SV Footprint (Begonia): Saint-Maxime-du-Mont-Louis

[Kyle]Leaving Quebec City, our plan was to pick up the pace a bit compared to our last few weeks. There were two main reasons for this: The first was that Quebec City, while not being the actual end of civilization, was the last place for the rest of the way out to the Atlantic that is much bigger than a village. These villages are getting farther and farther apart, and only about one in four of them, particularly on the southern side, has a harbor that doesn't silt up at low tide. My other reason was that coming around the corner to the Atlantic would be the highest latitude we will likely see for many years. I wanted to get there in time for the June solstice so we could experience the maximum amount of daylight possible before it was time to plunge into lower latitudes and shorter days.

Checking the weather, we had a good, solid window of tailwinds that would allow us to sail the three hundred miles with only one stop to wait out a half day of headwinds. Prior to Maryanne hurting her ankle, a few hours of tacking would have been an okay way to keep busy on watch, but now we wanted to minimize the number of times she would need to be up and around on it.

Our first day was a glorious day sail. We passed south of Ile d'Orleans with gentle tailwinds filling the spinnaker. The wind was even kind enough to follow us through the bends of the river, so we didn't even have to gybe all day. Just at the eastern tip of the island, I tested the water by going down the starboard steps, streaming a finger in the wake, and giving it a taste. The Canadian Sailing Directions say this is the furthest upriver that saltwater penetrates. It was indeed mildly brackish. The salinity will continue to slowly increase until reaching ocean levels at the Saguenay Fjord at Tadoussac, about a hundred nautical miles downstream of Quebec City. We spent our first night about halfway between these points at Ile aux Coudres.

Here, I made a mistake. Since there wasn't going to be too much wind for our night off, I chose to anchor in a shallow spot out of the shipping channel in the middle of the river. This in itself wasn't too big of a problem. The thing that got us was that, eager to shorten the subsequent leg, we pushed on until the tide switched and started to flood. This put us right in the center of the valley breaking through five hundred meter cliffs at Baie Saint-Paul. Despite the general wind speed being less than ten knots, all night long, katabatic gusts blasted us, hit the current broadside and whipped the river into a choppy mess, which rolled and slammed us the whole time. Had we (I) given up half an hour earlier, we would have been anchored in a big calm patch under the cliffs and had a glorious night of sleep. I know this because we could see that patch from our washing machine. We stayed because we hoped things would calm down after nightfall but they most definitely did not.

By the time the wind finally turned back to the southwest the next afternoon, it was a huge relief to get moving again. In fact, after a night of poor sleep, we both found it easy to fall fast asleep for each of our off-watches, when it typically takes us four days or so to acclimate to the new schedule.

Leaving Quebec City via the lock, we had a multi-day passage going east to exit the St Lawrence River, and crossed paths with a few racing boats heading west (and many bigger boats)

Hugging the southern shore, it only took a day or so before the northern shore receded out of view. We managed to fly the spinnaker most of the way and only had to gybe a couple of times when the nearby hills messed with the wind direction.

After two nights, we rounded a small headland and pulled into the bay at Saint-Maxime-du-Mont-Louis (which we'll simply call Mont-Louis).

Initial Views of Mont-Louis

I chose Mont-Louis for no other reason than it was the northernmost harbor on the southern bank that had enough protection for an overnight stay in the strong southwesterlies predicted for the next few days. We dropped anchor halfway between the end of the breakwater and the beach. It was reasonably comfortable, with a slight swell that wasn't annoying for a catamaran. The weird thing was the gusts that came plunging down the nearby mountains in fits. The wind would be calm for half an hour. Begonia would spin in lazy circles, held in place by just the weight of her chain, Then forty knot gusts would send her skittering along, trailing a big, swirly wake, until she would reach the end of her chain and abruptly swing to an ignominious stop. Then she would pull hard for the next fifteen minutes like some overloaded kite struggling to take off, before the wind would die back to zero and she would spring back towards the anchor. This may be an interesting few days. Officially, I told myself that I was content to take a couple of easy days aboard in Mont-Louis as we waited for the solstice. After all, the town itself seems little more than a scattering of businesses and homes that arose because people driving the road have to slow down since the road bends there. Since they were already going slow, it was little extra effort to stop and admire the view. Since people were constantly admiring the view, it seemed like a good spot to open a cafe. Since one doesn't want to have to drive all of the way in to run the cafe, one might as well build a house nearby. Fast forward thirty or forty years and you get the half-mile long, three street town that is Mont-Louis today. So I was hoping I could sleep in a lot and feel secure that if I was missing anything at all, it probably wasn't much.

Then I had a look at our hiking app and couldn't help but notice that there were a few trails up in them thar hills, including a couple that went all the way to their respective summits. Damn! The weather was supposed to be clear and there may be some good views up there. Plus, when were we ever going to get back here again?

