Alright, so this is a big leg of the trip we had been planning for. The key to this passage was to play the tides and current to make a fairly large hop from Quebec City to Cap-a-l'Aigle. This is 70 nautical miles, and depending on when you leave you can get current against or with you, and that was the challenge. Maximizing the time you are going with the current. Thanks to some other blogs we had decided to leave Quebec City 2 hours before high tide which was 5:05am today. That means leaving around 3am. You then sail (or more likely motor) into the current which is light for the first couple of hours, and then as it switches around, you ride the current out which gives you a boost to make it the 70 miles before the tides change again and work against you.

This worked pretty well for us. I pulled up anchor at 3:30am. I had some issues with the rode around the keel again, was able to fix by simply changing the rudder angle, which flipped us around and off the anchor rode. This is something I'm just not used too, but the current acts on your rudder like you are going in reverse, and can swing you around. Anyways with the anchor up I was off into the dark. Super neat watching the super bright city scape on one side while you point out into the dark.

We took the north channel around Ile d'Oleans with a knot or two against us just about half the way around the island. Then the current slowly dissipated, and started to switch around, and we got a nice 4 knot current for a long period of time, scooting us along at 9 or 10 knots. The current faded a bit as we crossed into the middle channel to go around the south side of Iles-aux Coudres. I had seen some predictions of 8 knot currents on predict wind for this area, but we only had 2 or so. I'm not sure why that was. Maybe predicting the currents is as fickle as the wind?

Started to have enough wind to sail a bit around here, and motor sailed with the genoa for a bit, and then finally were able to kill the engine and make good way with just the genoa. I realized you need a lot more wind for downwind sailing when you have a significant current carrying you. Obvious when you think about it, but I hadn't considered that when looking at the wind predictions.

We sailed into salt water, and much much colder water as well. We went from 22C or so in Quebec City to about 12C here. Had some fog already, but nothing very serious. And we saw whales! Pretty far off, but you could certainly see them surfacing and going along. Must have been a pod of beluga whales we suspect as we kept seeing them for about an hour or so. Theone also thinks she saw another type of whale, possible a minke whale. Pretty neat.

Then we got hit with a pretty nasty looking thunder shower, but it ended up expending most of it's energy on land it seems like, and by the time it got to us it was just a small gust of wind, and lots of rain. We sailed through it and it was nothing dramatic. After it left it also took the wind with it as they often do, so we motored the last bit. We lost a bit of time in the rain, and so the current was starting to work against us, but only a knot or so, and so it was no big deal.

We came into the marina with a light rain, and it was pretty picturesque. The rain falling, the geography, large tides, everything just looks entirely like you picture the maritime's being. It's a stark contrast to Quebec City that we left this morning.

We got into the marina around 1:30pm, so 10 hours in total. That's an average speed of 7 knots! (thanks current).

After getting situated and letting the remaining rain pass, we went for a hike up the 16% grade road and spent some time checking out the little waterfall nearby. We then hiked up to a little park named Jardin des lilas de Cap-à-l’Aigle, where we walked around and found a view that overlooks the seaway and the marina. Really beautiful area, and a super neat park to tour.