master stateroom is very cool sitting down at water level so we're making good use of those extra blankets.

Not a bad start to the day - just some light rain and calm seas

Started off making good time with a decent current push and enjoyable flat seas.  Rain not too heavy and doable but then four hours into the journey, still drizzling and rainy, but now with the addition of fog.  Hadn't really hit any fog until this point on the trip, but we knew that eventually we'd have to deal with it.  May as well get some good practice now. Watching the radar and AIS closely, it appears that there are very few of us out traveling today.  There are no lobster traps or crab pots in this area, so that's a plus! Nothing to dodge there...and hardly any navigational markers of any sort.  In addition to our running lights, we set the automated fog horn to sound intermittently (one long blast every three minutes), otherwise, we're just carefully moving along and staying on the 200' depth line.

Fog rolled in reducing the visibility. 

Probably not the best time to be reading the story of the ill-fated Empress of Ireland which sank off the shores of Rimouski.  On May 29, 1914, she was headed from Quebec to Liverpool in dense FOG middle of the night.  Got rammed midship by the Storstad loaded with 11,000 tons of coal.  Hit so hard it pierced 20' into the ship.  The Empress had 1477 passengers and crew.  Damage was so bad the ship keeled over and sank within 14 minutes taking over 1000 lives.  Worlds third worst disaster at sea after the Titanic and Lusitania.  Forgotten in history as shortly after it sank WWI started and sinking of Lusitania got all the coverage.

After four hours the fog dissipated just as mysteriously as it appeared.  Still getting a bit of drizzle and it continued as a very gloomy looking day.  Made it to St-Anne-des-Monts and the marina. Some difficulty with language barrier but worked through it and got the last spot for big boats that had been reserved for us. Small marina, rough floating docks and only 110V/15AMP power, so we'll really need to watch which appliances we use at any given time.  Reservations originally for 2 nights to recuperate after 2 days of 100-mile trips. Weather forecast is not cooperating.  Excessive (for us) sustained winds so tacked on a third night.

Most interesting building in town is the Ste-Anne-des-Monts church
which sits majestically overlooking the harbor

Stay tuned, we are currently at a latitude of 49°7'58"N...getting very close to the northernmost point on our trip (or of any boat trip we've taken, actually).

Journey for July 20, 2025 

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