Baie-Comeau and Sept-Iles, Two Working Towns

If there's anything the guest onboard Seabourn Quest will learn on this revised itinerary, it's that there are a lot of working ports along the St. Lawrence, not tourist towns.

Both Baie-Comeau and Sept-Iles revolve around timber, hydro-electric power generation and aluminum smelting, with Sept-Iles adding fishing to the list. More on that later on.

The availability of tours has been rather sparse this cruise because of the itinerary changes, although the communities, especially those that weren't expecting us in the first place, have stepped up as much as possible to be welcoming and point us toward sites of interest. We thought we'd had a tour in Baie-Comeau, but as we'd booked it just as the WiFi was going down, it turned out that there were no tickets for us.

So we took the shuttle from the port into town and wandered around for an hour or so. We had been here before about 10 years ago during a Quebec to New York cruise on Crystal Symphony, and we found that nothing much had changed. Although this time we did actually find 'downtown Baie-Comeau'. The most interesting site is the Amelie Church, which had been Catholic but had been de-consecrated at some point in its history and is now non-denominational. There's an Immaculate Conception grotto beyond the church that we don't recall from the previous visit, so we took a look there before returning to the ship.

You'll note that we didn't say anything about rain yet. We had a tiny sprinkle or two but it turned into a very nice afternoon and evening, nice enough that the Champagne and Caviar Sailaway could be held on the Pool Deck.

Later, much later that evening, we had our first dinner at The Grill by Thomas Keller, the main specialty dining venue on the ship. The room is quite small and is set up to look like a 1950s wood-paneled train car. We have had varying reports on the quality, especially of the signature Rib Eye Steak, but thought we would still have our own experience to see how it compared.

We started off with the table-side prepared Caesar Salad. Of course we had the poor soul who was preparing it on tenterhooks after we told him about our favourite Caesar Salad at The School....

It turned out to be delicious, but even with the extra garlic we asked for, nowhere near as potent as The School's.

For our main courses, we chose the two signature dishes - Larry had the Rib Eye Steak, and I had the Dover Soul Meuniere. The steak was, as expected, a very odd looking cut for a Rib Eye, but it was perfectly cooked and Larry found it quite tender. I found the sole very delicious as well.

My Dover Sole, deboned at the table

Larry's Rib Eye steak, along with our sides of Roesti Potato
Fries and Sauteed Mushrooms

The gelatos on board have been uniformly great, so Larry had that for dessert. I had the Meyer Lemon Meringue Tart, which was a nice small size and just the right tartness to finish off the meal.

The Meyer Lemon Meringue Tart

And instead of petits fours to finish off, they
bring larger-than-fist sized chocolate chip cookies!

We didn't do much else after dinner, and didn't have anything planned for this morning in Sept-Iles, so we could sleep in. 

In Sept-Iles, we decided that we needed to get out and take a walk since we had no tour this morning. After breakfast we put on our running shoes and set off. Sept-Iles is a larger town than we expected, but there isn't much of interest to tourists near the port. It was suggested that we follow the red brick path along the waterfront and it turned out to be a nice walk for a half-hour or so each way.

A couple of fishing boats in the harbour

There was a little menagerie of steel animals along
the waterfront path

So you can make your own postcard shot....

And one for the ticky-tacky tourist shot of your ship!

This is a restaurant/bar at the edge of the parking
lot that, in season, is where the fishermen sell
most of their catch. The restaurant (right) is
shaped like a lobster trap, although there's
no lobstering here.

There are informational signs posted all along, telling of the history of the area and the area's economy. After aluminum smelting and hydro-electric generation, fishing is a huge industry here. The main catches are snow crab, shrimp and turbot. And it must really be hopping in the height of the crabbing season given the number of traps we saw. All the fishing boats are out of the water now, and the hundreds of crab traps are piled up in a parking lot just off the pier.

Stored away for the winter, and this was just
a small sample of the crab traps piled
around the lot!

One of the snow crab boats in a yard with about 
50 others.

After a surprising send-off by the locals, we made our way out between the islands and toward Havre-Saint-Pierre.

This evening we went to The Colonnade for their Italian Dinner. The food was good, but there was certainly no taking your time over the meal like there is in other restaurants. I had the offerings from one side of the menu, the more traditional Italian items, and Larry had his dinner from the other.

The Colonnade set for dinner. They serve
buffet breakfast and lunch here.

Beef Carpaccio

Osso Bucco with Risotto

Tiramisu

After dinner, the Ensemble put on a Motown themed show that was really great. Tiffany had told us that it was one of their favourite shows to perform, and it was easy to see that.

We headed off to bed a little early as our tour in Havre-Saint-Pierre would be meeting at 7:50 a.m. and we still had to figure out how we would fit breakfast in beforehand.

