Halifax, Nova Scotia

[Kyle]Having come most of the way on our previous leg, we had an easy, half-day beat the rest of the way to Halifax. Halifax sits on a peninsula that separates the main shipping port from Southwest Arm (Armdale area), which is home to most of the city's pleasure boats as well as a lot of fancy houses. We made our way right to the end, where we anchored in one of the only available spots that is not filled with moorings.

The sail to Halifax was in mixed weather, and Maryanne found time to service one of the winches that had been playing-up

Fellow Offshore Cruising Club (OCC) members Judy and Andrew had invited us to their home and encouraged us to use their shower and laundry machines, as well as inviting us to dinner; we could not have had a better welcome!. We were heading over in the dinghy the next morning when Judy intercepted us from her daughter's boat. The engine had just been repaired and she was checking it out for her while Andrew followed in a skiff. "Tie-up your dinghy and hop aboard."

After returning her daughter's boat to its mooring, we all headed to the house. Judy and Andrew had just returned the week before from the Mediterranean, where their 'big' boat currently resides, after months away. With no time for a rest, they hit the ground running and are now doing major repairs and modifications to the house before rushing back to complete the season in the Med. They are the type of people who make you tired just watching them.

With errands to do, they gave us a quick lesson on the laundry machines and then left us to their house. We put a load in and immediately headed out for a walk along the path that runs along Southwest Arm's left-hand shore. We eventually ended up at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Club, where we decided we could use a sit down and a cold beverage. They looked at me with suspicion, but once Maryanne started talking, they agreed to let us right in.

We started along an easy trail to reach "The Dingle" tower

With hours still remaining before our scheduled dinner appointment, we decided to take the long way home through nearby Shaw Wilderness Park. By the time we had made it to the far corner at Colpitt Lake, we were starting to realize we would need to pick up the pace a bit if we were going to be back to the house on time. We chugged away and made it with just ten minutes remaining.

And followed with a longer loop that took us by the yacht squadron and through Shaw Wilderness Park and back via some pretty neighbourhoods

Over our delicious and well-appreciated dinner, we compared sailing stories and the various places we have all travelled. When we got to our plans in Halifax, we mentioned that we were hoping to go walking around the city over the next couple of days. That's when Judy called her sister Janet, who then graciously offered us the use of their dock on the opposite, city side of Southwest Arm for easier access. When they explained where it was, we realized it was literally the closest dock to where Begonia was anchored no more than ten boat lengths away. Well, that couldn't be more convenient!

A peaceful anchorage

In the morning, we walked up the hill to Janet's house, where we introduced ourselves and met her husband, Stephen. We immediately liked them both and were hoping we could find a way to squeeze in some time with them. Alas, Like Judy and Andrew, they had a lot going on over the next week and we couldn't make anything work.

Based on a few heat warnings in the forecast, I took a chance at going all day with just a t-shirt and shorts. It seemed a bit foolish because there was a definite chill on the boat caused by all of he cold water in which she was sitting. Once we were more than a block from the water, though, the baking sun warmed us right back up. In no time, we were glad to be under the protection of Halifax's prodigious leafy shade. Our first real day of Summer!

We had no particular goal in mind, so we walked over the peninsula to the industrial, eastern side. It is still used for heavy shipping at the edges, but the waterfront closest to downtown has been rejuvenated into a busy pedestrianized zone of shops and restaurants.

We ambled around Halifax

We stopped at the Public Gardens along the way and joined a free tour. There, we were informed several times that we were NOT in a park. Parks are generally wild areas, the Halifax Public Garden is a tended garden for the benefit of the public. They have opening hours and rules of decorum. Well, they are lovely at any rate.

One amusing bit of irony is that, in honor of Halifax's connection to the Titanic disaster, they have a floating model of the Titanic in their pond. The first model sank within a few months. The second one developed a leak, started to down by the head, broke in half and then sank. Our tour guide told us the current model was 3D printed out of solid plastic that is lighter than water so that it can't sink.

Our second day in Halifax was also a hot one. (Two in a row!) We made a more concerted effort to be organized and did tours of both the Citadel and the Immigration Museum. Halifax was Canada's main port of entry for immigrants in the years after the World Wars - equivalent to Ellis Island in New York for the U.S. It was very well done, with lots of touching personal stories of people's journies to their new home. At the end, I was welling with pride at my new home. Then I remembered I was on Tourist Status and had to be out in just over a month.

