Enetai - Northumberland Strait, Part 2:
Montague to Murray Harbour
In the morning in Montague, we walked along the other side of the river and found some coffee while the rest of the crew got a little more shut-eye. There was a large dog looking into the water alongside the fishing boats across the river from the marina. He didn't jump in, but we couldn't help but hope we'd be entertained if he pursued whatever it was he was watching.
Going down the river was peaceful in the morning. Once again we found ourselves admiring the clouds and skyscape. We knew a little more from our conversations and took note of the gravel operation as we passed the mouth of the river, actively unloading gravel for the island. We were told that there's no rock on PEI, so all road work has to import gravel. We would end up seeing some of that gravel being unloaded later along our travels.
The shore provided some of the beautiful scenery for which PEI is known as we passed the bright yellow fields of canola.
This time, the wind seemed to come from all points of the compass. Starting from the west on the Montague River, and north, east, then south, then west again as we traversed Cardigan Bay and rounded the point, south along the eastern shore of PEI, and headed in to the Murray River.
The entrance to Murray Harbour is marked by a small light and a long sand spit, Sable Point, which was covered with birds. As we were learning, the harbor channels are narrow, and there is a lot of shallow water in the harbors. Here, the birds were taking advantage of the sandy bar and shallows, but our sails triggered a mass exodus from the bar and the birds rose raucously from the water and flew further into the harbor. It was quite a sight to see the flock take off from the water in a black cloud of clattering wings and caws.
The Harbour is a very protected and quiet spot. As we sailed in, we passed the colorful sailboat Lily.
As we were scanning the harbor for a good place to anchor, along came a skiff sailing toward us. As it came alongside we asked where there might be a good place to anchor overnight, and the sailor of the skiff invited us to set anchor off shore from his beautiful home. It turned out that the sailor was none other than Jim Evans, the editor of and contributor to the Cruising Guide to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Jim and his wife Anna were very gracious and invited us in for wine and conversation after dinner. It turned out that Jim had been sailing the Freedom 25 we had seen the day before. Jim and Anna had some helpful insights to life on PEI, the smallest of the Canadian Provinces, and some of the changes and struggles in the fisheries.
Murray Harbour to Charlottetown
The next morning we caught the current and let it take us out of the harbor and back toward Northumberland Strait. There was much more to explore and enjoy in Murray Harbor but we felt the need to make progress along the South Shore while the weather held. The birds once again were upset by our passing their sand spit, their calls competing with the sound of our motor.
We passed along the red bluffs and green fields with their bright yellow fields of flowering canola before we passed Wood Islands and the ferry that had docked in Caribou Harbor Inlet when we were anchored there. It was clearly a very tight little harbor and we were glad the weather was holding so that we didn't need to duck in. We had a quick vignette of the crowded harbor as we slid past the entrance jetties.
It was a great day to sail along the southern coast of PEI, along the wide open Northumberland Strait.
We came to the entrance to Charlottetown Harbour, which goes way up into the Island. While it's not very far across the land to the water on the north side, the rivers and harbor go way up almost into the center of the island. So even though it was morning when we got to the entrance, it was afternoon before we made our way to the Marina.
There were sailboats racing in the outer harbor, providing color and entertainment as we sailed toward the harbor.
As we got closer to the rivers that make up the harbor, we started to hear a thump thump thump-ta-thump-thump and the rudder started to have a strange vibration. We looked over the side of Enetai into the water and it was clogged with jellyfish. More jellyfish than we had ever seen anywhere! So thick that you could feel them bumping the hull and the ruddddddder as we sailed through them on our way to the inner harbor and the marina.
There went any hope that we might take a swim while we were there!
We sailed almost all the way to the marina that our interweb friend, Steve Abbey, had recommended and where he and some of the sailers from the Sunrise Shore Marina were staying.
Charlottetown
Charlottetown is a busy place. The biggest city on PEI, full of history and entertainment, it's a great place to visit. It was difficult to decide what to do first, so we treated ourselves to some ice cream at the shop on shore. The marina was right at an entertainment and tourist plaza, with ice cream and souvenir shops and a restaurant which had evening entertainment (the outdoor evening entertainment became a bit of a drawback on our little boat when we were trying to sleep).
We set about exploring, there were opportunities to enjoy the town in every direction. So we headed up hill (the town is always up hill from the harbor!) Visiting from the harbor often has the advantage that you get to see where the settlement first began, the most historic sections. Since most waterfront towns were settled right on the water which was the fastest, easiest way to travel and move goods, the oldest, and often most interesting parts, are near the water.
This is true for Charlottetown too.
Not far from the harbor is the famous "Provincial House" known as the Birthplace of Canada.
Behind Provincial House is a rock garden, with interesting rocks donated by various provinces in Canada. Considering that PEI is known for not having rocks, we thought this was a unique way to import some.
Our favorite was a whale.
There were numerous imposing stone buildings, several churches. We noted that the liquor store on the main drag was situated back-to-back with this church.
There's also a fantastic sculpture garden to the east along the waterfront, and a beautiful park to the west of the town. We stayed a couple of days, visited bookstores and restaurants, walked in the beautiful parks and soaked in the history.
