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Just an hour ago we boarded our pilots from Les Escoumins, Quebec, for the first piloted leg of our journey up the St. Lawrence River. This leg is to Quebec City -100 nautical miles away. Pride II's speed under power against the current is slow enough that two pilots are needed to enable them to work in shifts and thus not overextend themselves while enabling the ship to keep moving. Even at a steady 8 knot, Pride II is considered a slow boat, as it will take about 24 hours to get to Quebec. As we pass by that beautiful city, there will be a change of pilots. In total I seem to recall there will be three pilot changes as Pride II churns her way up river taking some 48 hours to reach Montreal. Uniquely the weather is virtually calm. I have seen it blow strongly downriver against our efforts to go upriver. But today it is still as a millpond. We have observed finback whale and seal. The Beluga whale is well known here and we hope to see them as well. The surrounding land goes from flat and distant to close and quite hilly, as shaped by the last glacial age. It is largely barren of village or urban sprawl. Except for a few signs of civilization scattered about, we are looking at land similar to what early Europeans saw as they explored this large and new territory and interacted with the local Indian tribes. This section of the river moves constantly in a reversing flow from ebb to flood to ebb again. At certain locations, ebb current speeds of 7 knots are common. This means Pride II will be brought to a stand still during the ebb. Fortunately the ebb is not consistently the same speed along the full length of the river. During short periods of flood and in areas where the ebb does not get really strong, Pride II will make advances up the river. I have skippered this route more than a dozen times without the aid of a pilot. While I may begrudge the cost associated with being forced to carry pilots that were once merely an option I never took advantage of, I am happy to be able to take it easy and let the pilots and Pride II's watch leaders guide the ship up river. I now have time to catch up with the Captain's Log.

As I reflect on our sailing legs from Beaufort Inlet, NC, to the St. Lawrence River, I am reminded of how weather strategy can play an effective role in making the voyages enjoyable and fruitful or a tedious motoring experiences. Alternatively the journey can be frighteningly uncomfortable. I last wrote of our sail towards Boston and how by sailing more to the coast rather than offshore, we had moderate conditions as compared to more severe conditions offshore. That decision was based on a close and frequent reassessment of weather reports. At no time did I know for certain how I would eventually route Pride II toward Boston. Except for knowing where we intended to end up, I was not committed to a route. I was prepared to go into Chesapeake Bay and down the Delaware if it would help us stay out of heavy and contrary weather. I was also not sure that we would not go into New York Harbor and then into Long Island Sound as a means of dealing with contrary weather. As it turned out, we only needed to favor the coast rather than stay to a rhumb line between Cape Hatteras and Cape Cod Canal which would have taken us quite some distance offshore. The difference was understanding that the wind strength was likely to be greater offshore than nearer shore. The difference between 20-25 knots and 30-35 knots from astern is quite significant and there is no appreciable increase in Pride II's speed. But there is a great increase in discomfort which can lead to gear damage and injury.

For the sail from Boston to Halifax, I was torn between going north in the promised easterly wind, or going south first. When the time to decide came, I chose to go south after I got the last weather up-date as we motored out of the harbor. It would make the trip longer but my analysis of the reports suggested it would keep us from having fresh easterlies as against mild easterlies. Also, if everyone was wrong as to what was going to happen and the weather got strong, we could pull into Provincetown and weather out a easterly or a northeasterly should either of those conditions develop. The situation was the development of a low as it crossed from west to east just south of Cape Cod. There was uncertainty in the reports spread out over 5 days leading up to departure, whether the low would track somewhat north or merely head east. If it went north, we could expect strong E-NE'rlys which would make sail toward Halifax very uncomfortable and may even have forced a postponement of departure. As it turned out, the low tracked due east and a cold front developed some strength afterwards. We never got a lot of wind on our more southerly route and, when the cold front presented itself, we were in a good position to use the wind on a broad reach. Had we gone north, we may or may not have had more strength than the 10 knots we actually experienced in the east wind. But we would have been in a poor position to take advantage of the following cold front by having the wind more directly aft instead of off to the side.

The sail from Halifax to the mouth of the St. Lawrence had less flexibility in its first hours. There is just no way to go but straight east along the Nova Scotia coast in order to reach the Canso Straights. But the crossing of the Gulf of St. Lawrence presents a number of opportunities for favoring one strategy or another. The first is whether to go straight north from Canso or head west first and transit the Northumberland Straights. I have actually made that decision three times over the years as a means of reducing the affect of strong weather, or the option of using the strong weather rather than heaving-to in it and waiting till it passed. On this trip, we could go straight north. But later a cold front developed and brought NW breezes. It was then a question of how to steer through it and get distance without resorting to motoring. This was important as Pride II does not carry enough fuel to push against contrary winds and travel the entire distance from Halifax to the first American port past Montreal. So it is important to sail as much as possible and pick times of motoring that can produce the greatest fuel economy. For this leg, I am not sure I used the most efficient strategy once the northwesterly winds arrived with the cold front. Twice I had the opportunity to head west for a distance on a starboard tack before tacking and going north. But each time I merely went north and wound up motoring west during the nights when fortuitously the wind all but died out. Each morning the wind came in and we went sailing. Ultimately the difference between what we did and what we could have done is probably less than 50 miles distance and less than 50 gallons of fuel. So my quibbling with myself about how I could have done a better job with strategy is of very little import. However, I believe I relearned a lesson that should I get into a similar circumstance I hope I am more readily equipped to make a decision that results in more efficiency.

In any event, we are now under pilot and motoring up a virtually calm river. This is fortuitous as it makes the fuel economy almost as good as it can ever be in this river. We are making good time and it appears we are "on schedule" for making Detroit on time, baring any surprises. As things currently stand, we should make Montreal very early Wednesday morning which puts us in good position to get into the Seaway Lock System the same day. I hope we can be in Ogdensburg, New York, a day later where we can clear back into the USA and get refueled for the sprint through the Thousand Islands and across Lake Ontario to the Welland Canal. It is there we will climb the tedious but majestic lock system that carries us over the Niagara Escarpment and into Lake Erie. There is not much time available for wasting. But all the future legs, as was the case with the recent legs, are reasonable since the required speed overall is not more than 5 knots - a speed that experience tells us is usually quite doable.

Cheers
Captain Miles