Enetai - Nova Scotia Cruise, 2017
Part 1: July 20 to July 25, St Andrews New Brunswick to Cape Sable Nova Scotia, 134 nautical miles
The big challange for the first part of the cruise was to get across the Bay of Fundy in one piece. This turned out to be easy. We had no wind in the three days it took to get from St Andrews NB to Yarmouth NS.
Thursday July 20: Driving - Massachusetts to St Andrews NB.
First, we have to get there. We drove about 7 hours to get from our house to St Andrews New Brunswick. Traffic was light. Customs took about an hour.When clearing Customs, we asked the agent in the booth about bringing the boat in on a trailer; while he didn't know and didn't see any difficulty we knew we'd had a problem many years ago, so he suggested we'd need to go inside. We parked and went in. We explained to the Customs Agent inside that we would be cruising in the boat and needed a permit for the boat. Good thing (see Northeast Harbour Ingomar, by Cape Negro Island). She also wrote one for the truck (dashboard).
We took the highway exit to St. Andrews and located the Kiwanis Oceanfront Campground where we had a reservation for the night. Seemed a little weird to be camping in our boat among all the RV's but it worked. Nice place to walk along the beach, see some sandpipers, the wastewater treatment plant, sculptures.
We also were able to walk into town, get some groceries, especially stuff for a nice fresh salad, and some beer and wine. The showers at the campground were pretty much like any RV park or campground.
There is a cobble beach with sanderlings foraging along the water's edge:
We also took a look at the boat ramp. It looked pretty rough at low tide. We were going to launch at high tide in the morning so all that scratchy stuff doesn't matter. The circle shows a grounded out mooring.
Friday July 21: Launch in St. Andrews and head to Grand Manan Island, 27nm.
This year's trip began with motor starting at 59.4 hours. All tanks are full.
We drove the boat to the launch ramp (no dock), parked it aside the ramp along the narrow street. The tide was not in yet. Went to breakfast with our new friend Roger McNabb from the St. Andrews Yacht Club (which has a small clubhouse one lot over from the launching ramp). Roger seemed to know nearly everyone at The Lumberjack Café on Water Street. Good company and good food! We were here because Roger had answered my internet quest for long term parking in the area. Roger arranged for us to leave our truck and trailer in the parking lot of the local community college. We launched the boat near high tide, a little before 11:00 AM. The moorings are very large here, maybe because of the huge tides. The tide range is about 20 feet; it can surprise you. We tied Enetai to one of these moorings near the ramp that had been high and dry before we went to breakfast (see pictures). We rowed the dinghy back to the ramp and followed Roger to our designated parking place next to a fence at the Community College. Roger gave us a ride back to the ramp. We said our goodbyes and headed off into Passamaquoddy Bay. The adventure had begun!!
We had timed our departure at high slack to catch the ebb towards Grand Manan. We wanted the ebb for the next three days to angle down and across the Bay of Fundy toward Yarmouth, N.S. The timing of the tide would be advancing each successive day so we'd end up with free time in the mornings. Wisps of fog, reminiscent of the end of our trip last year hugged the slopes along the water as we passed by Eastport and the Chowder House Restaurant where we'd tied up and had dinner the year before. We stayed on the Canadian side to avoid a 'border violation'.
We went on down the bay and out past the Old Sow (big whirlpool), quiet except for a little bit of ripple in the otherwise smooth water, past East Quoddy Head into the Bay of Fundy.
The tide had begun to ebb. No wind. We motored across a flat sea to Grand Manan, North Head Harbour. As we approached Swallowtail, the headland on which the light is situated, one of the ferries came out from behind. There are two of them going back and forth to Blacks Harbour.
We "picked up" a large yellow mooring, one of several that seemed to be set out for public use. We had been cautioned not to go in behind the wharf because a fleet of aquaculture boats come in each evening and fill the place up. And they sure did! Several dozen mostly identical green 'lobster' boats came into the harbor as evening fell, and pretty much plugged it up. Interesting assortment of strategies, some barreling in as fast as they could go and some taking it easy and saving fuel. Fun watching them jockey when too many were in one place at one time!
We found here, and most places in Nova Scotia, that the government wharves are very loosely controlled. The harbour-masters and fishermen are pretty relaxed about where you tie your boat up. We were there between fishing seasons. Maybe people aren't so patient when the fish boats are working.