Maryanne said her ankle was not feeling good enough for walking yet, but she would support me, emotionally, if I wanted to go off on my own for a bit of exercise. I felt bad leaving her alone on the boat with no entertainment, but she assured me that even though it would be a struggle, she would be fine.

By the next morning, the strong winds were much more constant. Launching the dinghy in them was a bit of an ordeal. As soon as I let go of Begonia and left the calm spot behind her, I knew I was in trouble. Rowing as hard as I could, I could barely, barely make progress into the wind towards the fishing dock where I planned to tie up. The dinghy is usually easy to row quickly with just one person.

At this point, I was glad Maryanne had stayed home, because with two aboard, we would have had little choice but to be blown helplessly to the beach to leeward and then have to figure out how to get back home from there.

Fighting the chop was killing me, so I changed tactic and edged ever so slightly towards the beach abeam Begonia. There, the water was at least flat, which allowed me to finally start inching my way upwind. It took forty minutes and three times the straight-line distance of pulling as hard as I could, without daring to take a second to rest, before I was finally able to sling a line over a cleat at the high fishing dock. I was so tired and rubber-armed that I could hardly climb the ladder. I couldn't believe I hadn't even started the REAL exercise yet.

I decided to stall the climb a little by checking in with the Port Captain's office. This seemed like it would be straightforward since it was just ahead of me alongside the road. What I was soon to learn was that it was protected by an invisible barrier.

As I walked along the breakwater access road, it hit me hard like a physical thing. It was a... smell doesn't even seem like the right word. It was heavier than that. It was more sinister than that. I already know the air has agency because of all the times the wind tries to mess with me for fun, but this particular parcel of air seemed intent on hurting me.

As I clawed my way forward, trying to stuff my t-shirt down my throat and squinting through teary eyes, expecting any moment to see "the light", the dark presence got worse until I reached something that felt like it must have been a dumpster. I took a couple of steps more and I was smacked back into consciousness by fresh, pine-scented air. I was saved!

Now, I'm going to take what may seem like an unpopular stand for a sailor and say that the ocean smells bad. Low tide smell is a bad smell. Mud and weeds that get pulled up with the anchor smell bad. The flying fish that we find marooned on the deck in the mornings during ocean passages smell bad. If you touch them to throw them back to the sea, your fingers will smell bad for three days, no matter how much you wash them. If you are a fisherperson and your spouse tells you they don't mind the smell, they are lying to you. You smell awful. Whale breath will make your eyes water because a whale's entire diet comes from the sea and whales don't brush.

So, it's really not much of a surprise that a lot of commercial fishing ports have a bit of an odor about them, what with all of the exposure of the contents of the smelly sea to the open air. Mont-Louis seems to be especially special because, after unloading the smelly fish, and then cutting them open to remove the smelly guts inside the smelly fish, instead of feeding these smelly guts to a mob of waiting gulls or seals or something, they throw the offal into a dumpster/solar oven to bake in the summer sunshine. From there, it's a literal spin of the weather vane to see who is going to get hit. I didn't check, but I assume every building In Mont-Louis has quick-slamming electric shutters for just such an emergency. Even the gulls won't go anywhere near it. We even had a couple of short brushes with the edge of the plume way out at Begonia, but they were so transient as to be gone as soon as we noticed something amiss.

How am I going to get back to my dinghy?

Oh, well. Moving on!

At the Captainerie (Port Captain's office), I learned that we could tie Begonia up to the capacious floating fishing boat dock (currently residing in a zone of sweet air smelling of pine and wildflowers) for only twenty Loonies, or ten Toonies. Either way, it was cheap, and Maryanne could then stretch her legs as much or as little as she liked. I explained that we would stay one more night at anchor, but would return tomorrow for the subsequent two nights.

I was feeling particularly smug because I managed to get through my entire conversation with the Port Captain using only French. I've been a bit lax on brushing up on my disused French, so it was a bit of a surprise to me when she showed no apparent sign of having any difficulty understanding me, nor did she seem to be thinking that perhaps I was speaking a different language than the one I thought I was using.

Back to the walk. It started out okay as I walked the meandering road through the green valley floor. Then I got to the turnoff at the trailhead. The good part was that the trail was wide and easy to see. It appeared to be intended primarily as an ATV or snowmobile trail. The bad thing about it was that it was crazy steep. Climbing it was just barely shallower than climbing stairs. At least with stairs, the steps are level. It was hard to imagine that anything other than a tracked bulldozer could even get enough traction on the gravel to keep from sliding uncontrollably downhill. ”Don't think about it. Just put your head down and go”, I thought.

The grade was relentless. There was no bothering with switchbacks. The road just went straight up like I was climbing a giant pitched roof. After thirty minutes of this, I was completely knackered. I stopped for a minute to rest and check my altitude. I was only about a third of the way to the top. This was another reason to be glad Maryanne was convalescing at home. She would not have liked this at all. So far, the walk was all effort and no scenery.

