Well. We're finally in Yarmouth. But, obviously, not according to plan.

At our last posting, the intent had been to leave Shelburne and head to Cape Sable Island before heading on to Yarmouth. Instead, as we poked NELLEKE's bows out of the harbour, we were smacked about a wee bit and the crew mutinied and announced that we were going to stop at McNutt's Island and the harbour mouth. As I had always wanted to visit the island I was secretly pleased.

McNutt's is a sort of unloved version of McNab's in Halifax Harbour without all the military fortifications. Someone still keeps livestock there and we came across a flock of sheep in our wanderings. The only houses are cottages and hunting camps but we did find the largest birch tree in North America. I have no idea how they actually know that, but that's what the sign said. It looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings, like an old retired Ent.

After a night on a convenient mooring, we set off on a very nice sail, for once, to Cape Sable. As we were arriving we took the precaution of calling the local Coast Guard Station to see if there was any space. Good thing too! He directed us to West Head, vice Clarke's Harbour, and to a nice 100' long stretch of dock that would be empty for the next couple of days. This was our first experience with the large tide phenomena and we spent the night adjusting lines, and this was only 10' tides! I expect that it'll be a lot more interesting in Grand Passage.

In the morning we set off under power on a windless day to Yarmouth. We plotted as direct a route as possible which took us about a mile off the Tusket Islands. This carried us over some tidal rips which was another first experience, one which I could have done without. Although we were never actually in any danger the shock of sudden realization that the boat was being tossed around pretty good and out SOG had gone from 8.5 knots with tidal current to over 10 with the rip pushing us as well was a little startling to say the least. Combine that with what appeared to be breakers all around us did not do well for my pucker factor. The forward looking sonar was the only thing that kept me going forward as it showed me that we were never going to be in less than 50' of water.
We did get a significant boost to our speed and arrived in Yarmouth around 2 o'clock and tied up at the town's brand new floating dock. This is an excellent facility and the Dock Master, Paul, was very helpful and very proud of his charge. The price to stay on the dock with power is $1/ft.

We have taken a dock space for three nights to avoid the trail of hurricanes or storms that are coming up the coast. From here we have decided to go to Grand Passage at Brier Island and from there jump across to Maine, all of which will be day trips. For the weekend we will explore Yarmouth.

Pat and Lisa will be departing on Sunday to head back home to the rat race. They have been great crew and we'll miss them, but it's time that we started doing all the stuff ourselves.

In the afternoon, we visited the W. Laurence Sweeny Fisheries Museum on Water Street. This is a truly unique sort of museum in that they have preserved a section of the historic fisheries waterfront of Yarmouth and reassembled it on the second floor of one of their dockside business buildings. It is considered a "hands-on" museum and unlike so many of the other ones in which you are just dying to sit on the sofa or play the old piano, in this museum you are encouraged to touch and hold stuff. They even built a 1/3 size version of a coastal freighter for visitors to wander about on - 1/3 length, 1/3 width, and the cabins about 1/3 the volume, but everything there to give you an idea of what life was like for these folks.
We're saving the Firefighter's Museum for tomorrow.

It looks like we may have dodged the worst of Hannah. The forecast is now calling for a lot of rain and 25 knot winds for overnight and tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed!