After Bouctouche, we parted company with Madcap and crossed the Northumberland Strait to Summerside while they headed south to connect with Jim’s family at Cape Tormentine. We docked at the Summerside Yacht Club which covers all bases by doubling as a curling club in the off season. This is an active youth sailing club; Optimists, Lasers and 29er’s crisscrossed Badeque Bay in front of us, both as we arrived and when we left. The College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada center was a 10 minute walk from the yacht club so we took in their Wednesday night performance and were treated to a professional caliber of dancers, pipers and Celtic singers. The College of Piping band won the North American piping championships three times, the last time in 2006, so we knew we were in for a treat. We had enough time the next morning to trudge through the pouring rain to the People’s Protestant Cemetery where we found the grave site of Blair’s great uncle Claude Hopgood.

Confed Bridge

The next day, we crossed back over the Strait under the Confederation Bridge, to Cape Tormentine. This bridge is the world’s longest bridge over ice-covered water at 12.9-kilometers. Carleton University and University of Calgary have 750 sensors installed all along the bridge as well as sonar and a video feed and they monitor just about every stress on the bridge that you can think of. There are quite a few arches that are marked by the coast guard for ships to pass through but we went out of our way to use the very middle arch (just because we could) and got some great perspective on the built-in curve that is meant to prevent people from getting tunnel vision while driving on the bridge.

Freedom?

We dropped anchor in the old Tormentine-Borden ferry terminal within sight of the bridge. The terminal was deserted except for Madcap and Strathspey and looked a little down at heel since it’s decommissioning in 1998 when the bridge opened. The big event in Cape Tormentine was a lobster boil on the beach at the Bissell family farm with Jim’s extended family. The Bissel’s outdid themselves and I can safely say, I’ve never been asked so many times ‘are you ready for your next lobster?’ I definitely know I have never had better lobster in finer company.

We left Madcap at the ferry terminal the next day and, after a three hour motor in heavy rain, made a sharp right and followed a dogleg track into Pugwash to the Pugwash Yacht Club. The club consists of one floating dock that is on the honour system for payment at $0.50 per foot. It’s a small club but very friendly and shortly after we docked, one of the members, Dave Fuller, was at the boat offering Blair a ride up to the gas station to fill his diesel can; just some more of that Maritime hospitality. Pugwash is home to the Windsor Salt company; the same stuff that we put on our roads every winter. On a loftier note, it is also the site of the Pugwash Peace conferences. Believe it or not, since the 50′s cold war, this village of 800 continually gathers influential scientists (most notably Albert Einstein), scholars and public figures from all over the world to ponder our global problems.

PYC

After Bouctouche, we endured four days of rain; sometimes light, sometimes heavy, but I can say with certainty that four days on a sailboat in the rain is only marginally better than four days in a tent in the rain. The salt water in our clothes absorbed moisture and made them take forever to dry. The towels smelled musty and the shoes even worse. During the trip to Pugwash, there was so much salt spray that my hair got quite damp; four hours later it was still wet. Only after I washed it, would it dry. The damp weather has tested our patience and the final straw was me upsetting a large glass of water on our bed (unfortunately, or not depending on your point of view, it was on my side).

Boats, both sail and motor, are few and far between in this neck of the woods. Last Sunday, a beautiful sunny day with a gentle 15 knot wind, we saw only one other sailboat between Pugwash and Pictou. Since Quebec City as well, channel 16, the hailing channel, has been silent except for Madcap and Strathspey. Just outside Pictou, Nova Scotia we started hearing boats hailing each other occasionally. This is a big change for us because in the 1000 Islands, channel 16 is constantly busy (sometimes annoyingly so).

We’re still seeing lots of sea life in the Northumberland Strait. Whenever we motor, the seals pop up about 100 feet off the boat with a big “huh?” written all over their faces. They tread water and swivel their heads 180 degrees and when they discover the source of the noise, they watch us ’til we’re past and then dive deep. We thought we’d seen the last of the whales until we crossed to Maine but in St Georges Bay, on the approach to the Canso Strait, Fin Whales were surfacing on both sides of Strathspey; bigger than most of the Fins we had seen in The Saguenay. Other boaters we’ve met reported seeing humpbacks breeching the calm waters we sailed through.

