Andante Theme song?

July 26, 2009

Still in St. Anthony.  One of the fun things about cruising in Newfoundland & Labrador is the people you meet.  We've been coming into the government docks a lot so you tend to get a lot of attention.  People stroll down to chat.  Fisherman wander over.  A Mom who's son thought we were a pirate ship . . . and a gentleman in St. Anthony who thought he'd heard a song called Andante by that great disco group Abba!  Before we left he brought down a copy of the lyrics.  I had to see if there was a video.

I don't think it's going to become our theme song but if anyone knows where I can get one of those blue jumpsuits for Russ . . . 

Pots that go splash in the day

St. Anthony, Newfoundland
July 25, 2009

St. Anthony, the local dialect strings it all together to come out “Sin ant ne”, is the biggest town on the Northern Peninsula, and our stop to re-fuel, re-provision and pick up some charts that we’d ordered through the local hardware store.

Craig, ship’s engineer from the Canadian Coast Guard’s vessel Harp, caught our lines at the public wharf. The Harp is responsible for patrolling Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula and all of Labrador! We chatted for a few minutes and he asked us over to meet the Captain. Captain Jerry Williams invited us on board and before we knew it we were sitting down in their mess being served a delicious seafood chowder. I can’t imagine this scene taking place on a U.S. Coast Guard boat as nice as they can be.

Before we left, the Captain gave us the entire huge pot of chowder. They’d had it for dinner and wouldn’t eat it anymore so . . .Well OK but I had no idea how we’d eat it all either.

The big to-do in St. Anthony was the arrival of the tall ship Bowdoin from Maine Maritime Academy and the accompanying Celebrate Bartlett extravaganza. Captain Bob Bartlett was captain of the ship that got Peary as far North as possible on his successful run to the North Pole in 1909. (I know, I know there are some dissenters that think he didn’t make it but hey, let’s not ruin the party!) The 100th year anniversary was serving as a time for Newfoundland to celebrate its local hero’s role in the expedition. Bartlett was from a long line of sea captains based out of Brigus, Newfoundland.

A flotilla of private boats was accompanying the Bowdoin and several arrived in anticipation of the big event. Jim Wyse of SV Staragan and his crew, Diane & Dwight arrived first. Jim was heavily involved with the committee organizing the celebration so had official duties. Cyril, a former fisherman, & his wife Madeline on their Nonsuch 36, Moomba, rounded out this fun loving group.

They invited us to dinner aboard Moomba and we were able to share the chowder! It was a great time with food, drink and lots of sailing/fishing stories as we all crowded around Moomba’s saloon.

Now that we’d managed to share all of the chowder I had this huge pot to clean. It wouldn’t fit in our sink so I took it to the dock’s hose. This was a regular garden hose but the water came out like it was a fire hose, shooting that beautiful stainless steel pot out into the harbor. “Quick launch the kayak. Launch the kayak!” I yelled as I ran over to Andante. Russ is not one to panic so he grabbed the boathook first and managed to fish the pot out of the water. Whew! I cleaned it and returned it to the Harp with some chocolate chip cookies inside.

The wharf was a little challenging. And the 5 ft. tidal range added to it. To leave the boat we stepped on the huge tire fender, then the top of this broken off railroad tie, and then this giant carriage bolt before hauling ourselves over the top.

Leif Eiriksson Slept Here

July 23, 2009
Quirpon, Newfoundland
51°35.8N
055°27.8W

The big attraction here was L’Anse aux Meadows, site of a Norse landing over 1000 years ago. They’d left their home and colonized Iceland and Greenland. The search for greener pastures led them to the tip of Newfoundland.

Russ has been reading Tony Horwitz’s A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering The New World. Horwitz makes the point that when the Norse landed in Newfoundland and met up with the locals, the two branches of the human family tree were meeting for the first time since one branch spread to Europe and the other across Asia and over the land bridge to North America. It did not go well.

Norse called the locals Skraeling which translates roughly as “screecher”, “wretch,” “ugly.” They were short and dark and to the tall, blond Norse must have looked alien indeed. And vice versa I’m sure. The first Norse/Skraeling encounter left 8 Skraeling dead and the Norse expedition leader, Thorvald, mortally wounded.

The Norse settled here anyway, began farming and eventually trading with the locals. Things turned sour in the diplomacy/trade department and the site was abandoned. But not before Gudrid gave birth to a boy. His name . . . Snorri. It would be almost 600 years before another child of European descent was born in North America.

We borrowed the ferryman’s car and drove up to L’anse Aux Meadows. It’s a National Park and Parks Canada has done a good job interpreting. Recreated buildings and costumed interpreters give you a sense of how the Norse lived and worked. Norse men and women and their Irish slaves made up the inhabitants.

I spoke with the Chief’s wife, Gudrin, who was embroidering a beautiful cape that she’d woven. Seeing her outside of the interpretive area I asked if her knowledge of weaving and sewing led her to the job or it was something she’d learned once she had the job. Growing up, she said, her Mother never taught her any of the sewing arts because she didn’t know them. Turns out her mother who had to sew clothes, hook rugs, knit scarves and mittens, etc. was determined that none of her girls would need to do such menial work and she never taught them. Two generations removed from needlecraft being a necessity, it’s become a pleasure. The interpreter is now teaching her mother how to knit.

