TEXAS RANGER: Quebec City, Quebec to Cap-a-l'Aigle, Quebec July 8--11

Incredible Toy Store

Montgomery Falls--30 ft. higher than Niagara

Current is Flowing!

Underwater An Hour Ago

We had three full and interesting days in Quebec, and then traveled 70 miles downriver to Cap-a-l’Aigle, Quebec. A few days prior to arrival in Quebec, I had suffered an autopilot compass malfunction. Not only was the compass for the autopilot off by 100 degrees or so, but it was unstable, and so could not maintain a course. I hand-steered from Sorel to Quebec, but upon arrival an immediate priority was its repair! After phone consultation with an expert and former vendor in Florida, I was fairly certain that the compass itself was what had failed, and so a local electronics technician was engaged to order the parts and install them…not a “plug and play” endeavor. To make a very long story short, one morning was spent arranging all of this, and then 2 days later after arrival of parts, 5 hours was spent on the installation and troubleshooting thereof. But the bottom line is that I have an autopilot again, and travel is once again feasible!

We spent a couple of days sightseeing Quebec, a fascinating city and one of the oldest in North America. We saw the old, walled city, and buildings and churches nearly 400 years old. We saw the Plains of Abraham where a decisive battle in 1759, won by the British, wrested control of Canada and a great deal of what is now the United States from France. We enjoyed a taste of Europe in the western hemisphere, rode the Funiculaire up the hillside, practiced our “pigeon” French, and had a great time. One day we navigated our way by bus out to a more modern part of town to visit a Bell Canada store, where I was able to work around the system to obtain some data access for our IPAD via the cellular system. You would not believe how convoluted and complicated this is for “non-citizens”. We have cell phone/text service available (pay by the minute) on our home cellular plans, but data access off of American plans is not affordable…$2/Mb! I now have 5Gb of data for $35/month, though in theory my access is limited to only one month. But I have a plan for that also! The evening before our departure, 3 couples that own K-K yachts and a Canadian couple from a Grand Banks trawler went out for a great dinner together—and way too late an evening!

We had television cameras around our boat for 2 days! Not because of us, but because of a huge racing sailboat about to depart for a transatlantic crossing to Great Britain and then France. However, the government became involved related to the qualifications of the captain, and whether or not it was a vessel for hire and therefore subject to intense regulation. The government refused to allow departure, and negotiations and lobbying were ongoing in both Quebec and Ottawa. When we left the marina, the boat and its somewhat disheartened crew were still there…
We traveled downriver to a quaint little marina in Cap-a-l'Aigle (Cape of the Eagle). The tide change is about 15 feet, and lots of land and attachments for the dock that were underwater upon our arrival two hours earlier soon became bare. Little English is spoken here, but people are friendly, and it is one of the few stops available along the route to the Saguenay River and fjord, which is our next destination for its scenery and whale watching.