In St Georges Bay

The Canso Causeway feels like a big landmark for us because we’re leaving the Northumberland Strait and starting to make that big swing to the west. The causeway prevents ice from getting into the Canso Strait so this a year-round navigable harbour; a busy one at that. Connecting the causeway to the Island is a short bridge and we stopped all the traffic onto Cape Breton Island when we passed through. Blair called the bridge tender for clearance through and was asked for our boat name, registration, gross tonnage and the captain’s name. It’s a friendly lock and fairly informal, unlike the St Lawrence locks; after we cleared the lock, the tender said “Thanks Blair and good hovering in the channel”. We stayed the night at the Strait of Canso Marina in Port Hawkesbury, about four miles past the Canso Causeway. This marina sorely tested my docking ability but we managed to snug our 35 foot boat onto a 25 foot dock and had a fairly noisy night flanked by a train station and a gypsum plant.

Fog Rolling In

The reward for handling the ocean vagaries to this point is the Bras d’Or lakes. Just past Port Hawkesbury, we swung a hard left and sailed up the Lennox Passage, a protected little laneway to St Peter’s canal, the entrance to the Bras d’Or Lakes. Without any warning, a light billowing fog rolled in from the open ocean in Chedabucto Bay but, expecting this, we had switched on our radar so had no trouble finding our way from buoy to buoy. It still perplexes us as to how we can have fog in 15 knots of wind but everyone assures us that this is something we must count on in Nova Scotia and Maine. St Peter’s Canal and Lock has double lock doors because of the tidal differences between the Bras D’or Lakes and the ocean. The drop was pretty benign however and we had time to chat with Gratton and Jennifer on Moon River, our shedmates from Iroquois.

St Peter’s Canal

Moon River shared a shed with us all last winter while we were preparing Strathspey for this trip. They left Iroquois after us, we saw them once in Quebec City and now again in St Peter’s; how strange is this that we both arrived at the St Peter’s Canal Lock within five minutes of each other?

We’re at St Peter’s now, the sun is shining and there is nary a wave in sight. The Bras d’Or Lakes are the 1000 Islands of the east coast. Everyone heads this way to grab a little flat water sailing, a little rest from the ocean unpredictability and to listen to some fiddles and bagpipes. We’re going to chill here for a bit, meet up with Madcap and their friends on Atlantic Star and then regroup for the next leg to Halifax.

We’ve been monitoring the same weather channels since Trident. Comfortingly, as we sail forward, the Coast Guard weather forecasts keep in step. Just when we begin to think about weather conditions around the next corner, the broadcasts “magically” change to drop the weather broadcasts for the area we passed through two days before and exchange it for the one we need. All this without changing the dial. Some things you just know are worth your tax dollars. We can see those dollars at work maintaining some excellent harbours out here too. Most of the small harbours we’re sheltering in show evidence of government money well spent; strong, wide floating docks on well placed structures that rise and fall with the tide. Good sources of drinking water, diesel and amazingly enough, some of the cleanest washrooms I’ve seen in any public area.

Riviére-au-Renard

In Riviére-au-Renard, where we holed up waiting for any weather other than 30 knots sur le nez, Blair went in search of a place to play his pipes without disturbing people. He had a good long toot on the beach and towards the end, young Stephen MacDuff was at his side offering a large bag of salted turbot and another bag of freshly filleted haddock. His family had sent him down to get the cornemuse (bagpipe) man to join their guitar and accordion jam. Blair fetched me and we sat with three generations of fisher folk, passing around the instruments and singing songs ranging from old Beatles to Quebecois ditties. I had a go at the accordion and thought that it could definitely be an instrument I’d enjoy. They spoke little English and our French is pretty rudimentary at best, but music transcends most everything I can think of and everyone felt they’d made some new friends by the end of the night. The party broke up only because their morning started in the middle of the night for crab fishing and Strathspey was leaving dock at 6:30 am. They said they expect us next year and when they hear the pipes again on their beach, they’ll say “Blair est la”.