Standing on the beach and looking out at the rocky, shallow Bay it was hard to see why they picked this place. But a thousand years ago the sea level was higher and this would’ve been a good spot for their shallow draft boats.

The Norse wore a lot of tools on their person so they wouldn’t loose them. One item really intrigued me – an earwax spoon. It’s a small wooden spoon used for, you guessed it, removing ear wax. Which begs two questions: Did they have that much more ear wax than we do now? and What did they do with it?

"Most Generous on Least Acquaintance" Award

July 23, 2009

Quirpon, Newfoundland
51°35.8N
055°27.8W

Our sail from Labrador back to Newfoundland was uneventful unless you count seeing our only iceberg with an arch and a thick fog that descended just as we reached land!

Quirpon (pronounced like car pool but with an "n")peeked out of the fog and revealed this small community of 219 bathed in sunshine. Our lines were caught by a kind gentleman. A few minutes of chatting and he mentioned that he ran the ferry for the Quirpon Lighthouse Inn. He'd be leaving shortly and not returning until 1pm the next day. His car was parked on the dock with the keys in it and we were welcome to it! Never did get his name, nor he ours. It really opens your eyes to what's possible in the world if you don't have to spend time protecting yourself from crime. The "Most Generous on Least Acquaintance" Award is a tough award to win in these parts. . . but the ferryman wins it.

If you're ever in these parts the Quirpon Inn is worth a visit:

Quirpon Lighthouse Inn

and tell the ferry operator, "Thank you!"

Return to Battle Harbour

Battle Harbour, Labrador

July 22, 2009

Have you ever experienced a magical place and then afterward tried to figure out if the magic was due to the locale or something that happened there or maybe it was all an illusion? Our first visit to Battle Harbour was filled with magic - music at our very first kitchen party, icebergs, and the experience of sitting on a rock watching giant humpback whales gobble up their dinner. So maybe this, our only repeat stop, was to see if the magic was real or imagined.

From our first visit

What the video doesn't show in that opening shot is the whale that dove right in front of us on a collision course.  All I saw were his flukes as he dove under.  My only comfort was that if they show their flukes it means they're going deep.

The feeding was amazing.  The fifty foot humpbacks seemed to work in teams of 3 driving the capelin, a small mackerel like fish, into a cove.  They circle the fish blowing bubbles which makes a bubble net around the fish.  Then they dive deep and come up through the trapped fish with their moths open.  

This second visit was minus the icebergs which had moved on and the whales which had left to  follow the capelin.  Gazing back at Battle Harbour from the top of neighboring Caribou Island, we could still feel the magic of this place.  But, we also knew that our first visit here was one in a million.

Labradorian Perfection

St Francis

Monday, July 20, 2009

We had a vague idea, an ideal if you will, of what Labrador would be like . . . the ideal Labrador anchorage at least.  St. Francis met all the requirements;  picking our way through rocks and sunkers to a snug anchorage, stunning cliffs, endless hiking opportunities, and not a soul in sight.  

Our one night was not enough in this lovely spot.  We savored every minute of exploring the few abandoned buildings, hiking the cliffs to gaze down at icebergs that looked like UFO's and eating our salmon for dinner.  

A study in gray.  

This berg took the prize as the biggest we'd see all season.

The Iceman Cometh

Squasho Run, Labrador

Watching these enormous bergs go past has whetted our appetite for some iceberg ice in our drinks and we were getting low on ice in the ice box. So . . . . Earlier in the trip, Russ had gone out in the dinghy armed with a hammer, our little ice pick and a pair of gloves. He returned empty handed.  Turns out that little bergy bit we’d spotted was the size of our old Suburban and it was heaving up and down like something alive. 

Today we spotted a much smaller piece and he managed to get some chunks off of it.

Note to self – next trip bring an axe.

Off Soundings

July 17, 2009

Hills Harbour, Labrador   (chart says Hill but the sign on a house says Hills)

53°07.0N

055° 47.9W

Normally “off soundings” means you’re in water so deep that your depth finder can’t find the bottom.  Up here it could mean those white areas on the chart with no numbers! As in, this area has not been surveyed for depths and rocks. This is one of the things that make cruisers gulp and it’s also one of the lures of cruising here - the chance to pick your way into an uncharted harbour or through an uncharted tickle. 

Some charts are based on bottom surveys done in the early 1800’s.  These black and white charts are adorned with beautiful hand drawings of coastline depicting rocky cliffs.  One chart of the Northern Peninsula has a comment about the inland mountains, “Mountains appear continuous” because they hadn’t explored inland yet.

Another catch phrase printed on the beautiful Canadian charts:

“Not surveyed to modern standards.  Exercise extreme caution.”

Just to add spice to it all, charts may be in fathoms (one fathom is 6 ft.) or feet or meters.  So you have to pay attention.

Hills is one of those blank spots on the chart.  The tiny cove has a few buildings keeping watch.  Otherwise, it’s great hiking.  No need for trails in this treeless terrain.  You just set out and pick your way from rocky hump to rocky peak.  In places, a cushy bog lays over the rock like Grandma’s crazy comforter made up of russet and green patches. Wildflowers decorate the comforter with their yellows and whites. Occasionally each springy step feels like you’re walking on the mattress and the comforter.

Two foot high stands of trees have made toeholds in nooks and crannies.  

