Some Days You’re the bug . . .

Corner Brook, Newfoundland

June 27, 2011

. . . and some days you’re the windshield. Just because you’re cruising doesn’t mean you won’t have that day where nothing seems to go right and yesterday I was the bug. What’s worse is that ultimately I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

Port Aux Basques lies at the southwest corner of Newfoundland and it’s where the big Marine Atlantic car ferries dock. We were saying good-bye to Josh here as he caught the ferry and began his trip home. It’s been a great and a rare gift to spend that much time with our grown up son.

A bad weather forecast and Russ got the idea to travel with Josh to Baddeck and bring our car over. Mission accomplished we left the car in Port Aux Basques and sailed overnight to Corner Brook. This town was created by lumber and its mill still goes through a LOT of lumber!

Arriving just in time, I hitched a ride to the bus depot and headed for Port Aux Basques. I think driving back was the most dangerous thing I’ll do on this trip. There were 660 car/moose accidents in Newfoundland last year. All advice I got was to slow down. If my speed started creeping over 50 mph it only took skid marks in the road to remind me to keep it down. I didn’t see another car heading my way on the 2-lane Trans-Canadian highway and would go for 30-45 minute stretches without seeing a car coming from the other direction. Never saw a moose though.

The Bay of Islands Yacht Club is a ways out of town and the car made it easier to support the local economy at Walmart, Canadian Tire, the incredible bulk food store next to Walmart, and several grocery stores. This meant the boat was in a state of chaos as we tried to find a place for food for 6 weeks and everything else. It wasn’t doing a lot for our mental state!

Wednesday morning I took our jerry cans to the gas station to fill up on diesel. Russ cautioned me to be careful . . . taking a turn in town I heard one of the cans move and should’ve stopped to check. Getting back to the Bay of Islands Yacht Club I realized that not only had the can tipped over, it’d leaked diesel onto the carpeting in the back. What a mess and the carpet was a total loss. No way would that smell come out.

The day before I’d been vacuum bagging food stores and using the common area at the marina building. Tables to spread out on, power . . . it was perfect. Unfortunately, I was a little too trusting and had left things in the unlocked building overnight. Walking in to clean up from the diesel I noticed that my bright green bag was gone!

This bag is very distinctive. A friend living in Indonesia gave it to me. Made of pouches that contained cleaning products with text in Indonesian, it was my workhorse bag and was even a prop in our last film production. And not only was the bag gone but well over $100 worth of contents.

I’ve thought that Newfoundland is a taste of what the world would be like if there was no crime. People loan you their cars. They help each other out . . . I still think that. But I was stupid to just leave stuff sitting around like that.

It’s a lesson in safety, not being attached to things, and not letting one incident ruin your experience of a place. The generosity and kindness we’ve received here far outweigh this one thing and maybe this person really needed that food.

But if you see anyone walking around Corner Brook with a bright green bag made of sewn together plastic cleaning pouches with writing in a foreign language . . . grab it for me would ya’?

Island of Death

Squid Hole, Isle aux Morts

June 20, 2011

Wreck Rock, Bad Neighbour, Wash Rocks, Tinker Sunker . . . rocks and ledges with names. There must be hundreds, even thousands of rocks along the southwest coast and they’ve contributed to over 3000 known wrecks. George Harvey and his family lived on Isle aux Morts, Island of Death, in the mid 1800’s. He would bury the dead seaman that washed up from wrecks he couldn’t see and rescue those he could.

One wreck he rowed out to with his daughter, Anne, and dog Hairy. Hairy swam a messanger line out to the ship and then swam back to their little boat while Anne rowed to keep them in position. All told, Harvey and his daughter Anne saved over 160 seamen and passengers. The rescues themselves were amazing but then the Harvey’s fed, clothed, and housed the victims for several weeks before outside help could be summoned. I can’t imagine how they stretched their meager, subsistence living to take care of all those heartsick people who’d lost everything.

