Enetai - Northumberland Strait cruise, 2009
We took Enetai to Northumberland Strait in 2009. Northumberland Strait/Detroit, in Eastern Canada, lies between Nova Scotia (Nouvelle Ecosse) and New Brunswick (Nouveau Brunswick)on the south and Prince Edward Island (Ile du Prince Edouard)to the north. The launching point for our cruise, Tatamagouche, in Nova Scotia took a day and a half to drive from eastern Massachusetts. Not many US boats get to Northumberland Strait because it's a long ways around by water from either direction. The only way to get there from the US for a short cruise (we planned a two-week vacation) is by trailering.
This account of our two-week cruise is in three parts, shown in general on the map below. The first part (red) covers the segment from the launching point in Tatamagouche to Montague on the eastern end of PEI. The second segment (blue) has us bumping along the south coast of PEI to Summerside near the western end of the island. The third segment (dark green) is our return to the mainland coast, touching on Cape Tormentine, and working our way back east along the northern Nova Scotia coast to our starting point.
We purchased Canadian charts before we left and read cruising information on the internet. Because US phones would not work in Canada, and not all areas would have coverage, we also rented a SPOT, personal GPS tracker. This little device allowed folks to see where we were on a google map.
A word about the charts
We had to mark the charts up with a big note on each one, as some have depths in meters, some in feet and others in fathoms. Our GPS did not have Canadian charts installed, so we were back in the business of tracking our progress and relying on the good old paper product. Northumberland Strait is pretty wide open though, and easy to navigate. The depth sounder was handy for skirting shoals; the buoyage is a little more sparse than in the US.
The tides and currents took some getting used to. The tide fills in from both ends of the strait, and not always at the same time. These are not your usual East Coast tides. While the Strait is plenty deep, most harbors are shallow; our depth sounder came in handy for tracking our way in or out of a harbor.