Riviere-au-Renard (Marina)

Sunday, July 5, 2015
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Long way to go today so we were underway at 5:30 AM with the tide. Leaving at this early hour is no big deal these days, The sun is up well before 5 AM and half the time we are awake anyhow. The weather was quite calm and stayed that way all day. We rode the tide and the "Gaspe Current" all day and averaged about 8.5 knots for the 92 NM. We had planned to anchor in the a large man made harbor at RAR but Barb and Don decided that they would like to go straight into the marina so that is what we did. None of our phones work so we contacted the marina a few miles out and with our best Frenglish sorted out the details. Fortunately the weather held up well and the docks were very easy to manage.

As we headed northeast today the coastline was more mountainous. There were some small settlements that seemed to be located at the end of a river valley. We were chasing the current and settled down in 200' to 400' feet deep water, 1 to 2 miles offshore. The water was calm all day.

Today we went as north as we were going to go during this voyage. When we started the day the coast was running ENE but it slowly gave up the northerly aspect. At the moment our course hit 90 degrees (true) I recorded our position. At 49 17.0226 degrees north we are the equivalent in the southern ocean of about 400 miles south of Hobart. (That is hard to say clearly!)

Not much sea life today - we saw a few seals and what we assume is a 'cold water" porpoise.

Riviere-au-Renard is a fishing town. The harbor is well protected with a massive man made rock wall. There seem to be few natural harbors in this area. After dinner on board Deidre and I changed the oil in the main engines and transmission. Our previous oil change was when we were anchored at Reedy island in the Delaware river. 

Monday July 6, 2015

Perfect sunny and calm morning. Deidre and I unloaded the bikes and headed into town looking for breakfast. We did not expect anything fancy as this is very much a working town, but as it turned out we enjoyed the best breakfast on the DEL to date.

We rode the bikes around town and the docks to work off our breakfast. The docks were busy - unloading shrimp, loading ice and fuel and mending nets. Deidre popped into the fish dealer and bought a cooked crayfish and some salmon pate.

Back at the boat, I unloaded the used oil onto a borrowed dolly and took it to the used oil facility. This is a facility that would be most welcome at marinas in the USA.

Barb and Don are arranging for us to load fuel from a truck here. Our combined purchase will be about 1,000 gallons (about 3,800 liters). Late in the afternoon we were told that the truck would be late - 5 PM to 7 PM. Barb and Don had moved Cavara to a dock in the corner of the marina (right next to the Coast Guard) where the truck could reach. The plan was that they would fuel first, move out and Tide Hiker would take its place.

Canadian Coast Guard at your service!

One of the Coast Guard guys had helped us tie up yesterday, and the whole crew had been very friendly. We were invited aboard for a tour.

I think the Admiral likes the Coast Guard captain

Admiral at the wheel

The truck had still not arrived at 6 PM and the wind was getting up. I did not relish the idea of docking Tide Hiker in the corner (next to the Coast Guard boat). So we moved Tide Hiker to a wide open space on the fishing boat pier and the diesel truck filled us up there. We took on 417 gallons. One of the Coast guard guys stayed with us the whole time and provided translation between us and the truck driver.

We took on 417 gallons. We have traveled 900 NM since our last fill in St. Johnsville - so that equals 2.16 NM per gallon. Our normal fuel consumption is about 1.7 NM per gallon (or 2.0 statute miles per gallon) so running downstream has boosted our fuel economy by about 27%! (But there is a "however" - because loading fuel from the truck was a bit awkward I do not think we filled the tanks 100%)