Quebec
Thursday, July 6 through Sunday July 9
We left our Anchorage again at around 8:15 and cruised 58 miles into Quebec city. Everyone took turns at the wheel.
As we cruised we are seeing more sea planes than before.
The view coming into Quebec city is impressive.
The tides can sometimes raise and lower 16 feet in the area. We stayed at the Vieux Port de Quebec Marina. Because of the vast tide changes, this marina is behind a lock that helps control the height.
When the lock opened, we moved into it and it had a floating dock for us to use to tie off on.
Just as we entered to basin to wait for the lock, two huge tow boats came into the basin and honked at us. They need us to move out of their way so they could turn around and tie up for the night.
Of course we had to call the marina on the radio and try to figure out where we had go for our slips. The wind was blowing but we were able to back into the slip with a dock hands help.
This marina has a beautiful view of the city.
This is our view from above our marina. Our boat is on the dock on the right. You can just make out the blue top.
John normally stays out of the navigation process in cities…
Apparently, for good reason…
Unfortunately, we forgot to go over for a pump out before we went to the slip. Since our holding tank was full already we had to start up and go over to the pump out station, dock, pump out and then go back over and back into our slip again. After that was done John could open a few cans of beer…
That evening we walked around the lower part of old port. Quaint European type architecture with lots of restaurants and cute shops.
We ate dinner at the Café Du Monde close to the marina.
The next day,much to Bob’s chagrin, we did a tour on the hop on hop off bus. It was rainy and cold but we all had a good time and saw lots of cool things.
The driver warned us about overhanging bushes due to someone blocking the roadway. He didn’t realize how much overhang there was. He came up to apologize…
It was interesting to see all the different parts of Quebec city. Quebec is in the middle of a huge music festival in their art band stage is located in different areas of the city. We can hear music from one of the stages at boat in our marina. That evening, Bob, Bonnie, John and Pam went out for dinner and Bob experienced his first taste of a local cuisine called Poutine. He was not impressed.
On Saturday, John and Tom caught a bus and traveled two hours north to go on a whale watching excursion.
The third whale from the bottom, on the left side picture above is the one that is in the video below. Most of the whale is underwater…
The rest of us rented a car. We went to see the awesome Montorency Falls and drove over to the island of Isle-d Orleans to do some wine tasting. We stopped at three different wine tasting locations. Bonne really wanted to see what their ice wine was like. We found that the wine we enjoyed the most was wine that was made from currents. I think that they’re growing season for the grapes is too short because of weather, but the currents can withstand the cold until the wine is very good from the current. As we are cruising around the island we noticed a field or you could pick your own strawberries. Bonnie, Colletta and Pam went out into the field to pick while Bob took pictures. They were delicious.
That evening Pam, Bob, and Bonne went out for sushi. John didn’t get home until after 7:30. It was an interesting trip for them but it was cold and foggy and they only got to chance to see one whale up close. The next morning we took the rental car back and walked to a great restaurant for breakfast. The La Ruche had the best food we’ve had since we’ve been here. There had a duet playing the violin and guitar. We had Mimosas! The bathroom was quite interesting.
After breakfast, we walked back to the Château Frontenac. This is one of the most photographed hotels. It is over 177 feet tall and a beautiful site in Quebec’s skyline. It was built in 1878 to accommodate people for worlds fair but wasn’t completed in time. It is really impressive.
We roamed around the streets of old port lower and upper
and then went back to the boat to get it ready to move outside the lock walls. We have to leave around 4:45 in the morning to catch the tide and the lock does not open until 7 AM so they have a dock that you can slip into for the night so you may leave early in the morning. No electricity but it’s a nice dock.
