Last Night in Quebec City

Wednesday, June 22nd

We extended our stay in Quebec City another night, and spent the day on various boat chores. We topped off our fuel and water tanks and pumped out our waste tanks. We stocked up on supplies at the Metro supermarket nearby and the indoor farmer’s market right across from the marina.

We also met up with André, a friendly local with 35 years of boating experience in the St. Lawrence and a member of the Canadian Auxiliary Coastguard. He was kind enough to share some advice in the cockpit of Bear Keeper, another boat which will be leaving here tomorrow and following the same route to Maine. In addition to his invaluable local knowledge, his native French, along with personal connections at every port, has already paid off.

We called the only marina that’s a viable option for tomorrow night and reached someone who spoke no English. No problem, it turned out to be someone André knew well, and we passed him the phone. In between chatting and catching up (in French), André was able to secure reservations for both boats for tomorrow.

He also assured us that, no matter what port we’re in, even if the staff speaks no English there will be a friendly English-speaking local like him who would love to help out.

As the last rays of the sun hit the old city, we had a dinner of local sausage from the farmer’s market, washed down with a bottle of local hard cider.