9/24/26: Good Time to Practice

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 was our only adversity for the morning so we were quite happy. Early afternoon the current abated and we started to make up lost ground and by the time we got to our staging marina it was flowing so nicely in our favor we continued straight on to Quebec.

Quebec was a jolt of urbanization. Since leaving St. John's, neither Nathan nor I had seen much more than a handful of medium-sized towns, and Quebec, a mega metropolis in comparison, almost sprong out from the contry side towards us. Our destination was the Port of Quebec marina which was beautifully situated behind a lock and right below old town Quebec. As we passed through the lock we called to see where we would be docking and as I had feared just the day before we were given a slip assignment. Needless to say I was very happy to have practiced backing into an imaginary slip this morning and docking into the real slip went much smoother than it otherwise would have.

After we were tied up, we took an hour to all gather ourselves before setting out for the streets of Quebec. We had dinner at a very good but slighyl confised mexican restaurant afterwhich I was seriously considering retiring, but happily didn't, as we ended up in a jazz bar that was one of the more atmospheric and eclectic places I've ever been. The musicians were excellent and the people watching even better, but after the bartender put her jack russell on the bartop where it ran around getting pets, I decided I'd seen everything and bid my adieus.

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