St Peters to Harbor Island , NS

Imagine a red hen perched on the captain’s chair of Faring. Now, strip the feathers off the wings curled around the wheel and replace them with Magilla Gorilla arms. Add ‘old people’ sunglasses (the kind you wear over your regular glasses) and a blue ball cap…………that’s Heather piloting Faring in chop. Ken can’t watch her thrash around for very long so her watches are much shorter than his.

Fortunately our extended (3 days) stay in St. Peters Marina allowed us to thoroughly clean the boat inside and out, give the dogs a bath and some much needed TLC. We pampered ourselves, too, with shore power, and unrestricted use of unlimited amounts of both hot and cold water, wonderful. We did some much needed maintenance and hoisted Ken up the mast to change the new WI-FI antenna out with the old WI-FI antenna - yup, that’s right. Then, he set out to solve the troublesome no hot water problem once and for all. The auto pilot however was adjusted while underway - hence the manual steering. Now we are truly up to snuff!!!!

Sun, sun, and more sun has been the order of the last few days and made seafaring (and Heather’s head) much happier.

While in SPM we were pleasantly surprised to meet Bentley and Jim on ’Salty Paws’ (another Manta we met two years ago in the Bahamas). We caught-up over dinner on Faring and are looking forward to seeing them again this winter in the Bahamas.

Between several loads of laundry (SPM has THE best laundry set-up bar none - and the dryers actually DRY your clothes) we played dominos with Pam and Dennis (Glide), made use of the shower and got Buoy and Bantam onto dry land.

Our manual steering took us from St. P’s to Harbor Island Cove, a beautiful bucolic hamlet with a sheltered anchorage that provided Faring and her crew with a quiet, secure and restful night.

We’re motor-sailing to a part of the Eastern Shore known as Shelter Cove, N 44.46.743, W062.39.261 - anchored here last summer as well. According to the NS cruising guide this area is one of the finest cruising grounds in the Province. It reminds us of sailing near Rockland/Northaven and upper midcoast ME. The Maine coast has more drama, in the way of outer island rock formations and picturesque passages. But, ME also has the dreaded lobster buoys, eeerrr.