A little further on, I came to a clearing and had my first view of the valley below. At 200 meters, it already seemed ridiculously far down there for the amount of time I had been trudging. Well, at least I was gaining height quickly.

There was another, slightly obstructed viewpoint 100 meters farther up. Then the trail bent away from the cliff tops and headed through the trees to the 465m summit of Mont-Louis. It arrived as a slight reduction in gradient, then a clearing at the base of the big antenna in the middle of several humming utility buildings. There was no view, but I was more than happy to sit on the steps and enjoy my packed lunch, knowing that every single step back to the dinghy was going to be downhill.

Along the way, just before the high viewpoint, I got passed by three people in two ATVs. They were stopped there when I arrived later and had chocked their wheels with big rocks to keep the vehicles from sliding away. They said they were waiting for a friend in a third ATV.

While they waited, I had a snack and finished the last of my water. We struck up a conversation about the trails, the ATVs and where they had come from, which was Mont-Saint-Pierre, the next town to the west of Mont-Louis. When the man in the group with the best English asked me where I was from, I didn't have to go through all of the usual foot-shuffling and vague answers. I pointed to the bay and told him that was Maryanne's and my boat at anchor.

After filling in a few more details, I bid them adeiu to resume my descent. Behind, I could hear the man get on his phone with his tardy friend and tell him all about me in French, the crazy American sailor who climbed that hill on foot.

A while later, at the 200m viewpoint, all three ATVs passed me again. They tried to stop, but threw up so much dust that they ended up giving up and carrying on at reduced speed. I did get four sets of hearty waves, though. That seems nuts to me to be at that speed and have so little traction left. I couldn't help but notice that they were all wearing really good helmets.

Back at the valley floor, I was happy to give my quads a rest and be able to walk the last kilometer to the dinghy on flat ground like a normal person.

I had almost forgotten about the dumpster at the fish plant. Then I came around the corner and saw the corners of it sticking out of a big pile of sawdust. It seems I wasn't the only one who could smell it. Somebody else with access to a front-loader could as well.

Alas, the only effect of the measure seemed to be to make half a ton of sawdust reek. That then re-reeked the landscape downwind. I stopped in my tracks, retreated for a big lungful of clean air, and then plunged through the zone as fast as I could. I really hope that stuff doesn't get into my clothes - or my skin!

By the time I climbed back into the dinghy, the morning's wind had gone completely, leaving the bay flat. I was back at Begonia in only eight minutes, after a couple dozen strokes of the oars, which were more for steering than to cover the distance.

Maryanne greeted me warmly, and didn't make any mention of any smells. I may have escaped being marked by the dumpster, but I had still climbed a really steep hill on a hot day, so I wasn't exactly a walking Febreeze ad. She put on a brave face and also pretended she had been okay without my constant witty repartee. Poor thing. A very brisk bucket bath fixed both problems, as I could not help but exclaim my long string of opinions on the experience of dumping nearly ice-cold water over my head, each punctuated by a long, “HOOOOOOO!”

Kyle's tough row ashore was rewarded with a good hike into the hills and some lovely sunny views

The next morning, we upped anchor and moved Begonia to the fishing boat dock. Maryanne was looking forward to trying out her ankle again after five days of rest.

Maryanne had the benefit of being forwarned about the dumpster zone, but the disadvantage of not being very spry on her bad ankle. I offered to carry her through, fireman-style, but she declined on the basis that one of us would have to make it through to summon help. She didn't like my proposed compromise that I would drop her like a bag of cement if I started feeling woozy. She framed her side of the debate as being concerned that such chivalry would undoubtedly screw up my back. She's so brave.

I had expected that Maryanne wouldn't be up for to much more walking than to the first cluster of shops, but when we got there, she said she was feeling fine enough to continue (we kept to the flat areas). By the time she announced she was ready to turn around, we were already at the other end of town a couple of miles away and there was nothing left in that direction to see. We bought a couple of bits at the grocery store and the pharmacy to add some purpose to our day's outing, and then stopped to share a lunch at the ice creamery that serves as the town's mandatory stop for all passing through.

The next day was the solstice. I had no intention of being up and about for the whole thing, but I did make a point of stopping whatever I was doing and going out to observe the 0417 sunrise, the 1226 solar noon and the 2031 sunset. Also, this time of year, Mont-Louis has twenty eight days without full astronomical darkness, so I also had a look at the twilight on the northern horizon at solar midnight. That's it. From here, it is only going to get darker. Now we can go south and make it happen even faster. Maryanne, on the other hand, kept getting all of these alerts about excellent conditions for viewing the Aurora Borealis, which she had to grit her teeth through because it never got dark enough for us to see it.

As a consolation, we braved the dumpster two more times for a lovely walk on the nearby roads and trails along the valley floor. I think we've seen Mont-Louis now. Time to move on.