Today no one actually lives on Isle aux Morts though the town is close by. We loaded up cameras, hot chocolate and snacks and headed out for a long hike. No trails here, you just pick a destination and try to find the easiest way to get there. As we trod through bogs and climbed on top of tuckamore trees, I kept thinking of Dorothy trying to make her way to Oz. Tuckamores are short pines that have been growing for a really long time. Their branches overlap creating an interlocking web and a seemingly impenetrable obstacle.

Trudging along, a foot occasionally breaks through and you slip under the branches. Perhaps we’re one step away from being sucked down into an underground world of gnomes and fairies.

True Newfoundland Experience

Harbour Le Cou, Newfoundland

June 19, 2011

I’m sitting at the salon table with the heater just starting to warm the 50° cabin. Josh, our son is asleep in his bunk and Russ is reading in his. Andante dances from side to side as gusts buffet us but with a line tied ashore and our anchor dug in, we’re staying put. This is the predicted 45 knot gale and we’re very glad we’re tucked up on the lake side of Harbour Le Cou and especially glad we’re not out on the notorious Cabot Strait.

June 4th we flew home for a fun family wedding. Congratulations Sarah & Tyler! So good to have this last family contact before we really head off. And not willing to let go of family yet, we’ve brought Josh back with us. Leaving Annisquam at 11am in our car, we pulled into Baddeck at 0300 and rowed out to Andante and were underway that afternoon.

Josh had 9 days with us before he started his 2 day trek via ferry, shuttle and plane to get back home and we were hoping to show him some of Newfoundland. The weather was just not cooperating. But, tucked into the heater warmed cabin, we ate yummy food, read, did a few boat projects, some yoga, took turns kayaking, and Josh got a lot of homework done.

Finally a windshift and we made the jump across the Cabot Strait. Motor sail under the stars and the dramatic Newfoundland landfall we were hoping to show him . . . waves roiling over outlying sunkers and smashing against cliff faces as birds soared. Motoring past the small settlement of Harbour Le Cou, we moved into the fjord. Andante needed to be safely tucked away for the coming gale and the wharf in town was not the place to be in the predicted wind direction.

The usual anchorage referred to in the guide would’ve put us close to a nasty lee shore and allowed waves to build for quite a ways before they hit us. We moved around to the lake side and tucked up close to shore. Our 45 lb. Manson anchor seemed like it was bouncing along the rocky bottom until it finally caught. Not willing to bet that we weren’t hooked by a tiny crevice of rock down there, Josh jumped in the dinghy and took a line ashore. That line is tied around a tree and a big boulder and is taking most of Andante’s load with the anchor as back up. Feels pretty snug.

A local skiff came by with Eric, his wife, who’s his deck hand, and a “damn tourist” (Eric’s joking words!). Eric showed off the beautiful lobster he’d just gotten from his trap and agreed we were in a great spot and that the town wharf was not the place to be.

Our shore party launched kayak and dinghy and headed over to the barasway. Barasway is the Newfoundland version of the French word Barachois which means a shallow inlet. This barasway separated the main part of the fjord from the part with this beautiful waterfall.

This part of Newfoundland reminds us of Labrador; small tuckamore trees that have been growing for decades, springy moss, boggy patches, and here in Newfoundland pitcher plants in their northernmost habitat.

Josh scampered (there really is no other word for it!) up advising me on the easiest route. You can look into the interior and not see a sign of human life for as far as the eye can see. There are no roads into the interior of southern Newfoundland save one further down the coast and it comes in from way up north. The land is threaded with lakes, streams, and bogs or hard as granite.

Great hike and we crossed over the waterfall and back. On a sunny day (We’re told they do have them here.) I can see bathing in the falls and I’ve heard of people actually swimming here.

Back to the boat and we were settling in when Russ looked out, “We’ve got company.” A skiff with 4 people in their early 20’s came alongside and chatted for over an hour. Harbour Le Cou is the end of the road that reaches from Port Au Basques and they said it’s really the end of the world. No FM radio, no cell phones, etc.

If he had to leave right now Josh got a good taste of what we found in Newfoundland, gorgeous scenery and amazingly friendly people.

Horizon? What horizon?

