Home Again

       We went from Lakeman Harbor past Petit Manan and up into Harrington Bay near Millbridge, and spent a quiet afternoon and evening there.  I took out my ukulele and abused my fingertips working on smoothing out my chord changes.  While I was mangling sounds on the upper deck, Dan pulled out the sewing machine and did some minor repairs, making his own sounds below.  The poor cat wasn’t sure which was least offensive to her ears.

Patching the screens.

We went from Harrington Bay to busy Southwest Harbor, anchoring just outside the harbor and away from the jet-skiers and other party boats zipping around Somes Sound.   Finally we were going to be somewhere when the farmer’s market set up!!  Usually we leave the day before or arrive a day late.  We hauled anchor right after breakfast so we could go around the corner to the upper town dock.  From there we walked through a light rain to the market for some fresh vegetables.  Sweet corn!  Wild mushrooms!  Beets!  Everything looked so good, but we managed to restrain ourselves to what would store well without refrigeration until we could eat it.  

Willie Dawes in Southwest Harbor

        We had contemplated making a short day of cruising, but both of us were feeling the pull to go home, so we pushed on to Perry Creek in Vinalhaven.  Our friend Rick from m/v SunDog was there, and we invited him over for a drink on the upper deck before the thunderstorms rolled through.  It rained into the night and then a north wind came to clear the way for a sunny Saturday and a rather lumpy trip across Penobscot Bay to Camden.  

We’ll be home for a couple of weeks before venturing off again. 

Back in the USA

       We left Westport for a rather lumpy/rolly passage to Grand Manan.  Now we know how much the Willie Dawes and we ourselves are willing to endure.  Tommie the cat was not happy and went from one place to another seeking a stable position.  Dan and I concentrated on staying in our own chairs, taking turns to check out how the rest of the boat was faring.  Dan has a video monitor so he can view the engine room from the helm, but that day he made a point of going right down into it to make sure everything was secure. 

The wildlife of the Bay of Fundy kept our minds off the swells.  We saw a humpback whale, several porpoises, a large group of white-sided dolphins - one of which came to play at our bow - and many different kinds of sea birds from gannets and shearwaters to puffins and phalaropes.  Grand Manan was a welcome sight.  We were happy to pick up a mooring in North Head Harbor and make an early night of it.

Sturgeon Cove

From there it was a half day jaunt over to Sturgeon Cove in the Letang River.  We were on the back side of Black’s Harbour, where the ferry to Grand Manan is, and we could hear its horn.  Otherwise, it was quiet and snug and we saw no one else.

Letang River

Dan decided we should spend our last night in Canada anchored off the International Roosevelt Park on Campobello.  Several years ago he helped build the dock there, which we tied our dinghy to when we visited the park.  Apparently no one comes there by boat, apart from someone who still maintains a summer home in or near the park, but that is probably because a day stop by boat would still entail clearing customs and there is no customs official at the park.  

The dock that Dan built - International Park 

It was a wonderful park!  We walked the grounds and visited the cottages where the Roosevelts and other prominent families lived during their summers and ended our tour with a drink on the deck of a small restaurant where we chatted with a woman from Canada going through a transition period in her life and a couple from Delaware.  From the deck we could see the Willie Dawes resting at anchor and were amused to hear from the docents that a few visitors had asked if that boat belonged to “one of the families” associated with the park.  We didn’t have time to walk any of the many trails there, one of which went out to Friar’s Point, where a certain rock stands apart from the cliff.  As this rock seemed to be watching over the fish farm directly in front of it, we dubbed it Our Lady of the Fish Farm when we anchored.  Its real name is The Old Friar.  

FDR's Summer Cottage

View from the Hubbard Cottage

   

Our Lady of the Fish Farm, aka The Old Friar

We left Canada this morning and cruised through the fog to Lakeman Harbor on Roque Island.  We’ll probably spend a few days here until the next front passes through.  

Yarmouth to Westport

      We spent two nights in Yarmouth, the first on a mooring so we could take advantage of the showers and laundry, and the second at anchor because someone else wanted the mooring.  (The marina has three moorings available.)  The dockmaster offered us a dock space for the same price as a mooring, but we declined because we don’t have to worry about the cat jumping ship if we’re not tied up.  We were pretty sure we’d be tied alongside fishboats in Westport and in Grand Manan, our next to potential destinations, which means she’ll have to be shut inside the cabin.

Yarmouth: "on the edge of everything"

We took several long walks during our two days in Yarmouth, and met several new friends, including a couple from Harrington, Maine.  During our sojourns we discovered a well-stocked grocery store! only a little over half mile away, and in the other direction was a small lake with a swim club.  The day we were there it was too windy for us to feel like swimming, but what a great thing to know should we be there on a hot day.  

