St. Anne des Monts

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

049-7.980 N
066-29.280 W

Bonjour from Sainte Anne des Monts, Quebec!

Right now we're in a "move the boat" mode as the area that we're in isn't particularly interesting. That's not to say that it isn't pretty, but compared to the other areas that we've been in (and are going to), it isn't as beautiful. We had a 46 mile run and we left at 6 AM as we wanted to have time to explore Sainte Anne des Monts. The clouds were hanging very low when we left and barely lifted all day. The scenery along the river was very beautiful at times, with high cliffs and winding roads that looked like they could be fun to drive. The towns were interesting with an upper level and a lower level. Considering the amount of land available, there must be some reason to live on the lower (river) level instead of living further from town but on the upper lever. This area is primarily an agricultural area with lots of rolling farm land, which under blue skies would be beautiful to look at.

We passed another large wind farm today which probably had 50 normal wind turbines, which are 360' high. It's amazing to see how huge they are when compared to the houses which are near them. In addition it had a huge wind rotor, which was easily twice the height of the normal wind turbines, and looked like a 2 bladed egg beater. I was really impressed, but I don't think that Sue shared my interest...Sue says it's a guy thing...

My dad asked me if we've been able to sail and I almost had to laugh. The winds are supposed to be out of the SW during the summer season, but we've had winds out of the NE for weeks. Guess what direction we've been traveling? If you guessed NE, you're right! We've been motoring into head winds for weeks. The winds are supposed to switch to the S this weekend...just in time for us to head...oh, never mind... :-(

I was also asked about Internet access. Many of the marinas have Internet access, but if we're anchored, we may not have it. Instead, as we're moving along, I look for un-encrypted WiFi connections which I connect in to for long enough to get e-mail, and in today's case, to download a 7 MB podcast of the NBC nightly news. Other times I've even been able to upload a photo album! The only way that we could do this is with an external WiFi antenna and a high power transmitter. But, you can do it. I've found that the usable range for this system is 3/4 of a mile, which isn't bad.

We didn't see much of St. Anne des Monts due to the rain. Tomorrow we're headed to Grande Vallee, which is about a 60 mile hop. We'll be up early. Sure hope that it's not rainy!

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 1263