My good friend, Karen from Skirmish, says ‘always plan in pencil’ and on this trip it definitely applies to sailing schedules and routes. On Friday 13th, we’d planned to leave Riviére-au-Renard and arrive in l’Anse-a-Beaufils after making a short detour by Percé Rock for photo ops but after listening to the extended forecast, we realized we had a good enough weather window to make a long trek. We jumped at the chance to do this because there are few sheltered harbours with enough depth for our boat between Riviére-au-Renard and Escuminac, New Brunswick. We left at 7 pm Friday and arrived in Escuminac Saturday at 4:30 pm, a 21-hour trip.

Fog at Percé

Sailing at night is an exercise in trust. Trust in your sailing partner because when you are sleeping, your life is in their hands, trust in your instruments because the dark can play tricks on your eyes and trust in yourself so that when the tricks begin, you aren’t taken in. Three hours into our trek to Escuminac, we were motor-sailing, Blair had just fallen asleep and I was behind the wheel, keeping alert by alternately checking the oil pressure, engine temperature, voltmeter, chart plotter, wind direction and depth. The depths were 200 to 400 feet. Quite suddenly, the depth read 30 feet, then 21, then 13. I immediately throttled back and Blair was on his feet and beside me in less than three seconds. We checked the paper chart and compared it to the computer charts and confirmed that the average depth should be 358 feet; all should be fine. Blair believes that a thermal incline between the bottom layer of salty water and the top layer of less salty water caused this anomaly. The depth meter’s sonar is just sensitive enough that it saw that second layer as ocean bottom. It took some convincing before I could motor on into 13 feet of water and almost immediately, the depth meter read 350 feet. A big whew from both of us.

Escuminac is home port to the largest inshore fishing fleet in the Gulf of St Lawrence region and sits just atop the entrance to the Northumberland Strait. Other than a fish plant, diesel dock and more than 100 lobster boats during the lobster season, there is not much here but the welcome we received from everyone we met here gives us a warm fuzzy for New Brunswick.

On the hard

Right now, they are between lobster seasons so many of the boats are sitting on the hard in the wharf parking lot.

This harbour is maintained by the fishermen who use it. The day we arrived, we were invited to the Breakwater Bash, a fundraiser for the harbour. Because of the dance, the dockage fee was waived (all $14 of it). We tied up at the floating wharfs because we arrived between lobster seasons. If we’d arrived three weeks earlier, there would barely have been room to swing in this harbour because of all the fishing boats.

Daughters

These boats have personality. They’re named for daughters, sons, wives and dreams and have an ungainly grace to them; a cutting prow with a fat rear end yet powerful enough to take a weekend jaunt out to the Magdelene’s in most weather.

Overlooking the wharf is a monument to the Escuminac Disaster in 1959. That August, while the salmon was running, the fishermen left for the fishing grounds in the early evening to pay out their nets. The storm was unexpected and caught the fleet on the fishing grounds with no time to take shelter. 35 men, brothers and sons lost their lives in this storm.

Tribute to fishermen

Escuminac was a nice little respite from high winds. We walked the beach, met the locals, got our emails and corrected all the spelling mistakes in the last posting which was done in a hurry (my apologies to anyone who caught them before I did). Our sail from Escuminac to Bouctouche was everything we expected the sailing in the Northumberland Strait to be; steady 15-18 knot winds, manageable waves and sunny skies. We could see the tall windmills of Prince Edward Island on our port and the sand beaches of New Brunswick on our starboard. Bouctouche lies up a shallow winding river which is constantly silting over. The first section of the river is well marked with standard green and red buoys; the second half requires much faith. The locals have marked the edges of the skinny water using sticks with small green or red metal disks atop. At one point, when our depth meter read 4.6 feet, we had a major gulp but continued on and eventually saw 17 feet just before we swung the final corner into the Sawmill Point Boat Basin.

Bouctouche Buoy

The marina clubhouse was built from the remains of K.C. Irving’s sawmill that stood on this site from the 1880′s on. The Irving family sponsored the construction and decoration of this beautiful clubhouse with a nautical theme evident throughout. The welcome we received at this marina was just as gracious as at the Escuminac fishing wharf and we think we are just beginning to experience the warmth and hospitality of The Maritimes. This warmth extends to the weather as well; there is a soft breeze blowing and a deep warmth in the sun that makes you want to turn your face to the sun and soak it all in. Summer is finally here!

