July 11 - We left Lunenburg on a misty morning, only to have the sky open up to beautiful sunshine and a lovely sailing day. Since the journey was short, it was a perfect day to leisurely cruise to the Lunenburg Yacht Club on the other side of the peninsula in Princes Inlet on Mahone Bay. As before, we were welcomed by the very friendly manager and arrived in time to watch the evening club race. Although our boat (37K lb displacement) was a bit over their normal mooring weight limit (20K lb), he gave us permission to use a mooring since the weather was calm. Very pleasant evening, especially when accompanied by fabulous fried calamari with a pickled mango relish and a Nova Scotian Marechal Foch! Why is it that most of our enjoyable moments include food and wine??

July 12 - The next morning we dropped the mooring line and headed to Chester, farther up into Mahone Bay. Chester Yacht Club is the home to a very popular Chester Race Week, about the second week in August and a summer haven for many Americans from the NY, Philadelphia and Baltimore areas. Fabulous summer homes, aka mansions, dot the shoreline. We heard that there were fireworks that evening in Deep Cove, but opted to anchor in the backside of Chester instead of joining the throngs of boaters expected in Deep Cove. While it looks interesting (long, narrow entrance with steep rocky cliffs on both sides that opens into a cove surrounded by more spectacular cliffs--probably a good hurricane hole), maybe we'll experience it on the way home.

July 13 - On to our favorite city of Halifax and the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron! Fortunately, our timing was right and most of the race boats from the Marblehead-Halifax race had already departed, giving us space to dock.
Sunday was a perfect day. We arranged to join a tour called Grape Escapes, a tour to the Gaspereau Valley in the Annapolis Valley area near the Bay of Fundy which visited three NS wineries for tastings and lunch. The first stop was Gaspereau Vineyards, owned by Jost Vineyards, the largest NS wine producer, and were treated to a very informative tour and tasting. NS wines are produced primarily from hybrid grapes (L'Acadie blanc, Seyval blanc, Muscat, to name a few) that are bred to grow in the cool climate and short growing season. They focus on whites since the grapes require less time to mature than reds, and, in recent years, have been producing wines that could complete with those from the best wine-producing areas of the world. However, their production is small, so the wines are produced for local consumption and very few, except for a few Jost wines, are exported.

The next stop was at Luckett Vineyards, owned by Pete from Pete's Fruitique, a well-known boutique grocery store chain in NS, and we were treated to a lovely lunch on the patio overlooking the vineyard and the Minas Basin in the distance. What an incredible view! The tide was still out so you could see the vast exposed red banks, beautifully contrasting to the lush green farmlands surrounding the basin. Just gorgeous! Luckett Vineyard makes a red blended wine called Phone Box Red that we experienced at Charlotte Lane in Shelburne. It's one of the few reds that has the fullness that we enjoy and is named for none-other-than the red English phone booth that Pete has "planted" in the middle of the vineyard. The fun part is that it's a working phone booth and you can call anywhere in North America for free. How's that for great marketing!

The final stop on the wine tour was at L'Acadie Vineyards, who specialize in sparkling wines made from the traditional method of bottle fermentation and had riddling and removing residual yeast (can't remember the term). Consequently, their wines are expensive, but the vineyard won 2nd place in a recent French international competition for the bubbly! What a great conclusion to a fun day in the Annapolis Valley.

Then to end a lovely day, we arranged for the tour director to drop us in downtown Halifax to walk along the waterfront and for dinner. Unfortunately, our hearts dropped when we arrived at The Five Fishermen to accomplish our goal--and reason for returning to Nova Scotia!

It all began 10 years ago when we experienced our first taste of Nova Scotia wines and a fabulous meal, including a mussel bar, at The Five Fishermen in downtown Halifax. We walked away with two wine glasses that had The Five Fishermen logo as one of our mementos, and proceeded to use them, with very fond memories, every time we had a glass of wine back at home. Sadly, several years ago, one of the glasses broke, so we made a commitment to return to Halifax someday to get another glass. Then TRAGEDY struck--we walked into Five Fish and discovered that they replaced all of the logo glasses with plain glasses two years ago! I know this sounds incredibly silly, but...we swallowed hard, tried to hide our disappointment, and proceeded to explain the story to Andrew, the maitre de. He then set wheels in motion and had his staff searching the restaurant for a glass after thinking they had one around. But, all for naught, no glass to be had! However, To reinforce just how kind and generous Nova Scotians can be, he then promised to bring us one of the two glasses he had at home if we came back the next day.

Of course, that's just what we did! Did I tell you that from 4:00-6:00 everyday they have an oyster happy hour? Returning the next day was an easy decision, between the promise of fulfilling our goal and the promise of more delicious Tatamagouche NS oysters and, naturally, a few glasses of NS wines.

So, here we are, at the RNSYS, waiting for our mail delivery and getting antsy to move on toward eastern NS, PEI and hopefully, the southern coast of Newfoundland. We picked up paper charts, which are primarily back-up to the electronic charts in case of a problem, re-provisioned with fresh fruits and veggies (unlike the Bahamas, what a treat to access to such abundance), did laundry, topped off the fuel in the tanks, and are ready to head out tomorrow. Wifi/internet may be spotty, but we should have cell access.

I'll add to the blog as soon as possible to keep you updated on our travels. Don't forget to check the photo gallery. Life is good!