Fun at the Citadel

The Immigration museum was really well presented, and an unexpectedly moving experience; followed by a pub visit and more general ambling around the city

With the fun over, the time came to get on with jobs. Bleah! We trudged to various stores, bought a mountain of provisions, and then paid a poor cab driver to bring us back. Then we loaded the dinghy until there was only about four inches between the top of the gunwale and the water. Then we climbed on top of it all, reducing it by another two inches, and very carefully took our haul home to be squirreled away into every last one of Begonia's hidey-holes. Groan! Now we at least have a couple of months before we have to do anything other than light shopping.

A huge thank you for the generosity of the hosts we were lucky to spend time with during our visit to Halifax: Sisters Judy(left) and Janet(right) and their partners

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Anchorage location >> On google maps (Outside of mooring balls and yacht race buoys)

Shelter Cove, Nova Scotia

[Kyle]From Glasgow Harbour, our plan was to make the long, upwind sail all of the way to Halifax. We left in the dark, entered the surprisingly cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and then started tacking back and forth through the the fog. Even though we were going between five and seven knots through the water, our average speed along the coast was barely holding above two knots, which was making it about a fifty/fifty chance we would make it to Halifax by nightfall.

Two days of sailing in very calm waters

During an afternoon lull, when our speed dropped to half of what it had been, Judy, the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) representative who we were planning to meet in Halifax, texted us suggesting we don't miss the stop at Shelter Cove. Since we weren't likely to get to Halifax before midnight, and Shelter Cove was just a quick reach across the wind. We took her suggestion and told her of our change of plans.

It was a good recommendation. When we pulled into the pretty bay, there were three other boats there, two of which were flying the OCC flag. As we passed by Zen Again, we slowed to have a quick conversation with Mike, who gave us a couple of tips on how to access the trails ashore and then invited us for sundowners later. We thanked him for the former, but declined the latter on the basis that we were flagging and doubted we could stay up and be interesting for that long. We agreed as a consolation to meet up with everyone at one of the nearby beaches for an OCC seventieth Anniversary celebration the next afternoon.

Feeling properly refreshed the next morning, we took the dinghy to the shore to look for the Shelter Cove Trail. It took a few tries of bashing through thick underbrush before we finally stepped on something that looked pretty undeniably like a mildly-trodden trail.

We then turned left and went through several sections where the encroaching foliage kept us from being able to see where we were putting our feet. Maryanne found a couple of hidden roots and holes, but managed not to make her tender ankle any worse for doing so.

After a while, we emerged onto the beach at Sandy Cove, opposite the anchorage. We traversed the isthmus between it and Eastern Sandy Cove, before we finally popped out at the outside of the t-head at the end. There, we had fun scrambling along the rocks and through the tide pools, before turning back to find the trailhead at the end of the road a few miles distant.

At some point about halfway along, I noticed the end of a charge cable poking out of Maryanne's purse. I was worried she thought her phone was attached to it.

Sure enough, it had been. She had last used it to take a photo way back at the beach. After a thorough pat down for each of us, we decided we were going to have to turn and retrace our steps to find it. My signal wasn't good enough for the tracker to work.

Our leading theory was that it had dislodged somewhere in the portion of shoulder high branches we had pushed our way through earlier. That narrowed the search area, but it wasn't going to be easy to find the phone in that mess.

We met two women shortly thereafter, coming from the direction of the beach. We asked them if they had noticed any bright pink (that's why we buy the cases such bright colors) phone having a rest along the trail. Alas, they had not.

The overgrown bit of the trail was most of the way back to the end. We were taking it very slowly and using sticks to poke through the shrubbery when Maryanne called to me from ahead and said she had found it. Whew!

Exploring the trails and beaches around Shelter Cove; such a beautiful place.

We did another 180 and resumed our push to the trailhead once more. We passed our previous turnaround point, passed another very pretty isthmus, and continued on. The trail got hillier and at some point, we emerged into a clearing to see at least two more ridges that we would have to cross. That would be going each way, of course. We looked at each other and agreed that we just didn't have it in us anymore, plus the increasingly long trip back to the dinghy. Time to call it a day.

Well, not really. We still had the beach get together to attend. We had just enough time for a quick wash before boarding the dinghy for the row over.

Mike was there, plus his wife Nicki and two other singlehanded sailors, each named Tom. New to the anchorage was Andrez and Ali from Kelper. A committee then formed to create a beach fire, followed by various stick-borne foods for carbonizing. Drinks were passed around and we all stood together for an OCC Anniversary photo. (Mike was hoping to make the cover of the newsletter).

Andrez mused that this occasion was the first time he had ever had a beach fire using wood he hadn't brought. That seemed odd, since he is an experienced sailor in his 60s. He then explained that he and Ali are from The Falkland Islands, where they have very few trees. The only wood you will ever find near a beach in the Falklands is driftwood.

Meeting fellow cruisers - our first real chance this year so far!

