Bye bye Halifax

Saturday flew by! The border patrol people had no more interest in Salty Ginger and we didn’t mind that at all. The haddock fillets from Tommy were outstanding: Irina cooked them lightly battered — what a treat!

We walked around the waterfront, spent quality time getting ice cream and watching the sunset. For dinner we went to Darya’s which was an easy choice since we were docked 10 meters away from the restaurant.

Saying good bye and running chores

We took our time waking up and then met up with Sasha and Pasha for breakfast at Pane e Circo. After that we roamed a bit around Halifax and went to the farmer’s market, apparently the oldest one in North America, dating back to 1750s.

Back on the boat Irina, Peter and Mark had just enough time to get the rest of their belongings packed and we walked them to the bus. The biggest surprise was: for the 3 of them the tickets ran $64 instead of $5/person that Sasha paid for the trip. As we later figured out: the Maritime bus is much more expensive than the city bus. Oops.

David picked up the car from Lunenburg the evening before, so in the afternoon he and Alla were very kind to drive us around to get provisions and to get the laundry done. The only missing piece was a faucet-mountable water filter: in the grocery store they didn’t have it and in Walmart it was sold out and only available online. Just after 3, Alla and David started the drive back home after briefly meeting Katya who had just arrived from the airport (on the $5 bus).

Mark N arrived on the same physical airplane which Irina, Peter and Mark S took back to NYC, but of course because of border control it was impossible for them to say hello in person.

Once Mark was on Salty Ginger, we had an important mission to accomplish: find some wine and beer, and then find a book to help us identify the birds of the Nova Scotia waters. Katya led us to a bookstore on the waterfront which had all we needed and more. I spotted a drawing of a puffin and asked the woman who was helping us if they had something else by that artist. “Oh, I drew that,” she said. She showed me a few other things in the gallery that they also run, but ultimately the puffin won and is now hanging in our saloon.

Back on the boat we had more chores to do. Mark is very handy and is eager to fix things. I showed him the housing of the filter with its cracks and we developed a plan: use the marine sealant and clamps to seal the cracks and prevent the pressure from expanding the plastic. And while we were at it, we used the same glue on my old sandals — I tried to epoxy it last week, but it fell apart again. 

While Mark was planning the work, Pasha washed the deck and filled up the water tanks, Katya cleaned inside the boat, and Sasha and I fixed up a rail on the dinghy that got partially ripped out by the code-0 sheet. With all the mischief managed, the 4 of us plunged into the water. Mark with his Italian blood passed on the opportunity for rapid refreshment.

Intruders

At 1am I was woken up by loud noises of young people yelling and jumping into the water. They seemed to be close to the boat, but then seemed to have gone further away and when I tucked my head out of the hatch I saw them on the other side of the docks.

However in the morning I discovered that the swim ladder was in the water and my swim trunks that were supposed to be drying on it gone. Turns out that Sasha heard one of the kids say “I wonder if anyone is on the boat.” And another responded “there is only one way to find out.” So the rascals did board the boat, drop the ladder and then were chased away by Sasha. Unbelievable!

Easy sailing

The morning was practically windless. We did the last garbage round, filled up our water bottles from the marina faucet, had a quick coffee and left the dock. We already made plans to head to The Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron to fill up the diesel before heading out. Today we want to reach a little harbour called Owl’s head and early tomorrow morning start making our way to Sable Island. It is still not clear if we will be able to land: of the 4 models on PredictWind, two are showing northerly winds on Wednesday (probably no-go) and two southerly or westerly (should be fine). This was also true yesterday, so clearly something is going on offshore, and most likely we won’t know what we can do until we actually get to the island.

In the meantime, a bit of wind picked up and we’re moving east at a gentle pace of 4-5 knots. James, our autopilot, is steering the boat and we are not in a hurry, so it’s not a big deal if the zigzags that he does are a bit wide.

We saw a couple of seals and then off in the distance apparently whales, but they remain shy and don’t come close.