Ile du Bic - Bird Scantuary

Sunday, August 10, 2008

048-20.940 N
068-49.380 W

Bonjour from Ile du Bic, Quebec!

We left our pretty little anchorage on the Saguenay yesterday morning and we hoped that we would get to play with Beluga whales once again, but it appears that what we experienced the other day was a unique experience as no whales were to be seen. We were disappointed, but it may have been for the best as it got us moving more quickly towards our destination. As the photo to the right shows, it was a heavily overcast day, with the clouds laying low over the peaks, but in it's own way, that can be beautiful. To get an idea of the scale, the white dot in the middle of the picture is a sailboat. Once we cleared the mouth of the Saguenay we headed out to where the throngs of whale watching boats were clustered, but we only got brief glimpses of Minke whale. We did see quite a few seals and dolphins, which every sailor knows is a good sign.

We had a 35 mile run to Ile du Bic, which is a bird sanctuary located on the N shore of the St. Lawrence. As you approach it, it reminded me of the landscape from Jurassic Park with low mountain side crashing steeply down into the ocean. The mountains had strange cutouts where glaciers must have sliced away portions and elsewhere left strange rounded humps. We had wanted to go ashore, but it was raining on and off and we couldn't see anyplace to land the boat due to the steep rock ledges. That evening we were treated to lots of bird activity and some very unique bird calls.

Today we're headed to Rimouski, which is a commercial port, to get fuel, propane and some warmer clothes. We really weren't expecting 50s in August. That was supposed to be towards the end of September!

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser:

We anchored at 48-20.94N/068-49.41W in about 15' MLW, but the range was +5' to +12'. We had a problem getting the hook to catch further out of the bay, but we moved to where the charts showed sand. Further out it appeared to be rock. We're well protected from all directions except S to W, which with the NE winds worked great.

Log ID: 1258