In the afternoon, we dinghied ashore and walked up to the lighthouse. It was hot and seemed like an island in Maine, which it nearly is. However, the rickety wooden steps and suspension bridge over an eroded volcanic dike to get to the headland was a bit more precarious than we might expect in Maine. We Americans are used to being protected from ourselves. It was quite a dramatic view of Fundy waters. There were historic plaques and an old Fresnel lens in its own gazebo with the lighthouse out on the rocky perch. The flowers were beautiful and the breeze was grand.
On the way back, we stopped at the Odd Rainbow and had dinner - the restaurant near the ferry terminal. First time ever with fried seaweed - very tasty! The tide had come in a bit, the ramp to the dock not so steep as when we came in.
Saturday July 22 North Head NB to Westport (Brier Island) Nova Scotia, 37 nm.
In the morning we rowed in to North Head to take a walk in the other direction (south) while waiting for the tide to turn, but distances were further than they looked on the little map we'd picked up in the ferry terminal. After a bit of walking it was obvious that we weren't going to come to the market north of the major town on the island, so we turned around and walked back to breakfast in the same restaurant (only one there in North Head with breakfast. The café only had pastry-like food).
We headed out with the tide, on a long slog to Westport, Brier Island. No wind. Nonetheless we dealt with the swell while motoring the whole way. The ebb tide helped us along. One tanker went by (the 'New England'). We had called Fundy Traffic on channel 12 when we set out but it must not have 'took'. Fundy Traffic could see it was us because we had our AIS transponder turned on but did not seem to have registered us when we called in: they told the tanker than a non-reporting boat was the only thing in the lanes, we called to check in again. They suggested we should call the tanker and told the tanker they should call us, but it was clear that we would pass well ahead of the tanker, anyway.
We saw lots of birds, some looked like they were dancing on the water, later identified as storm petrels. The swells made it difficult to try to get a picture or video, so much boat motion. Gina actually got a blurry photo of a sea bird which turned out to be a puffin when we later edited the photos. We didn't think we had seen any puffins this trip but turns out we had...sort of. We also saw a whale watch zodiac boat with whales spouting out by them, further south than we were.
When we arrived in Grand Passage, Westport, at slack low water, there was no obvious place to anchor or mooring to pick up. There were a couple sets of piping structures taking up nearly all the harbor - some sort of aquaculture equipment right in the middle so that the harbor was otherwise unusable & it didn't seem to be in operation, which evidently is becoming common. We finally went in behind a very high wharf and found a fishing boat to tie to. The wharf had floating docks which made the mooring arrangements much easier with such a large tidal range.
Fishing boats were rafted up three and four wide. These fishing boats are limited to 45 feet in length by the fisheries regulations. But, you guessed it - the regulations do not limit the width. So the fishing boats were 25 and 30 feet wide! Raft 4 of these together and you can really fill up a harbor. We managed to find a mooring tender with a low flat deck to moor to. None of these boats seemed to be moving; I think they were between fishing seasons. They fish lobster in the winter and were also set up for longlining.
We walked one way then the other. Gina found a whole beach made out of skipping stones. The water was too rough for skipping them. Some hand-made benches invited us to anchor our butts, even if the sign prohibited anchoring our boat in the cable crossing.
We walked on up into town, tried for wifi at the (closed) library, walked up to the cemetery, and had dinner in a café which was in a multifaceted business, Robicheau's: gas station/grocery store/whale watch/café and even some sort of lodging. When we got back at dusk, a fellow on the docks took $25 for the moorage, said he was official. Quite late, fireworks off a porch above us somewhere landed some nasty orange stuff on our decks.
Sunday, July 23, Westport to Yarmouth, 32nm.
We headed out in the morning past Peter's Island which appears to be a volcanic neck, basalt with hexagonal cracking, and along the volcanic cliffs on the east side of the island before heading across St. Mary's Bay.
We motored the whole way ... again. Motored up the long dramatic channel to the Yarmouth waterfront. We landed at Killam Wharf before 5 PM but couldn't raise anyone on the phone or at the office. We walked about, went to Rudders for dinner. Sundays are awful quiet in Yarmouth. No reason to stay on a dock under the lights, so we moved off to pick up a mooring by Doctor Island. The island was interesting, covered with cormorants and nesting heron.
As we got settled, we received a "satellite message" on the deLorme from Russ that Marge's good friend Susan and her traveling companion were just then eating dinner in Rudders! They were stuck in Yarmouth because their ferry had been canceled. We called them up and after they finished their dinner I dinghyed them from the floating dock in front of the restaurant out to the boat. We had nice conversation and told stories on Russ and Marge. Due to the lateness of the hour and the difficulty of getting into the dinghy from the boat, we let go the mooring and motored the ladies back to the dock. And puttered back out after dropping them off dry shod.