Called tuckamores, these pinetrees can be over 100 years old.  We haven’t seen a land mammal in a long while.  No squirrels but saw this little bird.  What do the mosquitoes eat when we’re not around?

Called Caledonian Princess on the radio and she was just around the corner.  Wade & Colleen stopped in for fresh, out of the oven muffins while the girls slept.  Wade showed off the results of his successful fishing trip and they left us with a beautiful salmon.  Yum!!

Fishin’ for a Livin’

July 15, 2009
Black Tickle, Labrador
53°27.5N
055°41.1W

Our Northernmost point, Black Tickle seemed very different from other places. The barren, rock strewn landscape harbors a community of roughly 200. Not connected by road but by ferry and a small airport, ATV’s rule in the summer and Ski Doos in winter. We saw only a few cars. The fish plant is the biggest employer and next is the school.

Andante tucked inside of the 85 foot OSC Mariner, rigged for catching snow crabs. One of the Mariner’s crew took our lines and before we knew it, we were getting a tour conducted by her captain, Adrien Duquay. Adrien’s borther Paul is ships engineer and all around fix it guy as well as fishing. Adrien’s son, Mark is deckhand and Deano from Labrador is deckhand. The boat comes up from St. John’s in the spring, stays here fishing all summer and heads down to St. John’s when her crab quotas are met. The galley area looks like anything you’d see in a really nice house and the bridge looks like a spaceship’s. The living quarters are spacious to us but the bulk of the boat is taken up with fishing gear. We had them over for an evening and they were amazed at how compact everything was on our boat. It was great fun learning about fishing and chatting with them. They gave us an arctic char. A lot of folks up here say they like it better than salmon. We ate on it for several days and it was very yummy.

Adam, who lives in Domino Run at the other end of the short, dirt road, took us fishing on his ATV. Hoping for Arctic Char, we caught a sculpin. Didn’t get a picture but if you want to see a really ugly fish, google it!

Our mast made the paper! The local politician was doing what we’d call a grip ‘n grin tour. Her helicopter landed right at the fish plant and out poured several women in sequined jeans and a photographer. I had been feeling like we stuck out like a sore thumb but they made me feel like I blended just a little! Andante’s mast made it into the shot of Yvonne Jones, the local MP (Member of Parliament) chatting with the forklift driver.

Sailing Hazards

Labrador

Never thought that scenery would be a sailing hazard but here it could be . . .

Sailing through a narrow tickle (called a channel by non-Newfoundlanders), cliffs with waves crashing on them to the left, rocks to the right, sunkers in the middle, a skul of seals fighting with the gulls over fish, glancing up I catch the flukes of a humpback diving deep right in front of us and my captain . . . he’s juggling between the video camera and the still camera!

Isn't it Gneiss (that's pronounced nice)

Labrador

The Geology guide to Newfoundland/Labrador has been a constant companion on our trip. Oriented to road travel we’ve still managed to hit a lot of the places it describes. Ancient sea beds, chaotic rock, thrombolites, gneiss with quartz ribbons in it . . .

I’ve started thinking of the rock as a croissant, a layer of dough (that’s the harder rock) and a layer of butter (the softer rock). Over time the butter melts and the gap is filled in by minerals building up to form another kind of rock. Then the whole thing gets turned on its side by plate tectonics. Makes me think God had a crazy day with the paintbrush!

Bergs to the Left, Bergs to the Right

Labrador

 We spotted our first bergs after we left Port Saunders.  Sculpted by wind and waves they continue to fascinate.  Tempting as it is to go right up to them, we’ve been very cautious.  With 80 to 90% of their mass underwater you have no idea when some internal clock will go off and the whole structure will tip.  Enormous ones can turn turtle without any warming.  The wave from that isn’t something we’d like to mess with much less a big chunk of it falling on us. The closest we’ve come to one was squeezing by a grounded, house sized one that was blocking our pass through a tickle.  

Here's a photo album of some of these incredible icy bits:

Iceberg Album

Please leave a comment if you can't open the photo album. It should work . . . 

Birthday Bash!

August 28, 2009                                                                                   

Brentt’s Cove, Facheux Bay, Newfoundland                              

 47°41.9N                                                                                      

 056°20.3W

 

I’m messing with the blog reality here and jumping from surviving Hurricane Bill to current events . . .

 We’ve made the ultimate cruising sin and booked flights home. Being at the mercy of wind and waves means you can say when you’ll be near land or which land you may be near but not both at the same time.  This time an unavoidable work commitment meant we had to nail down the where and the when.  Booking the flights for Halifax to Baltimore while sitting in a St. John’s coffee shop we never guessed the wind would blow out of the west, the direction we needed to go, for two solid weeks with a hurricane and a tropical depression included!  Time’s running out to get the boat to a safe place to leave her and get ground transportation to Halifax.  We sat in St. Pierre, a small island owned by France off the southern Newfoundland coast, and listened with sinking hearts to the forecast.  West and Southwest winds dominated. 

The strategy we came up with was head to the southwestern coast of Newfoundland and do short hops as far west as we can get until there’s a window to cross the more than 100 miles to  Nova Scotia.  The only problem, a gale forecast for Friday and then Hurricane Danny bearing down. 

Normally the advantage of coastal cruising is you can pick your weather and not go out when it’s really nasty. But we’re seeing some longer ocean passages in our future where you’re out long enough that you can’t pick your weather.  You deal with the weather as it comes.  So it seemed like a good idea to get in a little practice.

