We`re Actually in Matane

The trip has been just great so far, but right now we`re having a rain day. We decided to take a marina for a couple of days to wait for some high, opposing winds to die down. So, I am writing from the clubhouse at le Club de Yacht de Matane! It`s a rather lovely building, all wood and rafters, warmth and folks about. The best part has been the folks about. We ``fete-d`` with some of the members last night; the Commodore made us all sushi which featured the locally-caught shrimp and smoked trout, what a feed! We warmed up to our Francais, but it was good to have some help in conversation from our new friends. The club has a mascot, an Irish Spaniel named Lila. Apparently she came from Toronto and learned to speak french, too, so if she can do it, we can too! So far, no one has bust-up laghing, so it cannot be that bad!

We are in much bigger water now and have been travelling rather speedily. We averaged 6.5 knots to get here, 8 in a nice gust with just the foresail up. It`s good to make some tracks, as it`s getting a little nippy now that we`re so far north. Only a bit more Northing then we get to turn more south.

I hope you can make out the Harbour Seal in the top picture, he was pretty far away. They have a surface-profile that appears like a floating bowling ball, and they are all curious about our boat, but so far only one barked at us. We have seen Belugas feeding, you can only see their white backs as they dive. Jim saw a baby one, all grey and wrinkly in his spotty jammies, I saw one thing in mid-dive twice, really black with a dorsal fin and a pointy jaw. I looked him up and found he might be a Minky Whale. Impossible to photograph, sorry!

I`ve making a lot of soup-y stew-y meals, good food to keep warm. We have been enjoying our wood-stove as well, we bought some charcoal to help the wood off-cuts out, good dry heat.

The scenery has been spactacular, of course, worth every mile. The founders of the region have given pictoral names to some of the Cape, coves and bays. We spent two nights in Le Anse a L Orignal, Moose Cove. As we approached it more closely, you could make out a perfectly formed moose face, pushing up out of the water. We anchored between his snout and left eyeball! Alas, I was at the helm, so could not photograph it.

(This, BTW, is a french keyboard and I cannot find certain puntuation marks, so no points off for these things!)

Looking forward to the next leg, Le Gaspesie proper. The north shore has just departed from view, bigger fetch you know, must be careful of our forecast. Gotta go to a shop up the raod and get another pair of these great long johns!

The wifi is hard to come by, so you might not hear from me until we pull in to another marina, and who knows when that will be!

Also, a happy Birfday going out to Renée The Jay, a whopping 24, wow! Party-On, Née!