October 14, 2024 - Scenic Sailing - Monday

October 14, 2024 – Monday                          Day 19 of this journey 

Scenic Sailing, The St Lawrence Seaway and the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

As we wake, we are nearing the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. We are heading into the Gulf of St. Lawrence on our way to Cap Aux Meules in the Magdalene Islands. 

We think we’d like to try Kayaking, so we attended a briefing put on by the two kayak guides. After the briefing, we all troop down to the hangar where we have to show that we can get into a kayak from a zodiac, and back out of the kayak and into the zodiac. WE PASSED the test. Yea! Whether we will actually get to kayak will be determined on the weather at each of our next 3 ports of call (all of which are tender ports). 

Being a sea day, we also did a load of laundry having that wrapped up before breakfast. 

When we went up for lunch, we discovered a surprise event going on. They were serving their rendition of Poutine. And they were handing out Bloody Mary’s. We passed on the Bloody Mary, but enjoyed the poutine. Not as good as what we had in Toronto, but still fun. 

A little before 2:00 pm we went to a Kayak Workshop put on by the two guides. They explained a lot about how a kayak is designed and various features. Their demonstration kayak is a single seat that they use to accompany the passengers on a trip. The passengers are all in tandem kayaks that are a bit larger and designed for stability. They also talked about the dry suits they will issue, as well as differences in paddles, and personal flotation devices we will be wearing. Very well worth attending and we both felt like we learned a lot. 

The rest of the day was a very typical day. Cocktails around 4:45 pm, followed by the Daily Briefing, followed by dinner. The wind and chop have picked up substantially. 

Really had to laugh. When we got on the elevator to go down for the 2:00 Kayak Workshop there was a leather bag hanging in the elevator. It was full of barf bags. We’re rocking and rolling a bit, but it doesn’t seem that bad. Later on, they were gone.