The gale was blowing steady 35 knots and gusting to 40.  Waves were averaging 12-15 feet with the occasional roller topping out at 20 feet and breaking.  We’re judging wave height by how far up our mast the top was when we were in the trough! 

Otto, our electric auto-pilot decided enough was enough and wouldn’t steer in those seas.  So we hand steered doing hour turns at the tiller, doing our best to gain some ground westerly into the wind.

So what’s it like sailing upwind into an ocean gale? Get a friend to drive you around in a car.  Get up to 40 miles an hour. Now stick your head out the window.  That’s about 35 knots.  Remember this sensation. Now, look at the room you’re in.  Turn your head to a 35 degree angle.  Bob your head up and down.   Throw in a big bob every so often.  Have your friend continually shove you around while you try to stay seated.  That’s the motion of the boat. Get another friend to stand off to the side with a big bucket of very cold water.  Now get 10 more friends with buckets to join him or her.  Occasionally have them all throw their buckets at you at the same time. Add a lot of wind noise sound effects so you can’t hear your own voice. Getting the picture?

I did OK.  It’s amazing how you can take anything when you know it’s going to end.  If we were in a multiple day gale in the ocean . . . well what choice do you have but to suck it up.  Russ also admitted he thought I might freak out a bit.  I didn’t but confess that I didn’t enjoy looking at the waves coming towards us. It was one thing to see them downwind and leaving us but to see what was coming . . . nope.

We found a few leaks that we’ll fix and unfortunately a port that wasn’t closed all the way let in a lot of salt water but it’s all fixable.  And for my birthday?  Well, we're firmly anchored in a gorgeous fjord with a little more westing under our keel and I found out a little about what I can handle.  Not a bad thing to do on your birthday.

So what did you do for your 44^th birthday?

 

Don't Try This at Home

July 14, 2009

The Punchbowl, Labrador

53°15.0N

055° 45.1W

Charred timbers, empty fuel tanks . . . not a war zone but all that’s left of a bustling marine service center in the middle of nowhere.  Capable of seating over 200 at its restaurant, packing, processing and shipping fish and putting people up in its hotel, after the fisheries collapse The Punchbowl is now just a burnt out shell.

But the huge government wharf was in excellent condition and tied on the inside was Caledonian Princess, a 25 foot sailboat we’d met in Battle Harbour.  Wade and Coleen were traveling with their daughters, Julie & Elizabeth.  From St. Lunaire on the Northern Peninsula, Wade was showing them where he grew up. 

A fog induced lay day was spent walking around the deserted buildings and across the rise to abandoned cabins.  Wade and Coleen regaled us with tales of living in this beautiful country, moose in the backyard and ski doing in the winter.  Wade’s brother had a near miss last winter when his boat overturned on a freak wave in early April. Clad in a float suit, he pulled himself onto a bit of ice and a gas can floated up for him to sit on. After two days of singing hymns he spotted the Coast Guard boat cutting through the ice to get him.  It’d been a 

very near miss.

The big event was that night.  Wade invited us to a bonfire.  This wasn’t just any bonfire.  Built on the concrete area in front of what had been the fish plant, Wade had made a bench seat and piled the fire with burnable remains from the fish plant.

I’ve heard fires crackle and pop but this was . . . explosive!  And I mean literally.  We were settled on the bench, enjoying the flames and heat when

kaboom!  The whole fire structure heaved up about a foot, concrete chunks shot out, sparks flew and we all jumped back.  We stood around laughing and talking about the near miss until the heat and flames lured us closer.  After some debate we decided it was the metal pieces in the struts expanding in the heat. So we stopped putting those in.  Time went by and then . . . kaboom!  We all ran.  As Russ said, “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  OK so it wasn’t the metal pieces.  Final conclusion, it was the concrete.  The heat was causing different stones or air pockets in the concrete to expand and the pressure was causing the explosions. 

 It was the most memorable bonfire I’ve ever attended!

 On a bummer note – You know that niggling feeling you have when you’re packing for a trip that you’ve forgotten something really important but you just can’t remember what it is?  Standing in the devastation of The Punch Bowl as a gust of wind blew my contact into never, never land I remembered what it was – spare contacts!  I have 5 pairs of glasses and lots of contact solution but only one pair of contacts.  What was I thinking?  The photo at the top is me looking for the contact.

 

 

This is a very easy and yummy dessert.  Enjoy!

Simple Pear & Apple Tart

3 tbl brown sugar

3 tbl butter, melted

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 sheet of refrigerated pie crust dough

2 medium pears, halved, cored & sliced thick

2 medium apples, halved, cored & sliced thick

1 egg slightly beaten

1 tbl slivered almonds

2 tbl. sugar

Preheat oven to 350.  Coat baking sheet with cooking spray.  Combine brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and ginger in bowl and mix well.  

Unroll dough onto baking sheet.  Place fruit wedges in overlapping circles.  Leave a 2" border of doubh.  Fold dough edges up and over edge of fruit and press to seal.  Drizzle butter/sugar mixture over fruit.  Sprinkle with almonds, brush dough edges with egg, and sprinkle with sugar.  

Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, raspberries or just plain.  It's delish!  I've left off the almonds and sugar and not missed them.

