Leaving
Portneuf felt a bit like leaving home yet again: delightful people, convenient amenities,
a protected harbor, hot water…but with a bit of a push I’d make Quebec City today,
and the push had to start early. I’d texted Phil and Helen to see if they were
behind me in their newly re-masted Beneteau, but they had yet to depart Sorel; getting
the mast up and secured is one thing, but accurately rigging the umpteen miles
of lines and cords that hang from it all is yet another. I let them know that
Portneuf was a great port even without a storm and that they should make a
point of stopping. Maybe Phil could talk some sense into the Screen family.
I felt like
a cork coming out of a bottle as I hit the main stream from the marina basin; a
standing wave ripped across the river where the turbulent main course hit the
relatively still water of the harbor. Before traversing it to the main channel
I pulled up to take it all in. It was daunting but seemed manageable. Nevertheless,
I slipped into my lifejacket….and I would remain in it all day for the first
time in over 2,000 miles of rowing.
“Daunting
but seems manageable” became my rubric for the next three days on the water,
but like grade inflation, my standards began to creep as I made progress
through increasing risk and found success in tamping down the “daunt”. This
creep in judgment vs. reality would bring my rowing to an end in two more days.
If yesterday
was a sleigh ride, today’s ride was a roller coaster as the winds continued to
build and the current picked up in a narrowing river. Every mile closer to the
Atlantic was delivering a stronger tidal effect and on this morning, my
Machmeter indicated a groundspeed of better than 7 mph through the swells. I
was estimating only a bit more than forty miles to Quebec City and at this pace
I’d be there for a late lunch. Yeeehaaa!!...right?
Gentle
Reader, no doubt you’ve heard expressions like “less is more” or “scarcity
breeds demand”? How about “go slow to go fast”? “Slow and steady wins the
race”? “Haste makes waste”? “Don’t run with scissors in your hands”? Well, maybe
the scissors thing doesn’t really fit but the idea here, the irony, I guess, is
that this morning I’d been given a trifecta of natural phenomenon that any
rower would welcome: a following current, an outgoing tide, and strong tailwind. On still water,
each would be a blessing. In combination on a river rapidly morphing into
ocean, they became unusable at best…and opponents at worst.
As the waves
built and soon became as confused and randomly directed as the 113th
Congress, I pulled down my diminutive “pusher sail” (good for tailwinds, bad
for gales), dropped out of my sliding seat (good for power and efficiency, bad
for center of gravity and stability), and settled into my fixed wicker seat.
For long stretches I had to stop rowing altogether simply to maintain a safe
heading relative to the large waves that were building and breaking around me.
At times I even turned around, facing forward, stabbing at the water with
directional, not propulsive, strokes in order to be able to see and take a path
through the most threatening stuff.
As I read
what I have just written, I wonder why I did not simply pull for shore to wait
it out. In fact, my handwritten journal at the end of the day carries this
closing sentence: “Took too many chances
today in open water, pushing for speed and line. Took sail down twice after
scaring myself…a dump (in the water) would
have ended it all. Gotta’ slow down/ take time out!”
Did I really
need to be ashore, safe and dry in my sleeping bag, to have this epiphany? The
fact is that on the water, in the middle of it all, concentrating on staying
upright and keeping the worst of the water out of the boat, knowing that you
are making progress even if more at the whim of the river than your own heavy
labor, the impulse is to stay at it, keep going, plug away, press on. Perhaps
because I have spent a lot of time on many trips rowing against headwinds,
currents, and waves, when the cards were with me this day- even if they were
one quick draw away from overpowering me- my unthinking impulse was to keep
going, to make progress, to take advantage of any serendipity regardless of
seemingly manageable risk. As a former pilot I’m reminded of the malady of
“get-home-itis” that plagues aviators who hazard flights through conditions
beyond their experience or ability. You read the accident reports of crashes
based on this “probable cause” and you say, “What poor judgment. Why didn’t he
just wait it out? What could have been so important to have risked it all?”
These
questions are rarely answered. They hang there, hoping to be used as lessons
for the rest of us.
So “daunting
but manageable” got me to Quebec City late in the day, but the trifecta had
compelled me to slow down, to limp into port in a cold downpour. I’d eaten only
Nature Valley granola bars and water all day and, famished and freezing, I
pulled into the Quebec City Yacht Club wondering if the 1% might be feeling
generous this day. I noted that there was not another boat like mine in their
inventory. A taciturn bureaucrat would not grant me permission to pitch a tent
on their property but was perfectly happy to sell me an early dinner, and I was
too tired to be righteously indignant. Sitting alone in their capacious dining
room, dripping an expanding puddle on the flagstone floor and making periodic
forays to the Men’s Room to warm myself with the hand dryer, I feasted.
I asked the
Yacht Club Manager where I might find success pitching a tent for the night
(hoping that he might relent at the last minute seeing as how I was obviously
harmless, had just dropped a fortune on an early dinner at his empty
establishment, and would leave no footprint of my presence the following
morning). He said that downstream, a few miles past the city, a municipal beach
on the east side was sometimes “used by those kayakers for such purposes.” I
asked him about the small marina that was directly across the river from us in
a clearly industrial-looking area, and he frowned and waved his hand dismissively.
“Oh, no. No, don’t go there.”
Back in the
boat in the cold rain of a grey evening, facing the river again just north of
Quebec City, I rowed directly to Levy.
Today I’d
picked up the first signs of the ocean ahead…a first taste of salt, a first
taste of ceding control to the water….a first taste of doubt.
But tonight,
I would sleep well at Levy. 
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