June 13th

We departed Montreal 7am to get to Sorel. Despite Montreal being a busy commercial port, we worked our way through the freighter traffic. Once past the enormous commercial port, the river quickly becomes picturesque French Canadian river towns, each with their own church spire.

We had decided to split the journey to Quebec City. We had discovered an anchorage in 2025 in the Lake St Vincent, off Iles Grace. Arriving on a Saturday afternoon, the water was buzzing with pontoon boats, little racing boats, and sea wasps/jet skis. It quieted down by evening with lots of heron sitings. The mud bottom was good holding in 5m.

June 14th

Trois Riviere Yacht Club was booked for the next night and only 26nm away. It was a 6-year-old facility – very nice with 2 adjacent restaurants. It was an easy walk into the city, with an new open air concert area, museums and a closed off restaurant street. However, the rain drove us back to the boat to enjoy the restaurants closest.

June 15^th

It’s a full day downriver to Quebec City following the buoys – Red-Green…repeat!  The weather was warm (shorts!), no rain but unfortunately, the wind was either too light, there was a freighter passing us or the curves in the river meant too many jibes for us to pull out the sails.  We arrived to a quiet Quebec City in the late afternoon and entered the lock at Bassin Louise once it cleared of 4 Coastguard RIBS (trainees). Bassin Louise is adjacent to the old town so it is a pleasure to stay there and wander.

For those of your that followed us last year, Quebec City was the culmination (and eventual point of solution) to our engine/fuel problems in 2025. We wondered if it was a curse because… This year, as we plugged the boat into the dock power source our battery charger had a fit of voltage seppuku and declared itself electronica non grata.  While this was not a critical component for us (we run triple redundancies on the DC power system, and it is not integrated with any other systems) it made sense to deal with it while there. The Binnacle in Halifax shipped it overnight and Bassin Louise would sign for it!  A boat buck and a half, a couple of hours of contortionist boat yoga and we had a new battery charging system installed in the boat.

You can always count on your fellow boaters as we decided to ‘play it safe’ and get some back-up 40amp fuses for this new charger (it didn’t like the kettle). In broken French, I inquired where to get them. Yves took pity and went through his own supply and called the shop to ensure they had them. At the shop the fellow was more than happy to “practice his english”! Love Quebec!

Our crew, Pat & Bob, enjoyed wandering Old Quebec and we had some great meals. They flew home on June 17^th. They took the good weather with them, as a strong easterly with torrential rains came soon after. We scoured the weather forecasts and, among the weather systems, there was consensus for a wind shift to the west on Friday.

June 19, 2026

So we set off Friday morning, 7:30, to day trip it to Cap L’Aigle, arriving for dinner; or push to Tadoussac, arriving midnight.  We did this leg of the trip last year at night (subject to tides and currents) but tide times allowed us to leave early morning so we could see some of this beautiful shore. Cap L’Aigle is a very small harbour and we had emailed them Thursday and got a confirmation that they had room. Tadoussac was an anchorage in the bay.

As it turned out, the weather forecasts were all completely wrong.  We were fooled out of our comfortable slip in Quebec City in the morning by clearing skies and westerly winds, but by the time we cleared Iles D’Orleans (via the North Channel), we ran straight into a weather front with the wind swinging 180 degrees…straight on the nose. Then the rain came and the temperature dropped.  We still benefited from the outgoing tide and clocked 12.5 knots around Ile Aux Coudres. Then we pounded our way into Cap L’Aigle Marina at 5pm. It is quiet, has a waterfall and the people are friendly, catching lines. No town nearby.

Our intent is to press on to Tadoussac tomorrow, 40 nm, regardless of the weather. Tadoussac is a sheltered bay, with lots of on shore amenities and whale & seal watching to keep us amused if we need to wait out more bad weather. Looks like we may hopscotch our way up the Quebec North Shore as the wind forecasts remain ‘on the nose’ and rainy next week.