 

Outports

July 12, 2009

Murray's Harbour

  52°27.4N  

055°41.1W

Murray’s is a beautiful spot and our first experience with an abandoned outport.  Outports are the name for small communities that sprung up close to the fishing grounds, anywhere from a few houses to over 500 people.  The government has been encouraging movement to more centralized places so they don’t have to provide services to these isolated communities. Abandoned outports litter the coast, stark evidence of the old way of life.  It begs the question, “Are the residents better off today than when they were living more independently?” “What’s necessary for happiness?”  It’s easy to romanticize the outport life but lack of medical care and schooling were balanced against independence and proximity to fishing.  When the fishery collapsed it spelled the end for most of the remaining outports. 

It’s a strange feeling to look out our ports and see all these silent houses, some falling down and some obviously still used as weekend get-aways.  No lights warm the windows.  No children play on the swing set.

Russ went ashore last night to get us snow from a snowfield for our icebox and in the process lost one lens to his prescription sunglasses.  It felt like a fruitless mission to find them.  Eureka!  It was laying on the edge of the snowfield.  Our lucky day.

Kitchen Party!

 July 11, 2009

Battle Harbor, Labrador                                                                                                                    52°16.4N                                                                                                                                        055°35.2W

Somebody’s got a fiddle

Someone else brought a guitar

Bobby’s got a squeeze box  . . .

 

Goin’ Up - a traditional Newfoundland song

Lantern light spilled from the oldest house in Battle Harbour.  Music slid from the cracks and floated across the quiet harbor.  Crowded into the kitchen were over a dozen men, 3 guitars, an accordion, some harmonicas (played by Russ) and me. 

 Earlier in the day, 2 twenty-foot ski type boats pulled into what’d been known as the “Capitol of Labrador”, Battle Harbor.  The seven occupants were from St. Anthony’s on their yearly fishing, music playing trek down the Labrador and we were lucky enough to share this spot with them.

Gazing around the room it was easy to be transported back in time and wonder how many kitchen parties this particular kitchen had seen.  I think there are more musical instruments and people with musical ability per capita in Newfoundland/Labrador than perhaps anywhere else in the world. 

 Our stay at Battle Harbor was full of magic: a harbor crammed with ice bergs including this fellow.  Is it a sphinx or a lion or something else?

Humpback whales teaming together to chase small fish into a cove, creating a bubble net around the fish and then rising up through the swarm, mouths open were our nighttime show.  Music threaded through it all and on a more mundane note – showers and laundry.

 

Down North on the Labrador

 July 9, 2009

Red Bay, Labrador

 Down North . . . huh? Isn’t North up?  Geographically speaking for people in the northern hemisphere it’s up, but for sailors it’s down.  Downwind that is.   Prevailing winds are from the southwest so heading up the coast you’ll be sailing with the wind behind you . . . downwind! 

 The crossing was a breeze and w were actually sailing a bit.  Russ napped and I prepared fish chowder with the cod given us by the Freida M.  Chop onions.  Look for bergy bits.  Chop celery.  Look for bergy bits.  Chop potatoes.  Look for bergy bits.

 My love of  history probably comes from trooping around old forts and battlegrounds with my family as a kid so you’re going to get a dose of it here.

 History oozes from the reddish rocks surrounding Red Bay, our first Labradorian landfall.  Andante sailed by them just like the Basques fisherman had over 400 years ago.  This was a much busier port then than it is now.  Between 1540 and 1610, Basque whaling activities made Red Bay the busiest whaling port in the world.  It’s a quiet place now and hard to imagine the harbor filled with thirty Basque galleons and over 2000 men working and living here. 

They came for the right whales that migrated up the Straits of Belle Isle, the natural constriction funneleing the whales to the harpoonists’ Shoreside operations rendered the whale oil, made barrels to hold it, and prepared it for shipping in the fall when the whole operation packed up and returned home.

 A storm swept through the harbor in the fall of 1565 and The San Juan, almost fully loaded with barrels of whale oil for the return voyage, was driven on the rocks and sank. All of the crew made it to shore and the ensuing lawsuits enabled modern researchers to learn of the sinking and begin searching.  Exactly 400 years later, she was discovered on the harbor bottom, laid open and flattened by time and ice like a cod filleted and laid open for salting. Through painstaking archeological work she was mapped, catalogued, and raised piece by piece.  Models were made of each piece and the originals were placed back on the harbor floor for preservation. 

 The exhibits do a great job giving a taste of what life was like for a Basque sailor of that era.  Laden with supplies including pre-fab wooden barrels, the Basque galleons left in the early spring. Sometimes arriving in these waters to find ice holding firm to the land, they set up operations. Whales were dragged as close to land as possible where blubber boiled in large tryworks.  Barrels were assembled close by the men protected from the elements by roofs made of red tiles from home. 

 At 5 ft. 6” and 145 pounds on average, they were a short, muscular group of men.  No evidence of women has been found. They worked hard, long days falling into exhausted sleep aboard their ships.  Accidents claimed lives and at least one winter, 1576-1577, men were left.  It was a  hard winter and when the galleons returned in the spring, many had died.  The first known will written in the new world was written that spring.  Juan Martinez de Larrume dictated his last will and testament. Some interesting pieces:

-14 items, the vast majority of references in the will, were related to church donations to cover low and high masses

-money was ear marked to cover a hospital debt

-money was also paid to cover a debt he owed for a cask of whale oil-turns out he’d bought the whale oil for a friend who now owed him for it.  “I declare that the caulker owes me four reales.  I ask that they be collected.”

