It’s amazing how quickly the vacation went by. We are on a mooring where Salty Ginger will stay until October. Julia drove Dima and Alex to the bus stop, the rest of the crew walked over to Foodland to stock up for lunch, dinner and breakfast, and tomorrow we leave Cape Breton Island.
Lightning astern
Yesterday was quite a peculiar day. We woke up to a lovely sunny weather, practically windless. The usual excitement of swimming went on for a couple of hours until the skies started to get covered by clouds. While we were having lunch we could hear the thunder in the upper layers of the clouds and on the south shore of East Bay it was raining. The thunderstorm cell passed to the south and way to the west, where we were planning to go, the skies were lighter.
After lunch the wind picked up and it got significantly colder, so I put on the foulies, Alina raised the anchor and we motored out of the protection of McPhee island. It started to rain, but not too bad. The wind was on our beam and Salty Ginger sped forward with the dark skies behind us. Then it started to rain.
Behind us and to the north of us we saw a few lighting strikes, but we were going west and the system was moving to the northeast. Perfect timing. There was another system on the horizon, but it dissipated on its own, contrary to the radar prediction that Diego was observing.
The wind was slowly dying, and once the boat speed dropped below 2 knots, it was clear that we should motor the rest of the way to Johnston harbour. It is another lovely place, a protected lake fully surrounded by islands.
We first anchored not too far away from a little beach where the dog was walked. There was one problem: mosquitoes. They happily found the boat and it was obvious that we would get eaten alive. Once Julia, Diego and Georgi got back aboard, we picked up the anchor and moved a hundred meters away, smack in the middle of the harbour. We were the only boat anyway. The new spot made it a lot harder for mosquitoes to track us down, a huge improvement!
By now the skies were blue, the sun was shining, so Julia and the kids went swimming. My sister is like a marine animal, happy to stay in the water for hours so long as she doesn’t freeze.
Diego seasoned the last package of chicken which was cooked on the grill, he cooked some rice, and we snacked on the leftover canned fish and guacamole freshly made from the last avocado.
The only small issue was that the spot didn’t have any fish. Yet again! Since we got very lucky in St Anns Bay, the fish have been hiding from us. We got excited when something pretty long, perhaps a meter, jumped out of the water, apparently trying to feed. But even though the crew circled the pond on the dinghy, they couldn’t find a magic spot.
Julia and I laid in the cockpit watching the stars and were lucky to see a couple of shooting stars, but way less than the day before.
Quiet morning
I woke up just before the alarm which was set for 7. It was windless and the sun was shining through the light fog. We had an hour-long motor to St Peter’s and my long trip is now coming to an end.
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