Back on Ithaka :)! We decided to join the Salty Dawg Maritime Rally, which was traveling to Nova Scotia, ending in Cape Breton's Bras D'ors Lake. Turns out, with the variety of weather that goes through this region, we would only get as far as Halifax before beginning to return southwest.
Returning to our boat moored in Belfast Harbor, we found that ospreys had spend a lot of time enjoying the view at the top of our mast and found our deck an excellent table from which to eat their fish dinners. Other than cosmetic nastiness, Ithaka was in excellent shape. After provisioning, we headed to Camden Harbor to meet up with the our crew for the first week, Chip (David's big brother), and to attend the Salty Dawg briefing.
The moving parts of planning timing for the Gulf of Maine to Nova Scotia: the weather window for the about 36 hour trip; making sure that the up to 4 knot current off of Cape Sable would be favorable when we arrived there; leaving Penobscot Bay in daylight in order to avoid the carpet of lobster pot buoys tangling around our keel, rudder, or propeller shaft. Also, we wanted to arrive in daylight, a steadfast rule of ours when entering a new harbor. Last factor, nasty weather was coming after we arrived.
Long story shortened, we decided to head out after the briefing for a couple of hour sail to Seal Cove, Vinalhaven, improving our timing to reach Cape Sable. We also decided to skip Shelburne and hole up in Lunenberg for the upcoming storm, about a 250 mile trip.
We enjoyed an evening sail to Seal Cove, arriving at dusk, the only boat in sight, a wonderful peaceful start to our trip. Chip is an experienced sailor and adapted quickly to the boat routines, managing the indignity of getting "suggestions" from his much younger brother with his ever present grace. We pulled up anchor at about 4am on July 16 and headed out.
Our trip was a combination of sailing and motoring. The passage was as we wish - "no drama" sailing. David and I settled into a 3 hour watch rotation, with Chip joining each of us for parts of our watches. Chip had his first experience sailing out of sight of land, his first night time on a nighttime watch. We saw whales, seabirds, and a few boats.
After arriving in Lunenberg about 3pm on the July 17th, we had to clear into Canada. We had completed the ArriveCan app arrival notice and called Border Patrol to let them know we arrived. Not okay to do from anchor, we had to move to the wall next to the Fisheries Museum. Another 1+ hour on hold and we were cleared without border patrol visiting our boat. Back to the anchorage. One must respectfully follow each country's procedures.
While the unsettled weather passed us over the next couple of days (wind gusts up to 40 knots with some heavy rain), we comfortably explored Lunenberg and enjoyed Canadian hospitality. A charming small town, with colorful wooden buildings from the 1700 and 1800's lined the harbor. We wandered through town, attempting to enter one of the historic churches, but found the door locked. A local denizen noticed and stopped to give us guidance.
She directed us to St. John's Anglican church, the first church established in Nova Scotia, and lovingly and accurately restored after a devastating fire in 2001. We enjoyed the wonderful stories delivered by the tour guide. Who has heard of the Vinegar Bible? The bible originally used in this church is displayed, and is open to the page demonstrating that this is an actual Vinegar Bible - look it up; it's a great bit of history.
As with each sailing trip, we met amazing travelers with rich stories. The co-skippers of the 30+ year old Oyster sailboat are from New Hampshire and have been sailing Canadian Maritime waters for the last 20 years. They shared detailed stories of their circumnavigation of Newfoundland, describing their favorite harbors and noting the people they had repeatedly met. Although I did not ask their age, I'd guess that Steven had seen his 80th birthday and Sandra was a little behind this.
We also enjoyed celebrating Chip's birthday at a local restaurant. The staff were hesitant to sing, so David and I painfully attempted a Happy Birthday rendition.
Rested and rejuvenated, we headed for Halifax, about 60 miles away. After a light wind start, we enjoyed a wonderful sail, seeing whales (Minke?), dolphins, sharks, Ocean Sunfish, and many sea birds.
We entered the very large Halifax harbor and the wind picked up to sporty 30 knot gusts as a cargo ship bore down behind us; it politely passed by with enough space for us to calmly admire its size.
That is Gumption (appropriate name), one of our Salty Dawg Rally boats, in the photo.
Chip is a Maine forester and we were treated to a walk with him through the lovely forest surrounding the Nova Scotia Royal Yacht Squadron Marina, outside of Halifax. He explained how we could estimate the size of the massive original trees that had been harvested by looking at new growth patterns. He differentiated between mushrooms with gills and mushrooms with pores (one more likely to be poisonous - I forgot which!). This forest was quite familiar to him, mirroring the woods he now helps his son manage in Central Maine.
Then, time to say goodbye to our eager, young-in-spirit older brother(in-law), clean the boat, provision, and ready ourselves for our next crew.