Sawmill Point Marina

Leaving Rimouski on July 7th and still heading north, we started wearing our long johns for the first time. We start the Espar heater most mornings just to take the dampness and chill out of the boat. While sailing, we wear our polar fleeces, foul weather gear, toques, gloves and boots.

Bundled up

At the end of each day, because of the high waves, I wipe salt off the teak and fittings. This is not fine salt spray, but actual salt flakes. Trying to see the bright side of all this, because we’re really loving the whole experience, we think we could market Strathspey fleur de sel.

Just past Rimouski, we sailed over the graveyard of The Empress of Ireland, a passenger ship that sank two years after The Titanic. In the fog one night in May, 1914, the Empress and the Norwegian coal carrier, Storstad, collided. Storstad limped back to shore while the Empress sank in 14 minutes carrying 1,012 men, women and children with her. This is a popular dive site for expert divers only, because of the cold, deep and fast flowing current and is marked with a good sized buoy.

Historic gravesite

Because of this cold, deep water, we feel like we are actually ocean sailing now. We’ve seen waves rise to eight and ten feet pretty quickly as the winds increase to 20 knots or more and these waves are either short and choppy or there’s a swell; and for me it isn’t swell. Last year I offered my young nephew, Liam, some broccoli with his dinner. He said, I don’t like broccoli ‘yet’; smart lad, smart answer. I feel the same way about these strong Gaspe winds and waves; I don’t like them ‘yet’. I have read countless stories of sailors traveling around the world and they always long for those 25 knot winds that help them eat up the miles towards their next destination. I’m just not comfortable in those winds yet; the choppy waves make my stomach feel like I’ve done 300 sit ups in a row and I inevitably get this persistent dull headache. After leaving Rimouski, we had a few days of high winds that generated waves that set up a corkscrew motion on Strathspey. On the last day of these kinds of winds, we finally cried uncle and high-tailed it into Mont Louis, about 15 nautical miles short of our intended destination. An important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s important to know when to cry uncle and when to say you don’t like something ‘yet’. Blair is immune to all of this and I’m reminded of our last ferry ride to Newfoundland during a gale; while most passengers lay on their seats with their jackets over their heads, Blair dined on a hot turkey sandwich and enjoyed the passage.

Mont Louis

The place we scooted into to escape the big waves was Mont Louis. On the Gaspe coast there are two well known locations, Mont Louis and Mont St Pierre, where you can experience katabatic winds. These winds are breezes that come up at night and can blow up to 35 knots all night long. Both these places look like empty fjords with high mountains rising on either side of a miniscule river. The winds howled all night at 20-25 knots, blowing down from the hills into our anchorage; it sounded like a January snow storm in Ottawa, rattling our rigging and stretching our anchor. Neither of us got a lot of sleep that night but our good old Bruce anchor pulled through once again and we did not budge

Mt St Pierre fjord

The most obvious sign that we’ve left the St Lawrence River and entered the Gulf of St Lawrence is that we can no longer see land on our port side. Our longitude is changing faster than our latitude. At Cap-de-la-Madeleine, we sailed around the last northernmost cape and at 8:15 am, July 10th we reached the furthest point north in this trip (and the furthest north Strathspey has ever been). Our latitude was 49° 16′. Now we’re heading south, yippee!

The isolation is palpable as well. We’re seeing very few boats up here other than fishing boats and about a mile offshore in many areas we see the tell tale signs of their fish nets. These nets run about 300 meters and are anchored at both ends with two coloured floats. Whenever we see a pair of coloured floats, we immediately use our binoculars to scan for a second pair of floats which mark the end of the net so we can steer clear.

Looks innocuous enough

These nets are responsible for the drowning of many porpoises and dolphins and we don’t want to find out what a net wrapped around our propeller would do to Strathspey.

Since Rimouski, the landscape has been pure Gaspesie; the tall rolling hills of the end of the Appalachian Mountain range, a two lane highway hugging the shore, lighthouses on forbidding looking capes and the ubiquitous church in each village.

Rivière-de-Madeleine

We’re staying over in Riviere-au-Renard for a few days to wait out some bad weather now. This is a commercial fishing port with the entire town geared to the industry. The placemats at the local diner advertise them all; hardware, marine fittings, mechanics and hearty breakfasts. This morning, we watched a fishing boat empty its catch at the wharf. These boats are so sophisticated that by the time they arrive back at dock after a night’s fishing, the shrimp have been bagged, weighed and packed in ice and only require transfer to the big packing containers.

