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't battling direct headwinds. This turned out to be doubly a blessing, because as we expected, the forecast was wrong, but not as we expected, instead of the predicted 20 knots, it was 30.
On our course of a close reach, with the main heavily reefed and just the staysail and a staysail's worth of genoa out, we found ourselves blasting over waves at 8 knots. A few times we found ourselves doing 9 knots, either in the biggest of wind or with too much sail out, blasting through waves instead of over them, which was a more harrowing experience for the boat. I tried to get my action camera on the bow of the boat to record the boat punching through the waves, but got hit by such a big wave myself that I was swept off my feet and my lifejacket automatically inflated. I managing to hold on to the pulpit with both hands and contented myself with videos from the cockpit. The wind abated after noon, and by dark we were comfortably sailing along in only 10 knots and very mild waves.
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