The ship arrived in Sorel, Quebec today, and like many places in Quebec it is a city that I’ve never been before. There wasn’t really an opportunity to disembark the vessel to take a look around but the ship should be in and out of here a few times over the next few weeks, which should give me ample time for some decent exploration.
Sorel is a location filled with buoys of all shapes, colors and sizes. The ship stops here to drop off buoys that we have picked up along the way (there is a plan for all this, I just don’t know what it is as an engineer) and pick up new ones. All morning the ship would list from side to side as the crane lifted the buoys out of the cargo hold and onto the dock and then reload with new ones. Sometimes the ship would stay listed to one side for ten minutes which is a really weird feeling. Typically when sailing waves have a certain period to them that you get used to. You expect to list to port and then back to starboard, you expect a certain rhythm. It was an interesting experience, that I’m sure I’ll have to go through quite a few more times.
As for the rest of the days activities, after we loaded up buoys we again went out to replace the ones that had been removed. After completing that we returned to Sorel to tie up for the night. The Black has a lot of variety, from tying up to transiting the Lakes all night. It is an interesting part of the job every day (or night) is different, and it isn’t too often you spend a lot of time in one place. It is a great way to see the many places in Quebec, how different they all are from the city where I grew up.
seasaltsprays 