SV Kiviuq

Since my previous post we have been quite busy. We moved up to Halifax from Mahone Bay after spending a very pleasant day with the Ocean Cruising Club Port Officers for Mahone Bay, Peter and Terry. These most welcoming folk invited us to anchor off their property on Young Island and have dinner with them, followed by lunch the following day when we were joined by a former colleague of Marilou's from her days in Truro, Nova Scotia, together with her husband. It was a nice people-contact time.

In Halifax we based ourselves at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron where a berth was helpfully arranged in advance for Kiviuq by the Port Officer for Halifax who happens to be a member there. John is another great OCC PO, reinforcing our view that the OCC is a most worthwhile club and resource. As far as I am aware, the OCC PO system is unique in the cruising world.

We were joined in Halifax for a few days by a couple of Marilou's family members from Ottawa; the first guests we have had on board Kiviuq. Readying for guests was not a minor operation, the biggest task being to clear the forecabin for them. With just the two of us on board the forecabin is our 'garage', with most of the space taken up by sails and other sailing gear. Marilou did an amazing job of finding temporary homes for it all in other parts of the boat. It was well rewarded with another pleasant social time, and presented a good opportunity for us to review and modify stowage after three years of cruising.

Following our guests' departure we spent a day putting Kiviuq back into sea-going mode, filling diesel and water tanks and stowing provisions etc., in preparation for continued cruising eastwards along the Alantic coast of Nova Scotia. The coast eastwards of Halifax as far as the Canso Strait between mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island is known as the Eastern Shore, and is possibly the least developed part of the province. So one needs to be self-sufficient, fuelled and watered and well provisioned. And what the pilots and cruising guides don't emphasise enough, one needs good instrumentation and a thorough knowledge of how to use it properly; the reason being at this time of year one is just as likely to have near zero visibility along this coast as any visibility worth speaking of.

And thus it proved to be the case. We are now two days out of Halifax and while everyone says the Eastern Shore is well worth seeing, we haven't seen much of it yet. On the first day we sailed in fog as far as Deep Cove on Borgles Island, and on the second day we sailed again in quite dense fog up to the Liscomb area, where we are now anchored in Spanish Ship Bay. At one point we sailed under the stern of another yacht and then not far away on her starboard beam as we overtook her with a closest point of approach of about 300m. We spoke on the VHF, but we never saw her.

This morning it is reasonably clear in here and we can see around the bay where we are hoping to spot Bald Eagles that are said to nest here. And Spanish Ship Harbour is a terrific anchorage with a very narrow entrance, good anchoring depths almost throughout and good holding in mud. It is a good place to be today as a squeeze develops between high pressure to the ESE and low pressure to the NW, with gusts well in excess of 30kts forecast. So today is a most welcome day at anchor in an anchorage that we have to ourselves, and a day for some serious R&R.