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Our southerly filled in beautifully this morning. I came on watch at midnight to find us screaming along on a broad reach at almost 8 knots with full sail up. The conditions were perfect; if anything, we were worried about arriving at Port Dalhousie too early and having to wait for light. The wind backed off a bit, and we found ourselves turning into the entrance of Dalhousie—formed by two long, straight breakwaters—around 7:00 a.m. Dalhousie was the location for the 1st, 2

We left Wolfe Island for the open waters of Lake Ontario this morning around 7:00 a.m. We are aiming for Port Dalhousie, which is just west of the Welland Canal and 120 nm away from Wolfe Island as the crow flies. The wind started as a southwesterly, so we weren't able to sail straight toward Dalhousie. Instead, we sailed south across the lake almost straight for Rochester, until around 11:00 p.m. when the wind clocked to a southerly as we had been hoping, allowing us to poin

Today was a leisurely wake-up. The boat was in good shape, and we still had five days to cover the 100 miles west to the Welland Canal. It was a leisurely, mild day too; we looked at the weather and decided that for the best wind, we should probably try to cross Lake Ontario on the 7th. Thus, we went and explored Thwartway Island, which had beautiful old-growth forests and very little underbrush. After a couple of hours tramping around, we came back to the boat to head a li

This morning we left Brockville in a bit of a predicament: for the first time this trip, we had to slow down. Our next big checkpoint was making it through the Welland Canal, but today is Sunday, and this late in the season you can only go through the canal from north to south on Saturdays—six days from now. The entrance to the canal was a maximum of two days away, so we had some time to kill. Our first stop on our leisurely journey toward the Welland was for tonight at the

I started today by getting a haircut. This is my second haircut of the trip with my first being a buzzcut so my hair was already pretty short. But the barber shop I went to was absolutely charming. Wilkins only there had been four people in line both times I walked by yesterday to see if I could get in. When I came back this morning two minutes after the shop opened I was fourth in line. This morning I waited, each haircut taking almost exactly 15 minutes. When it was my turn

Today was our last lock before entering Lake Ontario(Lake America). We left early from our sweet little anchorage to make sure we made it to our 10:00 reservation, so we once again caught a nice view of the sunrise as we traveled upriver. The islands here look much different from any I know, but I hadn't really been able to pinpoint why that was until Fred pointed out that these are the only islands he has ever seen covered entirely in deciduous trees. It gives them a very ro

Today we had another two locks to get through: the Snell and Eisenhower. These two locks are different from all the locks we've been through and will go through because they're owned by the Americans. We set off this morning just after the colors from the sunrise lost their vibrance. We were still traveling upriver at this point, but it was nearly indistinguishable from a lake community. The walls of the canal were no longer purpose-built rock riprap, but low shores lined wit

The name of the game today was locks. We had four to pass through, all at scheduled times, and if we screwed anything up, we'd have to wait an extra two days for another chance. The first lock was the St. Lambert, and it was only 3 km from where we anchored. Still, we showed up to the waiting docks almost an hour and a half early just to be safe. We were the first ones there, but ended up being joined by three other boats. A voice announced over a very scratchy megaphone that

Thanks to some wind from the east we held a surprisingly fast pace throughout most of the night. When the wind did die around 3 am we were within striking distance of Montreal even on just motor power. By 2:00pm, Montreal first came into view. The Montreal we could see was comprised of three parts: a city strobing with multi colored LEDs, a bustling cargo port lined with the container ships that had tormented us in the night, and a very quiet, likely shut, amusement park. We

Our next stop in out trip is Montreal which is 135 miles from Quebec. 135 miles is a pretty routine distance for Pelagic, but it is entirely up-current and against the prevailing winds so predicting how long it will take is a crap shoot. Our deadline is that we need to be in Montreal by the morning of the 30th to make it through the St Lambert Lock so the pressure is on to get up river. Skip arrived this morning shortly after Martha and I finished the last bit of grocery sho