Big Catch

After seeing the fresh shrimp unloaded from one of the bigger boats this morning, I went in search of ingredients for a bouillabaisse. At the first Poisonnerie I picked up some fletan de Groenland (halibut caught three hours earlier) and at the second Poisonnerie I found the Crevette Rose I had seen being unloaded this morning. While Blair did laundry and Sudoku, I made my bouillabaisse and Gramma’s scones for lunch. It doesn’t get a whole lot fresher than this I think.

Crevettes Rose

After we leave Riviere-au-Renard, our last stop in Quebec is L’Anse-à-Beaufils, just down from Perce. In our original plans, this was where we’d leave for The Magdalene Islands. We’ve decided that, in the interests of getting to Maine by September, we’ll have to forgo the trip out to the Magdalenes. It is a 30-hour trip that requires waiting for perfect conditions both on the way out and on the way back to the mainland. A trip to the Magdalenes could quite conceivably end up taking us 10 days so we’ll save that trip for another time (perhaps a ferry ride out from PEI?). From L’Anse-à-Beaufils, we will cross Chaleur Bay to New Brunswick. Chaleur Bay has a nice ring to it; it means Bay of Heat. It is the middle of July and a little heat would be just the ticket I think.

Riviere-au-Renard

Three weeks after leaving dock, we’re feeling bold enough to make a few comments re the effects of leaving fresh water. At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River, the fresh water from the Great Lakes is still flowing on top of the river towards the ocean. Not to be outdone, the salt water from the Gulf of St Lawrence flows the opposite direction underneath the fresh. As far as Strathspey is concerned though, this is salt water.

Amundsen

The first big concern of ours, taking our boat from fresh water into salt, is the inevitable corrosion; just think about what road salt does to your car every winter! Blair read somewhere that when you take your boat from fresh to salt water, the boat value drops 20%; easily the cost of new lifelines and fittings on our boat. I’m determined to fight this, no matter how futile. Taking a tip from Gloria and Bill on Tapestry, every day, I soak a soft cloth with fresh water and wipe down the teak on our boat that even in calm weather gets a dull salt sheen on it by the end of the day. Any sub-standard stainless steel has made itself known with telltale rusting. We’ve sprayed Boeshield on all our fittings to protect against the rusting that the salt water brings on. It’s a product used by Boeing for their airplanes and so far it is working. Even at $20 a spray can, we think it is definitely worth it if it helps protect Strathspey.

Sailing groove

The second concern we have is safe anchorages. We know we’ve been incredibly lucky to have Trident as our home port to sail from to Lake Ontario and the 1000 Islands. There, we leave dock and actually go out for a day of sailing; when we’re done, we have our choice of all kinds of protected anchorages to stop over in when we’ve had enough. Not so on the St Lawrence. The St Lawrence is big time. Cast your lines off and you’re committed; just go until you get to the next good harbor which is generally 40 to 50 miles on. This is a long day when the conditions are good, an even longer day when they aren’t. Past Tadoussac, there are few anchorages and we welcome pulling into a marina; yes that’s us, the people who would only stay at a marina unless there was no other option.

As well, tides, currents and fog are an ever present concern when planning the next day’s agenda. We’ve left on both low and high tides but now that we’re past Tadoussac, we aren’t quite as concerned about tidal currents as we have been. What we’re starting to see now is fog and we will be expecting more of it as the summer progresses; in July, warm air over the cold St Lawrence produces more foggy days than sunny ones.

Fishing boat

One other difference we’re aware of up here has nothing to do with salt water but the good karma between sailors. As we pulled into Rimouski Marina in 20 knots of wind and driving rain AND no dockhand there to greet us, Odette Allaire hustled over to catch our lines.

Odette and Mike

The next morning when she saw us, backpacks in hand, heading off for groceries, Odette drove us into town, helped us pack our groceries, took us to the local SAQ, recommended a Quebecois liqueur (Chicoutai: cloudberry), and then proceeded to be our official Rimouski tour guide to the Pointe-au-Pere lighthouse, St Luce Cathedral and through the quaint little town of St Luce. Definitely a generous and kind new friend!

Rimouski Marina