 Roots of instruments we use today were found in the wreckage; a compass and hourglass to measure time and parts of an astrolabe (an early sextant) speak to the navigator’s art. 

 A not so welcome passenger to the new world was a rat.  His skeleton, found in the San Juan’s wreckage, marks the first dateable evidence of this invasive species to the new world. 

 

Books, books & more books

We've been reading up on Newfoundland/Labrador in anticipation of our trip.  There's a sidebar on the lower left that lists books on our shelves and if we've read them, gives our two cents worth of opinion on them.  

Enjoy!

Thrombo-whats it?

July 7, 2009            Flowers Cove

 That’d be thrombolites but I’ll get to that in a minute.

 We’ve spent a lot more time tied up at wharves on this trip than we’d thought we would.  Since the cod fishery was closed in 1992, the government-built fishing wharves have lots of space.  Flowers Cove was no exception.  We tucked in between 2 fishing boats and out of the way of the crane used to unload catches. 

 A couple was on the wharf watching us, not an unusual happening as we’ve been the entertainment at many a wharf so far ~ definitely getting better at this though.  Turns out Irene and Mark, from Quebec, are touring Newfoundland by rental car.  It’s been interesting to notice how tourists make eye contact with each other and immediately start asking where each has been.

 We chatted about boats and sailing for a while and they offered us a lift to see the thrombolites.  Thrombolites are fossilized remains of algae dated at 650 million years old. That makes them the first known forms of life on earth.  These algae have clumped together into mushroomy like mounds which have fossilized. The only other known place that these things exist is in western Australia.

 I keep picturing them in a scene from Star Trek, the original please.  Captain Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy beam to the planet’s surface where they’re surrounded by pulsating globs.  Dr. McCoy waves his tricorder over one and detects signals that indicate intelligence . . . cut to close up of Kirk . . .

 I agree with our guidebook that one of the reasons to go see this rarest of fossils is how low key the setting is. There’s no tourist stand nearby selling thrombolite key chains or spoons. Not even a thrombolite postcard!

 We spent a great evening sharing dinner with Irene and Mark just sharing bits of our lives, work, kids, etc.  Fellow travelers meeting on the highway, er seaway . . . 

Rise and Shine Mary Sunshine!

Rise and Shine Mary Sunshine!

 July 6, 2009          Port Saunders

This was our first experience tying up to a fishing boat and the etiquette was a little unclear to us.  Do we ask permission?  What if  no one’s around?  We couldn’t find anyone and it seemed like the boat wasn’t going to be used anytime soon.  No one on board, just an empty feel. 

 The throb of a very close engine at 3 a.m. was the first hint that our dock was going to move soon. We scrambled up, got dressed, and untied our lines.  They let us know it was OK to just tie on and they would’ve happily re-tied us to the wharf.  They were headed out to get some cod.  Good luck to them!

 As the faintest hint of dawn began to paint the sky, we circled around, retied, and went back to bed thinking about all the fisherman steaming out to their fishing grounds.

Doubletake

Doubletake

 July 3, 2009

Bonne Bay

 Leaving Neddy Harbour we were getting underway when a glance to port showed a local skiff with a camera crew shooting away.  We did a double take and sure enough – guy in the bow with a boom mic dutifully recording the sound of the outboard, director in the middle bracing the cameraman and the cameraman with a full steadicam rig.  They’re probably working on a show for the visitor’s center.

 How many times have we been on the camera side of this picture?  In sympathy, Russ worked to give them a good shot rolling out the jib so Andante started to move.  Sea kayaker in foreground, Andante with sails billowing in the middle ground and Gros Morne looming behind.  Hope they didn’t blow the shot!

Big Lone Mountain

July 2, 2009

Neddy Harbour

Achy feet? We’ve endured our share of scrapes, cuts and some slightly sore arm muscles but achy feet is not a usual side effect of sailing. Hiking up the second highest peak in Newfoundland, Gros Morne Mountain (big lone mountain) does!

Gros Morne National Park, encompasses an area as pivotal to understanding geologic process as the Galapagos are to understanding evolution and we were ready to do some serious hiking. Did we want to hike over the remnants of an ancient ocean formed around 540 million years ago or a section of the earth’s mantle that is toxic to life?

The ancient ocean in the form of Gros Morne Mountain was closer so we picked that. The kindness of Newfoundlanders continues to bring a special warmth to our cruise. We went to the little local grocery to see if we could pay someone for a lift to the trailhead. The owner himself gave us a lift, first to the visitors center to get our trail pass and then to the trailhead. He wouldn’t take a dime.

The hike was strenuous and stunning. We kept hopscotching with several groups, the mother/daughter from Colorado who had made their own skin-on frame kayaks, a group of young nurses at one point walking along talking about bed sores, a couple and their lab struggling up the scree filled slopes, a young Russian family from Toronto with a 13 yr. old boy and a 9 year old girl. They reminded us so much of Carolyn & Josh as they left their parents in the dust!

The hike begins in the coolness of woods and then you, and a baking sun, face The Gully, a long scree filled scramble. Perspiration streamed down our faces and our unused leg muscles were talking to us. I was hoping to see a ptarmigan but one could’ve been 3 feet off that trail and I wouldn’t have seen it.