Today was for stocking up and looking ahead. We started by stocking up. On our last leg we did a good job of eating through nearly everything, so Fred, Martha, and I Ubered up to the nearest supermarket to get all the food we would need for the next couple of weeks. I still find this process a mixture of enjoyable and stressful. It's quite enjoyable to go around with two or three shopping carts getting bushels of whatever food you'd like, but it's stressful to see just how th

There were three big tasks for today: go to the hardware store, say goodbye to Nathan, and greet Fred and Martha. The first task was the hardware store. Nathan's parents had driven up to Quebec, which meant that for the morning we had access to a car. What we needed from the hardware store was somewhat grim: a poop bucket. The Great Lakes are very strict about how blackwater (human waste) is treated, and Pelagic is not up to the standards. With the time we have left, we neede

Today there wasn't much on the agenda. I had a few personal goals, such as sending my film in to get developed and seeing a bit of the city, but the boat work was minimal. Sadly, Chuck and Tor were leaving today, which was sure to have an effect on the boat's chemistry which had been so great for the last couple weeks. They also played a large role in encouraging many of the fun things we've done in the last weeks and providing the competence that allowed all those fun thing

Today we set off around 7:00 in order to make it to a marina 10 miles south of Quebec that was supposed to be helpful for timing the tides. Setting off took a bit long than usual though because after the day prior's sloppy docking job, I asked Chuck and Tor if they'd coach me some more on backing onto the dock. It took a handful of tries, but eventually I got a docking I was satisfied with and we set off. Again, we found ourselves battling the currents toward Quebec, but this

We set off from the Saguenay Fjord at dawn this morning. Chuck and Tor fly out of Quebec on the 25th and we were still 100 miles down river and downwind of the prevailing winds. Making our way out of the fjord went smoothly, the sun was just casting long shadows on the cliff faces as we made our way back onto the St. Lawrence. The wind was light, but the current was 1-2 knots against us in the broader sections and 3-4 knots in the more narrow sections, making progress very sl

This morning, happily, we were still anchored in the fjord. Everyone was feeling much better after a full night's sleep, and now that we weren't so exhausted, everyone was very excited to head up the fjord to do some hiking and exploring. The area that offered the best exploring had no sure anchorages, so we were hoping to get there early and test the waters untill we found somewhere solid. As we got closer though we had another idea. The walls of the fjord were sheer rock, a

We had a pretty but breif sunrise this morning as the sun crossed the gap between the horizon and cloudy sky. By the time the sun was behind the clouds we were only a few hours from our destination, the Saguenay Fjord. The Saguenay Fjord is a calving ground for beluga whales, which Nathan and Katie desperately wanted to see, so as we got within 10 miles, they both went to go sit on deck and look for them. We had to wait all of 30 seconds before Katie started pointing and call

This morning was uneventful. The wind was moderate and the sky was an unthreatening grey. A welcome respite as we were all tired by yesterday's events and a night of watches. By noon the wind settled to around 8 knots, at which point I got off watch and went to go nap. I was woken up by Tor an hour into my nap when he came to tell me we were setting the spinnaker. The spinnaker is rarely ever used on this boat because it is so massive that the window of wind that it's safe to

We left our anchorage at Rocher à la Poire with the sunrise. Our breaths lay stagnate in the air as we set out only to be whipped away as the wind built and the sun rose. The wind had been forecasted at 20 knots, but in our experience, the forecasts usually overestimated by 5–10 knots so we were expecting a moderately sailing day. The good news was that we could now sail southwest down the St. Lawrence, and the wind was coming from slightly north of west, so for once we weren

Today our engine behaved, and we got to sail for the most part anyways. The morning had some bigger waves, but they eventually flattened out and the sailing was quick and comfortable. We sailed under the lee of Anticosti Island to get out of the waves further, which unintentionally made us the perfect refuge for a few small land birds who were blown out to sea. There were a couple throughout the morning that landed and took off again, but one stayed with us: a small green bir