Trois Rivieres

In order to make up for our ignominious aborted departure of the day before, we had decided to leave Ile aux Coudres on the next possible riding tide. This turned out to mean 3:00 in the morning. Herbert hardly slept between bedtime and our early departure, riled up as he was from the previous day's misadventures. After midnight, he woke up every half hour, not wanting to miss the tide. With it, we'd have several knots of current helping us. Against it, we'd have so much current to fight that we'd be virtually standing still.

We were also hustling out because a small craft warning had been issued for the afternoon. By leaving early, we hoped to make it all the way to Quebec City before those strong winds set in.

I blearily got up to help with the anchor chain, but once we were away, Herbert waved me back to bed. He continued piloting up the river in the darkness, while all the rest of us slept.

Seven hours later, by 10:00 a.m., we were tied up in a marina right near the Old City of Quebec. We had landed at exactly the right time, during the annual Fetes de la Nouvelle France. Soon we were exploring the streets of the Old City with their gorgeous old buildings and admiring the populace of Quebec, who had come out dressed to the nines in beautiful period costumes. It was a fabulous festival, with activities on almost every street corner: stilt-walking, duels, plays, concerts, games. Our two days in Quebec City passed in a happy blur.

Then, once again we continued on the rising tide, this time at a more reasonable hour of 7:00 a.m. After sailing past the historic Plains of Abraham, we made it all the way to Trois Rivieres, where we were looking forward to an invitation to stay as guests of the local Sea Cadet training centre.

We tied up to a 70-foot steel Sea Cadet training vessel, the MV 801, at its regular dock in the main harbour. The Trois Rivieres harbourmaster had agreed to issue a speed restriction in the harbour until we left, so that we could rest there safely without being rocked too much by passing ships. Waiting for us on the 801 with big smiles were several blue-uniformed crew, plus two Sea Cadet commanders, Tom Turnbull and Pierre Godin, looking resplendent in their starched and crisply pressed white uniforms. We would spend the next three wonderful days with them -- but we probably wouldn't have smiled as brightly if we had known what was about to happen.

The next afternoon the boys and I were returning from the Sea Cadet camp with three huge bags of freshly washed laundry. With us was Maryanik Legoff, a senior staff officer at the camp. She was returning to Northern Magic with us so that we could give her a tour. As we were clambering down over the tall ladder on the MV 801, Herbert, who had stayed behind on Northern Magic to catch up on some chores, glanced over to the centre of the river half a mile away. A large orange cargo ship was passing at high speed, throwing off a huge wake.

"Either get over here quickly or stay where you are," Herbert warned. "It's about to get rough." The boys and I managed to get over to Northern Magic, but Maryanik was still standing on the MV 801 as the wave approached.

The large wave that was racing towards us was almost vertical, with an overhanging crest that was just on the verge of breaking. Michael and Jon, who had deposited their loads of laundry inside, stuck their heads out the main hatch. Christopher was somewhere inside. I noticed that our dinghy engine was sitting on top of the solar panel; Herbert had been giving it an overhaul after its failure a few days before.

"Michael -- hold on to the dinghy engine," I called. Now that the wave was almost upon us, it was larger than we'd first thought; it was certainly a good five feet high. Michael steadied the dinghy motor with one hand. "No, I mean really hold onto it!" I yelled louder. Then the wave hit.

We reared into the air, while for a small instant our much larger steel neighbour rested well below us. On the way up, we crashed heavily into their side. Our biggest, newest fender popped.

Then we dropped down, while the MV 801 rose up like a big gray elevator beside us, leaving marks on the concrete wharf five feet high. Their gangplank leading ashore broke away and came crashing into a window. Their fenders popped too. We were now terribly, awfully out of synch with each other, and it was at this point that the 1 inch thick stern line holding us to the MV 801 snapped in two. Perhaps it was also now that the steel cleat through which our bowline was threaded tore off, its three heavy steel bolts sheared right away.

Now it was our turn to rise up again, and the MV 801's to fall. This was the moment of worst danger, with the MV 801 in the trough of the last wave and us already on the crest of the next. My eyes were focussed on the slight figure of Maryanik, who was crouching on the side deck of the 801, directly beside and below us. All I could think of was that we were about to crush her into a pulp. Then we fell downwards, directly onto the 801, 20 tons of Northern Magic's steel clashing against theirs.