Mama and baby deer out grazing in someone's front yard in Yarmouth.

We left on Monday and traveled through the fog to Grand Passage and Brier Island, where the small town of Westport resides.  We tied up to a fish boat - fifth in a line of boats tied to the wharf - and set off to get a lay of the land.  Westport is an adorable little town, two streets wide and surrounded by a lot of undeveloped land.  The major industry is fishing - the shore is lined with lobster houses and private fishing sheds - but the summer industry is whale watching.  There are two major companies that offer whale watching and several of the fishermen have their boats set up to take people out as well.  Lots of tourists come for the day on the free ferry from Long Island just to go out whale watching.  The town has several rental cottages, a lodge, and a small B & B to accommodate overnight visitors.  We were the only cruisers.  By the end of our first day, several locals we met while walking about already knew we were “the people from the cruise boat.”  

Westport, Brier Island

Willie Dawes in Westport -5th from the dock.

        

        We walked from one point of the island where the light house is, to the other end where the plaque honoring Joshua Slocum is.  Joshua Slocum, if you aren’t aware, wrote the book Sailing Alone Around the World, which is Dan’s favorite book.  Joshua lived in Westport as a boy.  Brier Island also offers many trails, and we’ve been on several of them, exploring rocky cliffs, small coves, and even a nature walk through a bog where Westport is working very hard to restore the natural setting in order to help preserve the Yellow Avens, an endangered flower that up until recently was known only to grow in New Hampshire.  

Joshua Slocum Plaque

Bog Walk, Westport

         We will spend at least one more day here, as we wait out the nor’easter that is bringing rain and lots of wind to both Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.  (Our next cruise will involve crossing the Bay of Fundy to Grand Manan, and the wind and tide have to be working together and with us to make for a good passage.)  Who knows what else we will discover on this small slice of Canadian heaven?  I’m almost ready to start looking at the houses for sale here in Westport.  

Dan's cairn on the lighthouse point.

On the way to the lighthouse.

Around Cape Sable

       It’s been fog, fog, and more fog.  The fog enclosed us as we left Bush Island and stayed.  We saw very little until it was literally a few feet away, whether it was a bird or a buoy, and we never saw the few boats that were on the radar or listed on the chart through their AIS frequency.  (I tell you though, after a few hours of staring at fog, you start to make out all kinds of things…)  As we approached Little Port L’Hebert (pronounced “la bear”) we both leaned forward in our seats to try to see the shoreline.  Little Port L’Hebert is actually a small cove big enough for one or two vessels.  We were already inside it according to the chart plotter.  Dan looked at me and shrugged and told me to go ahead and get the anchor ready.  We could waves breaking and the sound of the anchor dropping.  It was surreal experience.  Right before sunset the fog thinned enough for us to the see the rocky beaches horse-shoeing around us, but then it dropped back down on us again and stayed.  We picked our way out of there in the morning and headed West.  

We had a considered a short hop over to McNutt’s Island, which is in the mouth of the river leading to Shelburne, but the tide was with us and we thought we’d push on to be that much closer to Cape Sable, which we planned to come around on Friday.  So we continued in the fog, listening to the occasional fog horn or whistle buoy, and then suddenly we had visibility.

        Not only did we have visibility, we had two fin back whales blowing and rolling.  And then one of them breached.  We were like two little kids, our mouths hanging open, staring at each other.  Did that really just happen??  And while Dan had the presence of mind to fumble with his phone to get a picture, one of the whales breached again.  He turned on the video and recorded a splash of water and both of us cheering.  (I won’t bother to share that here.)  We watched them surface and dive several times, cameras at the ready, but they were done breaching and the pictures just look like dark humps in the water.  

Sunset at Port LaTour

        Fog came down again in patches as we cruised to our destination anchorage at Port LaTour, and then lifted again to give us a spectacular sunset and a beautiful full moon rising. 

Moon over Port LaTour

Friday … fog again.  We left early to catch the right tide around Cape Sable.  The sun was out, making it a brighter fog, and set up fog-bows all around.  Cameras don’t really capture the colors well, but it was incredibly beautiful.  The sea was almost glassy and the winds negligible as we made our way south and west around Cape Sable.  This area gets a lot of traffic from transient yachts who cross to and from Maine or Massachusetts.  We plucked several water bottles and other plastic trash out of the sea, including an entire bag of trash.  I’m choosing to believe it accidentally fell overboard from someone’s yacht, and not that it was deliberately tossed into the sea.  We will dispose of it properly.

