Ups and downs

We tied up Salty Ginger at the Halifax waterfront yesterday with my parents and kids. The city has a welcoming feel, and while we were a bit wary of being right next to a restaurant, all noises stopped at midnight and we had a good night.

We took two days to get from Lunenburg to Halifax with a stopover in the Southwest Cove inside St Margarets Bay. It's a tiny cove that was perfectly sheltered from the strong SW winds, but as our guide book pointed out, there is very little room to anchor because almost all the water has been taken by moorings. Given the forecast wind, we dug in our anchor in a dicey, but seemingly reasonable spot. As we were cooking dinner we saw bald eagle flying very close to us, trying to catch a fish, and then preening his feathers. Close enough to identify him without binoculars, but rather hard to take a picture in the light.

Beautiful moon rose over the bay as we were eating, and then we see a motor boat heading our way. The gentleman in the boat introduced himself as the commodore of the Southwest Cove Yacht Club, and asked whether we knew how precarious was the spot where we chose to drop anchor. In any case, he said, they have a guest mooring that we are welcome to use. Wow! That meant a good night sleep rather than worrying about hitting rocks in the darkness. Once we moved, we rowed over to the nearby house where people were sitting in front of a fire to thank them for their hospitality. The commodore was not there, but they invited us to the fire for some smores and beer. We got a tour of the ex-fishing cabin that they are renting for a couple of weeks every summer, and spent a nice evening until it was time to put Peter to sleep.

In the morning we got S.G. into shipshape form, pulled off from the mooring and right as we started to get ready to enjoy the sail. BAM! And again. We hit one of the rocks with our keel. I don't yet know how much of a dent we have, but there is definitely some damage that will have to be fixed. Peter bumped his head and mom got a scratch, but otherwise everyone was safe, and I didn't see any leaks around keel bolts. Rather scary, though, and I'll need to survey the damage before the run to Maine.

On the passage we had the pin that mounts spinnaker pole bend out of shape. That and the fact that we almost chafed through the jib sheet on a wing-and-wing run we discovered while trying to jibe the pole. I knew that the pin was bent, so I had a replacement ready to go. Of course, in hindsight the pin should have been replaced in port rather than in the middle of the Gulf of Maine since having the pole crash onto the deck could have been disastrous.

Other than that, we have seen some "cosmetic" damage, like corroded non-load bearing slides, but so far we have been lucky, except for hitting that damn rock.

Back to Halifax, Irina flew in today, and my sister with her family is flying in tomorrow, so we are enjoying time aboard as a family with beautiful neighbors like this.