It is mighty nice of the low pressure system to have missed Cape Breton Island. The sunny weather with moderate winds makes it a lot easier to cruise with kids. They can stay in the cockpit, they don’t get seasick and they have something to do. I feel for the nature, though: the vegetation would be very happy with rain. Perhaps it will get some moisture in the next few days, but nothing major in any case.
Coordinating the passage out of St Anns Bay with the Englishtown ferry was as seamless as the night before. The ferry crossed the narrows as we were approaching it and told me on the radio that it’ll be safe in a minute. Then a fellow yelled from the deck that we were good to go. Within a couple of minutes after we crossed, the ferry started its journey back. What a repetitive job with lots of responsibility…
At first the wind was light and behind us. Spinnaker? “No way,” said the wind shifting forward some 40 degrees with a gust. But then it quieted down, so sailing with the genoa was a bit slow. Code-0 it is. The wind continued to dance around: broad reach, close reach, beam reach. Andres steered the boat most of the way and seemed to have learned how to resist the boat rounding into the wind in gusts. I foresee more shifty and gusty winds over the next few days, so we’ll see whether the lesson was learned.
Bird islands
This time around we were not as lucky with the puffins as we were a week ago. I motored slowly on the leeward side of the islands. We saw many groups of seals. Some popping their heads out of the water to check us out, some basking in the sun.
An eagle was perched on the top of the cliff. At the same time another eagle was being chased by a couple of gulls. Clearly someone got too close to a chick. The eagle that wasn’t bothering anyone also ended up being chased away. It was rather amusing to observe how smaller birds with much more manoeuvrable flight could chase away a big predator.
In the distance through the binoculars I spotted the only puffin. The groups of puffins that Mark and I observed were nowhere to be seen. They must have missed the message that we were coming…
By now it was late and everyone was hungry. Julia fried the smaller mackerels in the galley and everyone enjoyed the fish while being rocked by the building seas rolling in from abeam.
Gusty sailing
Even though the tide tables predicted reversal of the current by 15:00, we encountered helpful current in both at Point Noir and at the Seal bridge. Once we were through those the northwesterly wind seemed to make it possible to sail in the rather narrow arm of the lake.
The hills over which the wind was coming did crazy things to the air. This time I was ready, holding the jib sheet in my hands, ready to ease it in the puffs. Salty Ginger would accelerate to over 6 knots, then slow down to 2. A couple of times when I was ready to roll the sails in and start motoring, the wind would come back. Ultimately it started blowing in our face, so to make it possible for everyone to swim, we rolled the sails in — I delegated that job to the kids — and pulled into Big Harbour.
It seems that the locals name their harbours based on the size of the entrance. The place where we are in today is way smaller than Little Harbour, but the entrance to the latter is some 30 meters wide and here we are wide open to the east. Just like in Little Harbor, it feels like we are in a small lake. There are cliffs on one side, a couple of houses on the other side. We are tucked into a shallower part of the cove on the west side and out in the distance a hill closes the lake visually on the eastern side.
Georgi has become even braver than he was the first couple of days. He clearly doesn’t understand that the boat might heel suddenly and he would end up overboard. He would go on the leeward rail and even try to venture to the foredeck while we were underway. So periodically someone would yell to make sure that the dog ends up back in the cockpit.
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