The others, who were all keen to get eastbound, left early the next morning. Andrez and Ali were also going that way, but had made a big push to get this far and decided to have a day off instead. They invited us over for tea and appetizers.

At their boat, Andrez and Ali explained the name to us. Kelper is a slightly archaic (but in no way derogatory) term Falklanders use for themselves. Andrez then assured us that Kelper is the only Falkland Islands cruising boat out there and probably the only one we will ever see.

They bought her as a bare hull, and then took her home, where Andrez then spent several years doing major repairs and building the interior from scratch while Ali worked out her last pre-retirement years as a teacher. They are heading as far north as they can get this year, with the aim of transiting the Northwest Passage in a year or two. They are going to see how the boat handles the Arctic and then make whatever modifications they need for the trip to the top of the Pacific. These are, of course, people who have sailed a lot around the tip of South America and characterize the Drake Passage to Antarctica as “an easy crossing if you get the weather right”.

Both Ali and Andrez are good-natured, enthusiastic and quick to bellow out a big laugh. They talked so lovingly of their home waters that they almost, almost convinced us to give up our lame Panama Canal plan and get to the Pacific the old-fashioned way, via The Falkands, of course, where we would assuredly be given a warm welcome by them as long lost friends. Tempting as it is, a catamaran is not a heavy, steel boat. After a couple of seasons at high (for us) latitudes, we're looking forward to getting back to the Tropics for a while.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Glasgow Harbour (Near Canso), Nova Scotia

[Kyle]The winds were light enough for the leg from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island to Canso, Nova Scotia that it looked like the trip was going to take twenty hours or so. We would not be able to do it in daylight, so we opted for an overnight sail. Leaving not first thing would at least allow us to both get a full night’s sleep before departing.

We started off with brisk headwinds, as we tacked southward through the fog to the Northumberland Strait. It then pushed us along briefly on a fast beam reach before slowly dying to nothing. This had been predicted, so we fired up an engine to get us through the two-hour lull before the southerlies arrived to carry us onward. Even though the wind was only about two knots, I put a reef in the mainsail to save Maryanne from having to run up and do it later in a building wind.

When Maryanne woke me at midnight, I was surprised to hear the motor still running. She explained that the wind had never materialized and that two knots from way back when was the most she had seen all night. I downloaded another set of weather files and found that the system was a little behind schedule. The wind should be here in a couple hours or so. At least the flat water made for a beautiful, sparkly night with the sea reflecting the stars above.

Finally, about eight miles from the Canso Lock, the wind started arriving in earnest. The timing was terrible. Rather than the two hours I thought I would have to wait, it ended up being five-and-a-half. Maryanne’s off-watch was due to end in half an hour and now I would have to risk waking her by hoisting and setting the sails and shutting down the engine. I tried to be as quiet as I could with it all, but Maryanne is a light sleeper and I knew the curiosity about all of the noises going on would get her brain moving. When I went down to retrieve her, I was surprised when she woke up with a start, thinking I was having some sort of emergency that required all hands on deck. Nope. The only emergency was that her coffee might get cold if she stayed in bed too long.

Maryanne had just finished shaking all of the cobwebs out when we approached the Canso Lock. The Strait of Canso used to separate the Nova Scotian mainland from Cape Breton Island, but it was a difficult passage for shipping due to the high currents caused by the vast tidal differences between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. To solve this, as well as deal with increasing demand for vehicle access, it was dammed off with the building of the Canso Causeway, the world’s deepest, starting in 1953, which then opened in 1955. To deal with heavy shipping, a lock was built at the eastern end that is large enough for the biggest vessels that can go up the St. Lawrence Seaway.

When we arrived, we just happened to be right at the time the tides on either side were pretty much at the same height. Without the drama of a huge lift, or a huge drop, our transit was so sedate we didn’t even have to stop or tie up. By the time we had idled the lock’s length, the lock keeper had already dropped us five centimeters and opened the Atlantic doors.

Canso Canal (and lock), and the picuresque village beyond

We had originally planned to stop in Port Hawksbury for a day or two to wait for the next weather window, but after taking one look at it, which is more utilitarian than scenic, we decided to push on a bit further. We were finally feeling the building wind on our faces, so we decided to keep sailing all of the way across Chedabucto Bay to the town of Canso at its eastern point.

Canso looks beautiful , but two days of heavy rain was just starting as we arrived, so we elected to pass it by slightly and anchor in isolated Glasgow Bay, just to the south. There, we could watch the seals and birds from our cozy cabin, while occasionally taking trips outside to verify that it is, indeed, much nicer inside.

Anchored at Glasgow Bay was peaceful - despite the rain in the day, we had clear starry night skies and a lovely sunset

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Anchorage location >> On google maps