Pausing to gaze across that spectacular scenery was as refreshing as a dip in a cool mountain lake. After the plate tectonics had done their thing here, the glaciers came along to put icing on the geologic cake. Hanging valleys, land locked fiords, and ocean stretching as far as you could see . . . not a bad breather.

A refreshing snow field, swimming in a mountain lake and more boulder scrambling highlighted the way down. We hitchhiked back to Neddy Harbour meeting two young guys who fished for lobster and a young family who’d recently returned from a trip to Florida. They’d driven the whole way!

Lots more to do here but we’ll have to save it for next time.

P.S. – The Highest peak in Newfoundland? It’s in the Lewis Hills between Stephenville and Lark Harbour, The Cabox at 816 meters is 10 meters higher than Gros Morne Mountain.

Oh Canada!

July 1, 2009

Neddy Harbour

 The western coast of Newfoundland continues to awe us with dramatic cliffs dropping into the sea and at least one  whale to greet us at every landfall.  Our destination after leaving Bay of Islands and Corner Brook was Bonne Bay, pronounced as one word almost like Bombay but with an N versus an M. 

 Captain Cook surveyed this area in the 1760's and noted Bonne Bay’s Neddy Harbour as a fine anchorage.  His meticulous detail during that survey landed him the job in the Pacific, which unfortunately didn’t have a good ending for the Captain.  We came to agree with him about Neddy’s.

 July 1^st is Canada Day.  A time for Canadians to celebrate being Canadian this community was joining the celebration.  We missed the street parade but got to town in time to see kids riding in their decorated bikes.  What would Captain Cook think of a bicycle much less one decorated with streamers, flags and racing numbers?

 One disadvantage of it staying light so long is it’s hard to get the fireworks going early.  They started at 10:15 and it still wasn’t really dark!  

The Library Tour

I've always had a fondness for libraries. Probably goes back to all those summer reading programs we did as kids. You know the ones, read 5 books and advance your frog one lily pad on the giant board.

I feel like we should call this cruise the library tour. If you can hit the local library when they're open you'll likely get an internet connection and a chat with the local folks. Some of these libraries have amazing views. All are interesting and full of helpful people.

We're sitting in the library in Port Saunders and it's actually cold. Even the locals are saying it's cold especially after the spell of warm, sunny weather. Andante's tied alongside a fishing boat at the public wharf. All of the fishing boats are in harbor right now due, not to the weather, but the price of fish and shrimp. Local processors are offering 37 cents a pound for shrimp and the fisherman say it costs them at least 42 cents a pound just to leave the dock. So they're waiting it out for now and hoping the markets improve. It's a tough business.

A few highlights from our time in Newfoundland so far . . .

Our dramatic landfall at Port Aux Basques was framed by two ferries and an arriving storm front. We approached the harbor at the same time as the rain, wind, and the ferry Caribou and were surprised when she waited off-shore for the outgoing ferry to leave. Ferries usually wait for no one. Not even each other. Russ called the Captain and asked if it’d be OK if we scooted in. “Why don’t you wait Cap’n.” was the reply. We quickly saw why as there’s not room in that tight channel for the ferry and any other kind of boat.

Scanning the public dock we planned our approach as the wind picked up and the rain lashed down. The plan - Russ would lay the bow alongside the end of the dock so I could jump off, secure the bow line and then warp the boat around to the side and quickly secure the midships spring line. That was the plan at least. He did a great job with the first part. Me . . . well I jumped off and managed to find the hole in the end of the dock with my leg. We did get tied up eventually and provided a lot of entertainment for the folks hiding from the rain in their cars.

We did lots of walking – out to the Railway Museum and the continuation of the “International Appalachian Trail”. Yes, those same Appalachian Mountains continue up here. We explored the town and learned about the “Wreckhouse.” The highway that runs out of town bears that name and it’s earned it. Winds have been known to blow railroad cars off the tracks, 18 wheelers and the occasional RV. When winds are high in the wreckhouse and the ferries can’t get in the town is fairly isolated.

During our 3 days here it was blowing 45 knots in Cabot Strait and we added heavier lines and chafe protection until Andante was held to the dock in a spider’s web but we were secure.

Russ had a great time talking with the local fisherman. It’s the last week of lobster season and a 3 day halibut run started while we were there. The fisherman went out in open skiffs to catch mackerel. They came back in and were leaving in bigger boats with the mackerel as bait for the halibut. They gave us some filleted mackerel. Very delish!

During our rainy, windy time here everyone’s been saying, “It’s sunny and warm in the Codroy Valley.” It’s just around the corner by sea and we were anxious to see if it really was warm somewhere.

Codroy –We rounded Cape Race and left behind the fog and cold. By the time a local couple grabbed our lines at Codroy we were peeling off layers. What a great little community. The wharf is very much the heart of the town. No sooner had we tied up than a group of boys, 7-17 years old, came up and started asking us questions. We soon invited them aboard. They were a great welcoming committee and we traded information back and forth for over an hour. We told them we were from near Washington, D.C. and they said, “That’s where Obama lives.”