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

May 30, 2011

We’ve been making tracks as much as possible and when a weather window opened to head North, we took it. Cape May to Block Island. Block Island to Martha’s Vineyard with a terrific sail down Vineyard sound. Topped 7.5 knots, which is about as fast as we’ll go.

A few days hanging out in Vineyard Haven and then the forecast we’d been waiting for: winds light and variable swinging to the east and then south. Waking to fog we took one last walk ashore and then motored out of Vineyard Haven Harbor.

Fog. It can be a light haze that paints everything with an otherworldly brush or it can be so thick you can’t see the bow from the cockpit. On our 5 day passage from Martha’s Vineyard to St. Peter’s Canal on Cape Breton we saw it all! I saw the stars for about 30 minutes on my first night watch but that was it.

You start to feel as if you're in a cocoon. A turtle with an atmospheric shell that moves along with us. Everything outside the shell is muffled or non-existant. It starts to play with your mind after a while. You can’t really tell where the horizon line is. But radar makes it a lot less stressful today. Russ’ family has stories of sailing circles around a buoy for hours until the fog lifted a bit. They weren’t sure which #1 buoy it was and weren’t about to sail blindly on. They aren’t the only sailors with stories like that.

But for us sailing in fog means keeping an eye on the radar and an ear on deck. We never saw anything until we were off Cape Breton but we did hear one fishing boat and saw numerous ones on radar.

Overheard radio conversation between SV Hannah and a fishing boat:

“So when do you think this fog’s gonna lift?” Mick of SV Hannah

“Couple of months I think,” fishing boat Captain.

You just have to laugh.

Cruising is . . .

. . . Fixing your boat in exotic places

Cohansey River, Delaware Bay May 18, 2011

That’s the sailor’s definition of cruising and although I’m not too sure how exotic the Cohansey is, we’re definitely fixing our boat. We finally threw off the dock lines on Monday, May 16. An overnight at Chesapeake City in the C&D Canal and we tackled Delaware Bay. And I do mean tackle.

For several years we joked the score was Delaware Bay 6, Andante 2. Delaware Bay is full of shoals, fish traps that have thick posts emerging from the murky depths in unlikely places, strong tides, very large ships that move very fast and a lack of places for a small boat to shelter.

We’ve endured nasty summer thunderstorms where it’s a complete white out and lightning storms with cloud to cloud streaks and bolts that reached down from a night time sky. Our old bronze prop became a permanent resident of the Bay during one of those storms so I always approach this body of water with respect and a bit of trepidation.

Turning south out of the canal, torrential rain made it hard to see the buoys. The rain eased off a bit but what had started as a motor sail quickly became a motor and then a motor into headwinds. Calling it quits, we motored up the Cohansey for several S turns. This is a classic Chesapeake Bay river meandering through salt marshes acting as a nursery for species until they're big enough to go out into the Bay itself and sheltering countless other birds and fish.

Delaware Bay is an important stop for lots of migratory birds including The Red Knot. This small bird flies up from Antarctica, gorges itself on horseshoe crab eggs and then continues its journey to the Arctic where it lays eggs, raises chicks, and does the return. The timing is incredible and if something goes awry and the Red Knots miss when the horseshoe crabs lay their eggs there can be a major die off.

The fixing up part . . . our head (that’d be the marine toilet) has been acting up and is now refusing to flush. Not a good scenario! Russ began the fun task of taking it apart and William discovered that our outboard wasn’t working as well as we’d like. Just back from servicing, it had no umph, refusing to go any faster than a slow crawl.

Two days anchored gave us a chance to make the repairs. The problems were narrowed down to a bad flapper valve and a bad spark plug.

Around the gear sorting and repairing, we explored the river and salt marshes in kayak and dinghy. Gliding up one of the many guts that feed the river fiddler crabs frantically wave their one big claw and startled sandpipers scurry along the bank. A Harrier Hawk soars low over the marsh grasses looking for his next snack.

I’d say this round was a tie bringing the total score to: Delaware Bay 7 Andante 4

Blog keeping notes: I've added an iceberg album and put a "before" picture under the refit album so you can see the original layout.