oday we were in Quebec and what a lovely city it is. As a matter of fact it is the highest rated port of all the Holland America line ports as per our guest’s comments on board forms. Holland America line ships call at almost 400 different destinations and Quebec scores the best with an average of 8.33.out of a 9. We all know on the ship that with Quebec in the schedule, the guests will have a good time. Getting there from Saguenay is an all night sailing up the St. Lawrence River. Part of the river is semi canalized. This means, that is still has the regular river flow but the river bed has been dredged straight and is buoyed. The river is still very wide here but it flows over very shallow banks, interspersed with islands and only the dredged part is good for navigation, for almost all sorts of ships and sizes. However as the ships have to travel in this channel, they pass each other in close proximity and that meant that I was up for most of the night again. The pilots know what they are doing and I fully trust them but there is Murphy’s Law and it seems that the captain’s presence on the bridge is a very good way of keeping Murphy quiet. Docking it a bit of a happening. First of all you get a docking pilot who does the last five miles on the river towards the docks on the West shore. He brings the ship to about 500 yards from the dock and then hands over to the captain for the final docking. At least that is the way with the cruise ships. Cargo ships docking often require tugs and then the docking pilot does the docking as well. Even if a cargo ship captain would like to do the docking himself, the language barrier with the tug boat captains would prevent it. Regular French does not get you very far on the sea front. They speak French Canadian or Quebecois and on the water front they have a very specific version of it. Docking here is as if you are going to sit down on a tray of eggs without breaking them. The current plays around the ship and bounces off the dock walls,so you move the ship side ways, inch by inch, preventing the current from either pushing you away from the dock or bashing you into it. So you have to be patient and take you time.

By 6 am. we were docked at the Quebec Coast guard dock. The passenger terminal being used by the Norwegian Dawn. Not that it mattered the docks are being close to together and you just have to cross the street and there are the shops, the cafe’s and the little restaurants for which Quebec is famous. Quite a bit of the hustle and bustle of the town is caused by the lively student population and that liveliness attracts people. Thus there are apartment buildings being built for the affluent and student flats being converted into upscale apartments. The problem is that the people who buy these (expensive) apartments are most of the time not the most outgoing. So the success of Quebec is now endangered by its very own success. However according to the pilot there is hope as there is a movement going to limit the building of these apartments and to prevent the student from becoming an endangered species in down town.

Even if you do not leave the ship, just the view from the ship is amazing. On one side is the wide view of the river with the ships sailing by and the houses on the far side. On the dock side there is the town against the hill, dominated by Chateau Frontenac, the hotel looking like a big castle. We had a glorious day again with little wind and sunshine all day long. Tomorrow we are in Montreal which is the end of our cruise.