July 13 & 14 Grande Vallee & Riviere au Renard

      Monday we left the marina at Ste. Anne des Monts about eight am and headed out for the easy run to Grande Vallee, about 50 miles down the coast.  Grande Vallee was the Northern most point of our trip so far;  The sea was calm, the winds were light, and it was sunny, all of which made for a beautiful passage.  We still had some haze enshrouding the rugged coastline, but we could easily pick out the valleys between the cliffs where there is a phenomenon called ‘katabatic winds’ - the wind howls down the valley and out to sea, especially strong at night, sometimes reaching 30 knots.  We had toyed with staying in one of the small anchorages along this way to experience this phenomenon but ended up aiming for a more protected anchorage behind a breakwater in Grande Vallee instead.  As we passed each of these valleys, we did feel a slight shift and increase in the winds.  One can only imagine what it is like at night.

      Five miles away from our destination, Dan called out “Spouts!” and turned the boat around to go back to see if we could spot the whales themselves.  The spouts were tall and white against the dark cliffs.  All whales exhale, but not very many whales actually have a visible spout.  We thought at first these were humpbacks, but when one surfaced and rolled, we saw no flukes, only a very small dorsal fin.  Finbacks, we wondered?  There were three of them and as we got a little closer, we could see their spectacular spoutings and knew they must be blue whales.  Our fourth kind of whale sighted on this trip!!  Neither of us had seen blue whales before.  Unlike the other whales we’ve seen recently, these guys didn’t want to come too close to us - good thing we have binoculars and a telephoto lens - but we spent about an hour watching them, awed by their size.  

     Grande Vallee was another charming small town, also dominated by a large church, although this one was newer than others.  We went ashore in the evening to take a walk and found a covered bridge.  The guide book claims Canada boasts the most covered bridges in the world.  This one was built in the early 1900s.

      Dan caught a few more fish after supper, and he fried them up for his breakfast on Tuesday, just before we set off for Riviere au Renard.  

     The winds picked up in the night, and continued all day Tuesday, growing in strength by evening, and we were glad to make harbor when we did, about four pm.  The wind howled well into the night before dying out - gusting over 40 knots at times - and Dan set out two anchors to keep us in place.  We were safe and snug behind the breakwater, and had a good view of the fishing fleet as they came and went.