Blue Beach – Our next stop up the coast was a man-made harbor tucked in behind Long Point. We arrived in pea soup fog around 10:30 at night when it was finally getting dark. Russ was below using chart plotter, radar and paper chart to figure out where we were and I was steering and peering trying to see the lights on the end of the jettys. They just weren't where our chart & chart plotter said they should be. We crept along and there out of the fog I saw one green light and then the jetty appeared. We eased in and realized the red jetty light was out. Once tied up to the wharf we reviewed charts & chartplotter and realized that the chart was off. It had us on the beach several hundred yards away. Another caution to be careful up here!

The Kindness of New Friends

Sorry it's been a while. It's been harder to get internet connection than we were anticipating. We've heard so much about the beauty of Newfoundland and the amazing hospitality and friendliness. It hasn't been exaggerated.

We've been rendered speechless by the beauty here ~ sheer cliffs falling right to the water's edge, lighthouses holding onto the cliffside by their paint chips, fog laying over the land like a lover's caress. The warmth of the Newfoundland people hasn't been exaggerated either! We've been given filleted mackerel by the fisherman on the docks at Port-Aux-Basques, fielded curious questions from a group of youngsters at Codroy who greeted us as we tied up, been given keys to cars in Corner Brook and told to do what we needed to do. I'm currently sitting in a new friends house in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Gavin and Val of Waterdog have kindly lent us their internet connection and car and they're not the first do so. Many thanks also to Marina & Norris of Prijon for just dropping off their van for us to use for grocery runs. Both couples are cruisers who were treated kindly in the States. It's a pay it forward system. So if you're cruising through the Chesapeake, let us know and we'll do our bit to pay it forward.

Not much time as we're heading out today. Aiming for Woods Island tonight. It's the site of one of the outport communities that has been relocated. Home to around 1100 people at the turn of the century it now has great hiking trails and interesting places to explore and a very secure anchorage. Then we're on to Bonne Bay and Gros Morne for more hiking.

One of the quests on this trip was to figure out the proper pronunciation. Newfoundland rhymes with understand - New fund LAND.

Will write more when we get a connection. Fair winds!

The Baddeck Bubble

I keep waiting for some long evening around internet access to update the blog. It's still not happening but I'm taking a few minutes.

Ben Craig, Russ' nephew helped us sail from the Vineyard to Nova Scotia. What a great trip! Ben kept wanting some rougher weather but it was fine with me ~ a LOT of motoring on the way to Halifax but we were accompanied by whales and dolphins! The finback whales were feeding and we could see them on their side using their flippers to corral the food. Then a right whale wandered over to grab a bite. Such amazing creatures. During our last night watch, you could hear them come up and exhale by the boat. We were either on the whale super highway or it was the same pod that kept circling to check us out.

Halifax is a beautiful city but we didn't linger long. The Maritime Museum's dock was under construction so we weren't able to tie up there. The Armdale Yacht Club was our home for 2 nights. Our first experience with a "yacht club" and it was very nice. No blue blazers in sight but hot showers and a cookout for the Thursday night races.

We convinced Ben to stay with us for another offshore leg to the Bras d'Or Lakes on Cape Breton Island. His arm's only a little sore from that. Andante creeped out of Halifax in peasoup thick fog. Ben on the bow listening and watching the harbor seals. Russ down below on the radar and me at the helm. Nice to get off-shore and away from land hazards.

A night tied up at the St. Peter's Canal gave us a chance to stretch legs and me a great early morning yoga session on the wharf. During my practice I was aware of a car puling up. A man would get out walk around to his trunk, get out a fishing rod, cast 3 or 4 times, put the rod back in the trunk and drive off. This happened with 4 or 5 different car/man combinations. I heard one man mutter, "If they don't bite in the first 2 casts, they're just not bitin'."

Cape Breton is beautiful and you hear a Scottish brogue in the local accents. We sailed here with the kids and Russ' Mom and sister made a land visit 11 years ago. We probably bored Ben with all the "remember when" comments. We made a blitz up the lakes with Ben navigating. Passed the cove where Carolyn broke her toe on a rope swing 11 years ago and put the hook down in Baddeck.

We've started calling this the Baddeck Bubble. It's been warm and beautiful blue skies all week. I think it's cold, foggy and wet outside of the bubble. Better, serendipity stepped in and we're here during the Silver Dart celebration.

The Silver Dart was Canada's first flight. Alexander Graham Bell lived here and did a lot of his experiments here including the Silver Dart. We've enjoyed a star party on the Alexander Graham Bell Museum's roof. A local member of the Royal Astronomical Society brought his 12.5 inch telescope to the roof and we watched the stars "pop" as it got darker. The getting darker takes a while up here. Sunset is around 9pm I think and it's twilight for an hour after that. Not fully dark until around 11pm. We saw double stars, double galaxies with one on it's side and one flat, the rings of Saturn and so much more. It makes you feel small and insignificant and at the same time awed by the vastness of it all and the possibilities.


Wednesday was the big day with an airshow, street concert and fireworks. We ended up sitting next to the parents of the pilot of a C-130 surveillance plane. After he'd finished demonstrating the capabilities of his aircraft, he flew off to the west. Both parents stood staring after the plane and the look on their faces . . . so proud and happy. I wish I'd taken a picture of them at that moment.

The Canadian Coast Guard and this big Air Force helicopter demonstrated how they work together. The helo can work in winds of 50 knots+. Hoping this is the only time I'll see them in action.



Getting close to leaving the bubble. More to come . . .