photo © 2001 Robert A. Mackall
Recently Linda Jones, President of Écomertours Nord-Sud, e-mailed to ask if our second adventure on L'Écho Des Mers was of the same spirit as the first. It was a thought provoking question that was easily answered with a resounding, Oui!Less easily answered is what makes this cruise experience so unlike any other. The combination of a small ship, wonderful regional cuisine, spectacular scenery, and an enthusiastic crew creates the potential for a most memorable cruise. Add to that a group of diverse, adventuresome, warm and friendly passengers and you have then defined the success of this eco-cruise.
We want to try to capture the spirit of this adventure by describing the destinations and ship-board life in words and pictures and related links. It cannot be adequately done as the cruise experience itself is a shared, personal adventure which involves the interaction of passengers and crew with each other as well as with the natural environment of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
We arrived boatside at about 12:30 in the afternoon to a flurry of dock activity. The cool thing is to drive right up to the gang plank and be greeted by the crew and staff all who are busy loading groceries and baggage. Gracious, they knew us by name without a list or clipboard or ticket. Right away you sense that this will not be your ordinary Carnival Cruise.While Katie follows our belongings, I get the car safely parked in the marina parking lot. Baggage and cameras and books stowed away in our spacious cabin, we make the rounds of our new home and old friend. There is new red bottom paint on the hull and an Écomertours' logo on the smokestack. Trés chouette. The dining room has not changed; the lounge/bar is the same; the reading room is still there. Immediately we reminisce of our L'Écho Des Mers trip two years ago visiting the National and Provincial Parks of Eastern Québec. It is both comfortable and exciting; at the same time.
At 2:00PM all are on board, goodbyes are made, lines are set free and we are away.
Not more than a few minutes from port we spot our first whale. Excuse me, baleine. These are French-Canadian waters and one does not hear the cry WHALE! We quickly atune our ears to the shouts of BALEINE!, BALEINE! A fin whale is found gracefully feeding just off our starboard beam.
The afternoon is a blur of of introductions; to each other as well as to the crew and staff of the boat. We have 44 passengers on board with a crew and staff of 15. Of the passengers 40 are francophone; 2 are German speaking; Katie and I are the only Americans and anglophone. Among the passengers is Christine, a journalist from Paris, who is writing a magazine article about this trip; and a film crew from France preparing a documentary on the St. Lawrence region for the Discovery Channel. As are the crew and staff, most passengers are bilingual. In our first gathering together in the lounge, passengers are introduced to most of the staff and crew. Victoria, supreme commander, purser and barkeep; Sylvie, la chef extraodinaire; Marie-Odile and Marie-Jöelle, our guides; Captain Conrad Boudreau; Stéphane Labrie, the 2nd officer whose hair is always perfect; and Solange who took care of us in our room. Among the introductions is that of our guest lecturer, M Pierre-Henry Fontaine, biologist, author and expert on the whales of the North Atlantic. M Fontaine will delight us with his lectures throughout the trip and assist us with whale identifications on deck.
Our first stop is at the site of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. An unknown story in the U.S., the Empress of Ireland was a passenger vessel bound from Quebec City to England when it was struck in the fog by a coal-laden freighter. 1,477 souls were lost in the most devastating maritime disaster in Canadian history.
Later in the afternoon we have our mandatory muster whereat all passengers report to their assigned lifeboat stations and put on lifejackets while the crew fights an imaginary fire in full firefighting gear and Scott airpacks. Unfortunately the fire won and we abandonded ship... to the bar.
The remainder of the afternoon is left to our own explorations and introductions as our boat leisurely progresses down the St. Lawrence River past the small fishing villages of the Gaspé.
Dinner is served promptly at 6:30. No one is tardy to these feasts... Not ever. A choice of two different regional entreés is offered each evening together with fresh breads, a soup, a salad, and a dessert. And, of course, le vin. Dinner is served in what I call French style as each course is presented singularly. Accordingly, dinner is an extended affair by American standards. After coffee or tea, it was not unusual to leave the dining room until after 9:00PM.
There is no assigned seating so that each evening we are free to dine together or with another couple or a table of ten. As this trip was quite full with passengers the reading room was used at meal time as a third dining room.
Each evening, after dinner, there is a talk in the lounge about the next day's activity. Tomorrow we visit Harve-St-Pierre, our first stop on the Côte-Nord. Afterwards, taking an evening stroll around the deck, we see in the distance Ste-Anne-des-Monts whose city lights, against the dark Chic Chocs Mountains, are like the lights seen from jetliners cruising to their destinations. With that observation we end our day.