Bright Fog

The fog finally lifted as we made our way to Woods Harbour.  We bypassed the man-made enclosure and anchored in the Sound between the Harbour and Squirrel Island.  We can see the land here, though the fog is hovering offshore, waiting for us tomorrow.                         

Fogbow

Lunenburg

         We met a kayaker named Christine who welcomed us to Deep Cove. She asked us if we were going to stay a second night and let us know the cove would be very crowded with people coming to watch the fireworks, which would be launched from a nearby barge. We thought maybe we would move to another anchorage and got underway before any of the party boats started arriving. It was looking like a lovely day and we took a long, slow tour of Mahone Bay. There are many island, rocky ledges, and several small towns. In some ways it’s like a great big lake what with the jet-skiers and small power boats zipping around. We oohed and aahed at the expensive waterside homes, some with large in-ground swimming pools between the house and the fancy dock. This area is quite built up. Dan said it reminded him a little bit of New Jersey. It was a warm, hazy day, and storm clouds gathering in the evening caused us to move from one anchorage to another just in case the ensuing front got a little crazy. Thunder rumbled around us but the storms were to the north and all we got was a quick little shower. 

Coming Thunderstorm at Covey Island, Mahone Bay

        Sunday dawned with the normal shroud of fog, but by mid-morning it had lifted, leaving us with a very warm and humid day. This was the day we had dockside reservations in Lunenburg but it was too early, and we decided to check out Tanner Pass, a place our kayaker friend Christine told us was too beautiful to miss. She wasn’t kidding. Tanner Pass was gorgeous. I said to Dan that cruising Nova Scotia is like cruising in a painting. The scenery is just incredible.  We anchored for several hours in Tanner Pass and took the dinghy to explore the length of it, all the way to the back bay behind Lunenburg. We’d been back there seven years ago, but we’d come to it a different way and missed this scenic route entirely. 

Entrance to Tanner Pass

         When we finished the Pass we hauled the dinghy and the anchor and made our way into Lunenburg. It was nearly 90 degrees ashore, the folk festival was winding up, and people were out in droves. We tied up alongside the Fisheries of the Atlantic building, right in front of an outdoor cafe where we were the entertainment for diners and people strolling by on the boardwalk. Lunenburg is a charming town, filled with restaurants and shops and historic little homes built by boatbuilders. It has a very strong history of shipbuilding and fishing and was home to the schooner Bluenose and now home to the replica Bluenose II. There once was a well-known iron foundry here that built the steering wheels and gears and other parts that make up some of the Maine Windjammer fleet. We spent two nights and most of two days walking and exploring as well as doing the things cruisers tend to do when ashore - laundry, visiting grocery stores, and chasing down propane. The Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic was the highlight of our time there - three stories of artifacts and history. 

People watching. Watching us watching them. 

Approaching Lunenburg

       Tuesday mid-afternoon we thought we’d leave the dock and anchor in the harbor, but as the seas and air seemed fairly calm, we decided to just move on to LaHave. We found a nice quiet anchorage at Bush Island, around the corner from Folly’s Channel. Out of the city and back into the painting.

Folly's Channel

Widely scattered Fog with Occasional Sun

       Looking back through our log book I was surprised to see how many days I wrote “Woke up to fog.”  It certainly has been foggy.  And drizzly.  We left Port Mouton in the fog, arrived at Port Medway in the fog, and left there in the fog.  We spent two nights in Port Medway.  The town is very quiet and we saw very few people out and about, even when the drizzle let up enough for to go ashore for a walk.  More charming Victorian homes, and remnants of busy sawmills and shipbuilding, but little else.  The cafe/convenience store which offered fresh baked goods, sandwiches, and music in the evenings has closed and with it, someone later informed us, the community has fallen apart.  

En Route to The Hollow

We made our way from to Rose Bay where the fog suddenly lifted and the temperature rose about fifteen degrees.  Our hoped-for destination was Lunenburg, but we didn’t count on this being the start of a four day dockside music festival, and there was no room for us - no berths, no moorings, no room in the anchorage.  So we went around into Mahone Bay and found a sweet anchorage called “The Hollow,” a basin nestled between three islands.  There were others anchored and even party-rafted there, but we found a relatively private spot along Ernst Island’s shore.  We spent the evening watching baby ospreys take turns flying to and from their nest while mama osprey supervised from a nearby tree.  