Thank God, we didn't crush Maryanik. We landed on our side against the deck of the 801, beside where Maryanik was pressing herself against the cabin of the Sea Cadet ship. There was a tremendous jolt, as 20 tons of our hull stove in the other ship's heavy steel railing and gunwales. I screamed to Marie-Anik to get out of there. But the deck of the MV801 was slippery and wet and there wasn't enough time for her to scramble clear before the next wave hit.

Up the 801 rose once again, looming over us like a blank steel wall. Herbert was near the bow, holding on for dear life. We were swinging even more freely now, without our stern line to hold us, and bouncing back hard from the impact of our collision. On the third wave we were once again thrown high up into the air and for a tiny instant we seemed to hang there, before crashing down once again. We hit the MV 801 again, this time near our bow where Herbert was crouching. Once again the awful crunch of steel on steel. Two of our stanchions broke, our starboard light went, the teak rail splintered, and our steel gunwales on the starboard side were caved in by the impact.

Then, finally, the waves settled down.

A nearby tourist cruise ship stopped and radioed offers of assistance, certain there had to have been injuries. The captain of the MV 801, Eric Lengellé, quickly got on the radio to another training vessel that had also witnessed the ship's passing. Between them they were able to identify it as a Greek cargo ship, the CEC Mirage. Speed limits or not, every vessel is liable for any damage created by its wake. By listening to the ship as it passed through various reporting points, they were able to estimate that the Mirage had been moving through the harbour at a speed of 15 knots.

On board Northern Magic, as we moved around trying to re-secure our lines, and make sure we were all right, we were still in shock. Amazingly, Michael had managed to hold that dinghy motor and save it from being thrown around, being lost overboard, or from injuring anybody. My mind was constantly replaying the image of Maryanik in her blue uniform cowering helplessly as we crashed down upon her. I was sickened by the thought that she might have been seriously injured or killed.

My morbid thoughts were interrupted by Christopher crawling into the cockpit and into my arms. He was crying. Sitting in the salon with his back to the starboard cabin wall, the jolt of the impact had whiplashed his head into the wall, just at the point where a metal bolt protruded. He already had a large goose egg on his skull, bleeding slightly where the bolt had bitten into him.

But there was no time to cuddle him, for we began getting tossed around again. At first I thought it was another ship -- but no, we were receiving the backwash from the same wake. The waves had travelled across the river to the other side, bounced off, and were now returning to take their second shot at us. By the time the second batch was finished and we had re-secured ourselves with what remained of our much-shortened stern line, we were nervous wrecks. We looked anxiously at the other big ships that were moving through the harbour, but they were all moving slowly and cautiously, as they had been doing all day.

It was obvious we could not risk staying there any longer. There was a marina not far away, although its water depth was pretty low and might not be enough for us. We radioed them and learned that at high tide we could just squeak in. Luckily it was high tide. So we left hastily, without giving poor Maryanik the tour for which she had come. I think she was probably just as happy to leave. Christopher still lay, sniffling, on a cockpit cushion with his head in my lap. This boy had come unscathed through storms with waves five and six times as tall as this one, yet had been injured on a river so close to home.

We touched bottom three times as we made our way into the marina. The people who took our lines looked sympathetically at the all-too-evident damage to our hull. Somehow, everyone seemed to know already about it, even though it had happened less than half an hour before.

Herbert and I stood at the dock to look at the damage, still not believing what had just happened. The mess at deck level was the most obvious, but the telling damage was nearer to the waterline, in the centre of the boat, at the point where we had fallen down on the MV 801. Our heavy steel hull was badly dented. It's a miracle nothing more had happened.

"You know," said Herbert, as he stood there sadly, "If we had been a fibreglass boat, there's no way we could have withstood that impact. We'd have split wide open and would right now be lying on the bottom of the St. Lawrence River."

My mind instantly filled with pictures of us scrambling to safety while abandoning our sinking boat, our sinking home, while grabbing a few precious things - our laptop computer? Our Book of Friends? Christopher's beloved stuffed gibbon? We were only 35 miles from the official end of our circumnavigation. The thought of it all ending here, like this, was too painful to bear.

The flood of emotion I felt on behalf of our wounded boat was as powerful as if she were a living thing. Our poor dear Northern Magic, after bringing us safely across the world's oceans, bravely taking the brunt of rough seas and violent storms that had sent other boats to the bottom of the sea, had once again saved us in our moment of need. Filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her strength, with sadness for her wounds, and with guilt that we hadn't protected her better, I buried my face in my hands and wept.

Special message from your web hosts
Diane is posting dispatches more often until the end of the trip. Be sure to come back Saturday for Dispatch 209.

Note from your web hosts
For photos of Quebec city, see our Slide Show