Being an Island, resources are more limited, and Charlottetown had recycling kiosks pretty much everywhere in town where there might be a trash can in the US. These kiosks included a section for compost! Waste not want not - what a great idea for preserving resources on an island.
Not only that, they had wildlife along the shore. We woke up one morning to a bit of a fuss, "Look at that!" "What is it?"; as a little brown mink was hunting along the rip rap by the marina, scouting up and down, disappearing into a hole here or there and then reappearing somewhere else. It then made its way onto the dock. By this time, the critter had generated quite a bit of interest and we went over to the dock where one of the guests was washing down his boat, to see just how bold this critter was. The mink trotted right down the middle of the dock straight toward us all, and switched to the piping under the dock just to make its way around us. Very, very bold!
Not to mention, very cute too!
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We had a great time at Charlottetown and would have liked to stay longer. But this was our first exploratory tour of Northumberland Strait and we had many places to go and see, and some highly variable weather. Like all vacations, time seemed to be flying by. So we said goodbye to our new friends and headed out.
Charlottetown to Victoria
We refueled on our way out of Charlottetown, the fuel dock and launching ramp on the far side of the marina providing the usual entertainment. We headed for Victoria, a very small harbor a few hours sail away.
The sky was a bit gray but the shore provided occasional glimpses of the brilliant yellow fields that stretched right to the edge of the red clay seacliffs.
The entrance to Victoria looks like a wide, welcoming stretch of water, but in reality, the channel is very narrow and the harbor is quite shallow. We followed the buoys in.
If you see the people on the dock in the picture, they seemed to be waiting for us and were very welcoming. As we were directed to tie up to the Delta Flyer, a fishing boat that was docked along the wall, we discovered that they indeed had been expecting a sail boat to come into the harbor, but it wasn't us they were expecting, it was a larger sailboat coming in behind us that had radioed ahead! They were fit into a spot behind the Delta Flyer, and no one was left out.
The harbor is very tight, no room for anchoring.
Little Louise had to sit on the workdeck of the Delta Flyer as there was no room to swing or tie her aside, and the wall was rather high. Getting to and from shore involved clambering across a couple of boats. With the rocking boats and the wind, it was an exciting experience!
Victoria Harbor figures in "Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God", a novel by Joe Coomer. I (Bo) was interested in checking it out after enjoying the book. I think he used a little poetic licence to adapt Victoria to his narrative
Victoria has a number of little shops oriented for tourists to stop by and visit. We enjoyed a little shopping and went to a park around the corner from the harbor and took showers after playing in the water off the beach. The wind continued to blow, but the temperature was quite pleasant and we were snug against the Flyer for the night.
Victoria to Summerside
From Victoria we headed to the second biggest harbor on the south side of PEI, Summerside. The weather kept us guessing as it seems to do in Northumberland Strait. The captain kept his foul weather gear handy! The youngest crew member (teenagers never seem to be on the same schedule as the rest of the world) decided that this was as good a time as any to cook macaroni and cheese on the galley stove. Problem was, passing Tryon Shoals was NOT a good time to boil water! This resulted in much squawking from below as we pounded through tide rips. A bit like cooking during a low level earthquake, but nothing was spilled and the food was, evidently, good. Past the tide rips, the Confederation Bridge soon stretched across the horizon.
The Bridge is so large, that you sail toward it for a very long time. As you approach, the size becomes more obvious.
Sometimes when Enetai approaches a bridge, it looks like our mast cannot possibly clear the bridge. This is not the case when approaching the Confederation Bridge!
Here is where the captain would like to raise a complaint about the buoyage in this area. The navigation buoys are all sized like harbour buoys, even when marking an offshore passage. Probably fine if you have a chart plotter but we were navigating by dead reckoning/eyeball/paper charts. We were practically on top of the buoys before we could pick them out! Actually, we used the depth sounder a lot to edge around the shoals. We had just installed one in the spring and found it to be very useful in lieu of a charting GPS.
Approaching Summerside, the sun came out and made for a beautiful silver surface for the sailing race that we passed.
Here, the harbor was deeper, with an island (Holman Island) to the east, across from the town and the marina. We anchored off the island and enjoyed a quiet evening, some swimming, and a quiet dinner on board. In the morning, we made our way to the town, and got a slip at the Silver Fox Marina.
Summerside turned out to be sunny (one of us kept calling it Sunnyside)! But it was as much fun as Charlottetown, but with a much quieter marina. Amenities at the Silver Fox were super, except the wifi didn't work on our boat. We were able to get laundry done, showers, and it's close to downtown and shops and historic footpaths.
A boardwalk was approached by a marvelous new footbridge, but oddly, the path also went around the end of the little inlet, leaving us to wonder why the bridge?
It started to feel much more like summer as the sun continued to shine. We took a sail out from the marina on the second day of our stay, and again anchored off the island to go for a swim - one of our favorite pastimes on the boat. The seawater is much warmer than in Maine!
Sunsets were spectacular.
Here we also saw, and sometimes heard, the gravel being delivered to PEI for road construction outside of Summerside.
The weather was holding for us to cross back toward New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, so we took our leave of Summerside on the 21st in the early afternoon, passing the lighthouse at the harbor entrance, admiring the farms along the banks of PEI as we made our way, once again, back under the Confederation Bridge.