Saguenay Sail-in and Another Rainy Day

 Our next previously unscheduled stop was at the town of Saguenay. Not that Saguenay itself has much to offer, but the Saguenay Fjord, where the river cuts through the Canadian Shield to reach the St. Lawrence, turned out to be quite spectacular.

Our captain had mentioned that the scenic part of the sail would start at about 8:00 am and last until we arrived at noon. At 7:00 the foghorn was sounding, and we couldn't see anything at all in the pea soup. By 7:30 it was clearing and we had already entered the river. So we got dressed and went up to the Observation Lounge on Deck 10 to be able to see everything.

The Saguenay is known for wildlife, as, especially near the river's mouth, the mingling of the waters with the St. Lawrence stirs up a lot of krill that is the main diet of whales. Unfortunately, none showed up for us.

We reached the town to find that the Viking Star, who had been with us in Quebec, had arrived first and had prime spot at the pier, so we would have to tender in. And then it started raining. Again. 

We should maybe call this the 'dodging Hurricanes cruise'. Hurricane Fiona had changed our entire itinerary and continued to make a real mess of our weather, but the forecast was for improvement for the last half of the cruise. And now the internet has been down (hence the late post) because of Hurricane Ian down in Florida affecting the use of Seabourn's main satellite. It was actually quite amusing at breakfast to see that nobody was glued to their phones or tablets since the WiFi wasn't working.

As a result of the cold, wind and rain we never did go ashore, so we'll take the rest of this post to show you around the Seabourn Quest.

Considering her small size of 32,000 tons, Quest certainly does feel quite roomy. All the public spaces are large, many of them the full width of the ship, and with lots of windows and verandahs there always seems to be light coming in everywhere. We weren't sure if we were going to like the experience, but we will definitely sail on Seabourn again, although we'd like to try one of the larger ships next time.

Seabourn Square, the heart of the ship. This is where Guest Services,
Shore Excursions, the Library and the Future Cruise Sales are located, along
with comfortable seating, inside and outside, as well as a coffee bar.

The outside verandah at Seabourn Square. Probably
really nice in warm weather, although there are
heat lamps up above.

The Observation Lounge (set up for afternoon tea). There's
also a nice outdoor deck similar to Crystal Serenity,
so it was a popular place in the Saguenay Fjord.

For golfers, a small putting surface and
a swing cage up on Deck 11

The forward top deck lounging area - not used
much so far!

Looking down over the pool deck. The round glass
is over the midship spiral staircase. The staircase doesn't 
lead directly to any focal points of the ship such as a main lobby, unlike 
most ships we've been on, because there isn't really one here.

The Sky Bar overlooking the pool. For a small ship, there
are lots of outdoor seating areas.

At pool level there's the Patio Grill and Bar. During the day they
serve selection of hamburgers, salads and the like, and in the evening
it becomes specialty dining venue Earth and Ocean.
We haven't tried that yet, but will let you know how we
like it.

The Club. This is where the live band plays at
night. It is really nicely laid out, especially the upper
area near the bar, which has glass panels that
deflect some of the sound from the stage.

One of the secret spots that we'd heard about on
board. This small pool and hot tub area
behind The Club is, again, spacious, and would probably even
be nice in cooler weather. I think we'll try it out one
afternoon.

Looking up the Spiral Staircase.

The Restaurant, the main dining room. It
is really nice, and because of the sections
with high ceilings and the draperies, is
not as noisy as some shipboard dining rooms.

A final word about one of the things in particular that Seabourn does differently from any other cruise line we've been on, not just Crystal. We had to download the Seabourn Source app on our phones so we would have access to all the information we would need around the ship and in our onboard accounts. At first we thought this would be a pain in the neck, especially for Larry as he doesn't like carrying his phone around. We've found after a week that it is easy enough to navigate and - when WiFi is working - puts everything at your fingertips, including the daily events schedule called the Herald, your dining reservations and shore excursion tickets, and even restaurant menus for the day. Of course, the only downside is that when there's no satellite available for the ship and no access to anything, you have to rely on announcements and your memory for things you may have planned.

The evening's entertainment was provided by our Cruise Director, JP Almon. He's apparently been around theatre in New York for a long time, and will be leaving the ship with us in Montreal to head back there for his Christmas gig - playing Santa in the Radio City Music Hall show! And then, for a most unusual Daily Double of roles for an actor, in the new year he will be starring as Tevye in a production of Fiddler on the Roof!

By the time we left Saguenay, the rain and clouds were clearing out. We looked outside briefly after dinner, and the stars were shining.  After the show we looked again and although the night sky was still visible, we seemed to be sailing through a wad of cotton with the mist over the water. It sure looked odd!