18 July 2015 Tommy's visitor, and Gut Feeling?

       Sometime in the Wee hours we awoke to a loud BANG. I jumped up and said ”What was that” Kathy said, “The hatch just slammed shut."  I was already on my feet, when she said “How did Tommy get out?” I checked the door and realized Tommy was at my feet, so I replied “I don't know, but she is back in!” It was then I saw a big gray cat on the dock, probably just as spooked as we were that the hatch had slammed shut, because she was ON the hatch and made it slam! She stared me down for a few seconds and was on her way.

      We had  decided last nite that we were going to stay put for a few days in Lameque, as the weather sounded poor. It is recommended to NOT leave Shippigan Bay thru the “Gully” on an East wind, as the Gully shoots out into the bay with a five knot current, and an East wind would make for an ugly breaking sea.

       But, I got up at 0600 and checked the latest forecast, and they predicted the Easterly would not show until afternoon instead of in the early morning, so I woke Kathy, said, “they have changed the forecast, I think we can make Miramichi, we're heading out” and I hopped onto the dock, dropped our lines and we were off.

       We headed across the bay toward Shippigan and then called the lift bridge on the VHF radio. I asked for an opening and the bridge master replied in his best French accent, “I can do that for you”. Shortly after he called again and said, “I do not see your boat”, but I told him we were coming right along and we hardly had to wait at all, and we were glad to have a short rig, and at that, there was not a whole lot of clearance.

      I would compare this area with Lubec Narrows, (Lubec's bridge does not open but we just make it under as well), and in both passages you had better use the tide to advantage, and you fairly well get spit out the other end. Shippigan Gully does that in fashion, and even when the bay was almost flat calm, there were standing waves s as we shot out of the cut at over 10 knots over the bottom!

      The East wind did hold off , there was only a 1-2 foot sea and we covered the 34 miles to Miramishi Bay by about 1300. I had in mind to take a side channel into the bay, just exploring, but turns out there are some shifting sands on this part of the coast. No more hundreds of feet deep near shore. All of a sudden the depth finder read 6, then 4, then 3, where the chart showed 8 or 9 feet! And we draw 3 and one half. Well turns out the depth sounder must be off by a couple feet, because we never touched, but we did turn and back-track very cautiously.

     This meant we had to retrace back out 2 miles to enter the bay thru the “Ship Channel”. Well I don't know what kind of ships they have here, but I sure would want a good pilot. None of the buoys were where they were supposed to be, probably because the sand shifts so often, and after having a near miss with bottom we proceeded with caution. Then as the current was still ebbing pretty hard, we decided to forego the 20 mile trip up the Miramichi River, and opted for a nice private anchorage in a cove by Bay du Vin Island. Several Lobster boats were having a beach party, (Saturday) so we figure we just found Canada's Stonington.