Monday July 24, Yarmouth to Woods Harbour, 30nm.
The ferry was running in the morning and presumably Susan and Peggy were on it, we couldn't spot them in the crowd on deck.
We were again waiting for tide and wind. We dinghied ashore at Killam Wharf. We walked around town stopping in at the Tourist Information Centre at the ferry landing. We got a bonanza of tourist brochures and an excellent map of the province (used on the index page, color coded by region).
It took some doing, but we finally got someone from Killam wharf, we paid for the mooring and gassed up.
Lotsa tide and wind and drizzlee. Predictions for stormy weather. We took the "Schooner Passage" though the islands. The tide surged, setting us this way and that. We looked into Pubnico and decided it was a little too open for the impending bad weather. So, we transited Cockerwit Passage, chock full of rocks, to Woods Harbour. Do not try this at night!
At Woods Harbour, we ended up behind the breakwater tied to the "Margo&I" fishing boat. She looked a little unused (and certainly not going out in the near future).
We were in a very snug spot in a very snug harbor.
This was "Lower" Woods Harbour. No one around. We walked out to the road, looked up and down; we could see another busier harbor further up the shore but we were pretty comfortable at this wharf. We climbed back down the wharf ladder to the "Margo&I". As we crossed over to our boat a woman appeared on the wharf above us. She lived across the street and had seen us wandering around. She drove over to see that we were alright (in the "not criminals" sense) and that we were alright (in the "not in distress" sense). She watched all the comings and goings on the wharf from her kitchen window. We asked where the nearest place to eat was and she directed us South about half mile to a Café, Captain Wayne's. She offered us a ride, but we felt we needed the walk, even in the rain.
Later, a hopper heaped with rockweed was being emptied into another hopper, evidently used as an emulsifier.
Storm overnight. Snug harbor.
Tuesday July 25, Woods Harbour to Clarks Harbour, 8nm.
"Nova Blue", which had loomed over us, moved out. Her crew pulled the "Margo&I" (and us) out of the way so she could get by. They left her mooring lines a little loose, making it harder for us to get from her deck to the ladder in the wall of the Wharf. But, the "Margo&I" has a convenient boat hook to pull her close. We walked northward on the highway in the morning to West head where there was another, more active, harbor, and a bigger better wharf. That's where the Nova Blue had gone! We stopped at the museum, with its local displays it gave some of the feel for the history of the place.
Bought takeout burger (Gina) and pizza slice (Bo) at Anthony's Red and White Grocery Store and walked back to the boat. That was an excellent slice of pizza! It was so thick I could not have eaten another.
We sailed on over to Clarks Harbour after the wind diminished in the afternoon (but still, quite a bit of wind). Clarks Harbour is on Cape Sable Island. This is not to be confused with Sable Island which is an uninhabited crescent of sand about 100 miles off the coast.
Wharf master Dick Crowell was very welcoming and had a lot of information. He also did a great job of describing how the huge tides in the Bay of Fundy tides affected tides around Cape Sable. Once you pass Cape Sable, you no longer have to worry about 20-30 foot tides, but the currents are still affected. So, while a ten-foot tide may be going in to a harbor, the current may nonetheless be going out, as the water is washing around Cape Sable to go into the Bay of Fundy at the same time that it's going into a harbor on to the east of the Cape.
Clarks Harbor has a wonderful boardwalk along the shore, which leads to fields and their library, a snug spot with wifi (and a bathroom)! We heard shrieking in the afternoon, and looked out to see some teens jumping off the wharf into the water. We'd been missing our usual swimming in Maine, so checked the water temperature - it was 52 F (or 11 C)! No wonder they were shrieking!
Wednesday July 26, Clarks Harbor around Cape Sable to Ingomar, 24nm.
After a quiet night, we had to wait for the right time in the tide cycle go around the Cape. We chatted with some men on the dock, one of whom worked for the Irish Moss company, Tidal Organics. Turns out Irish Moss is used for innumerable food products. Clark's Harbour has an everything sign that shows the three kinds of seaweed, including Irish moss. We thought the innermost passage, behind the Cape Sable spit looked more protected, but it's unmarked and the men suggested we avoid it, one noting that it would be dangerous to try as, "You might get through okay one day, but don't mean you h'aint gonna hit a rock the next." We heard a range of wonderful accents.
We waited for slack high to go around Cape Sable. So we left the harbor at 11:00, arrived off the Cape at 12:00. No problem at all, just the swell. Kept a close eye on Blacks Rock as we passed.
Headed for Cape Negro Island as the fog closed in, obliterating all sight of the shore.