Rogue's Roost

We’d heard and read about Rogue’s Roost, labeled the prettiest anchorage in all of Nova Scotia and decided to make that our next day’s goal.  The guidebooks list it as a “must go” for all cruisers.  One review called it “Hebridian” in scenic beauty.  So we headed out - in the fog - across Mahone Bay, skirting St. Margaret’s Bay and Prospect Bay, and into Rogue’s Roost.  Once again the fog lifted as we left the bays behind.  Rogue’s Roost is everything the guidebooks promised, and more.  The surrounding land is held in trust, so there is no development. The hills are thick with scrubby pines and brambles and covered with erratics - large boulders dumped willy nilly by glaciers.  The guidebooks mention a “well-worn trail” up Roost Island for a spectacular view, but though we circumnavigated the island in the dinghy, we didn’t find the trail, nor did we see anyone up there.  We did see and meet several local Nova Scotians - one group of men motored into our anchorage and entertained us with an eclectic playlist of music that included the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies show, John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy, and Roger Miller’s King of the Road while they drank beer and hung out.  Not long after we met Bill, from another vessel anchored in the other basin in Rogue’s Roost, and his friend Arthur, whom Bill was helping set up a float.  The float eventually sported a cooler, lawn chairs, and an umbrella.  Arthur has planned to build a bunkhouse on it as well.  

Arthur's Float

The fog rolled in an out all afternoon, and settled in for the night.  It was quite thick and wet when we left mid-morning to head back west into Mahone Bay, and it stayed with us until we got to Deep Cove.

Sunset in the Fog at Rogue's Roost

We stayed here seven years ago when we were touring the east coast of Nova Scotia. We were saddened to find it fairly built up: there are several docks along the narrow entrance channel now, and the basin itself has about twenty moorings.  Still, it’s fairly quiet and very protected, and there is another osprey nest with young flyers to watch.  

Willie Dawes at Rogue's Roost                                

Entrance to Deep Cove

Ingomar to Port Mouton

       We spent two nights at Ingomar.  A heavy wet fog had descended on us, with intermittent drizzle and the occasional burst of heavier rain and wind, so we just stayed put.  When the second morning dawned with the same weather, we’d had enough and decided to set out anyway.  That’s what radar’s for, right?

We motored slowly, keep a watch for the buoys and rocks that showed up on radar.  Visibility was about an eighth of a mile.  We tossed around possible destinations and settled on Lockeport, which the guide books said offered floating docks, a small marina, and a grocery store.  As we approached, the fog suddenly cleared to reveal a beautiful, sunny, hot day.  

Lockeport - you can see the rock wall enclosing the harbor. 

Lockeport was once a bustling town with a strong fishing industry.  Its past economy is evident in some of the modest but well-maintained Victorian houses, but much of the fishing is so seasonal it doesn’t bring so much money to the fish processing plant that dominates the waterfront, though we did watch one fishboat unload baskets of giant flounder while we were there.  We entered the man-made harbor to find the floating docks piled neatly ashore and no evidence of a marina.  We tied up alongside a fishboat at the town wharf.  Just as we’d gotten ourselves set we watched three sailboats from the Manchester, MA yacht club come in and circle round and round, trying to figure out where to go.  Though the harbor is large enough to anchor, the holding ground is poor and all the guidebooks are quite specific about not anchoring here.  We ended up helping one of the boats tie up to the fishboat astern of us, and the other two rafted together at a small private dock near the fish plant. 

Willie Dawes is dwarfed by the fishing fleet!

Dan and I walked to the small downtown where we found both the grocery store and a liquor store.  There were welcoming signs everywhere, inviting us to read about the town’s history and showing us the way to the sandy beaches and small park on the town’s shoreline.  Our new friends from the Manchester Yacht Club invited us to join them for dinner at the local restaurant and as we swapped boat cards, we realized we had met one of the couples in P.E.I. back in 2015 when we were cruising the Down East Circle.  Small world.  We went from the restaurant back to one of the boats for after dinner rum and stories.

Crescent Beach.  The guidebook cautions it's been 'discovered' by the local tourists.  This is a Sunday morning 'busy' with locals. 

The next morning we walked the length of Crescent beach and then over to Rood’s Head Park before saying goodbye to Lockeport.  What a lovely little place.  Our MYC friends were on the last leg of their Nova Scotia trip, headed west for Shelburne and then home to the States, so we said our goodbyes and left to go east.

We cruised to Port Mouton (they pronounce it Muh-toon; it was named after a sheep that fell overboard when Samuel de Champlain was mapping the shores) and anchored in front of a beautiful sandy beach.  Being a Sunday, the beach was lively with families, couples and romping dogs, but few people were in the water.  Though it looks almost Caribbean here with the fine white sand and aqua water, it’s still the North Atlantic, and the water is only about 50 degrees.  We spent a beautiful evening people watching.

Sunset Port Mouton.