Visiting friends, making friends

I’m sitting in the comfort of a lovely house in Ben Eoin overlooking the East Bay. Salty Ginger is anchored some 50 meters away.

The house belongs to Bob and Carol, both sailors, who raise their two daughters here since they moved away from NYC during Covid. Bob used to work with Mark at the Met Opera as a sound engineer and was delighted to see his former colleague.

Yesterday he arranged for us to pull into the yacht club where he was playing a gig with a couple of local musicians. He treated us to dinner (thank you, Bob) and then we motored 300 meters to drop the anchor right next to his house and spent the evening sitting at the fire. Bob and Mark were talking about their Met days and we exchanged a few sailing stories. Then Mark and I rowed back to Salty Ginger.

Bob used to live on the boat in NJ for quite a while and met his wife who is Cape Breton native, on his repeated trips to Nova Scotia. Amazingly enough, he single handed the steel cutter across the Gulf of Maine back and forth!

One of the reasons to come out here was for Mark to be able to reach Halifax. After repeated failed attempts to find a transport that would get him to the bus stop or to find a shuttle, Mark was happy that Bob could drive him to Sydney where he got onto the 8am bus across all of Cape Breton Island and down to Halifax.

Bob and Carol understand the challenges (and the beauty) of the cruising lifestyle, so they kindly allowed me to do the laundry and offered to take their car to get groceries. The laundry is done, but I think doing the latter in St Peters will be simpler — we will restock with my sister tomorrow when they arrive.

Getting here

From the point where we were anchored the night before we had a 30+ mile sail. We started motoring in Great Bras d’Or: the wind was light and in our face. Tacking back and forth would have delayed us too much.

Once we passed the Big Harbor, the wind picked up and we started to sail. It seemed that it would be possible to come out into the wider part of the lake on a single tack! But no, the wind kept shifting by 20 degrees to the right and to the left, gusting up and then dropping almost completely.

When we saw Baddeck far to starboard the wind picked up to 20 knots. Sails reefed, boat fully under control, full speed ahead.

I went down to turn the desalinator on and discovered that the primary high pressure pump does not build up pressure. I used the second pump to put some fresh water into the tank, and with the help of the pressure from the water system I could flush the system, but I need that pump working in order to pickle the system for a month and a half. Some troubleshooting lies ahead.

When I popped my head back into the cockpit it was time to fully unroll the sails: the wind died down. Then there was so little of it that we rolled in the Genoa and started motoring towards the Barra Strait bridge. The operator confirmed over the radio that he will open the bridge when we get within quarter mile and we went through without any issues.

The wind was now behind us, so after lunch we raised the spinnaker and moved at a comfortable 4-5 knots directly where we wanted to go. But once we entered the East Bay, the wind was too far forward, so down went the spinnaker to be replaced by the code-0. The wind continued to shift in crazy ways. We would be on broad reach, then almost close-hauled, then beam reach, but always on port tack. The wind speed also did not stay constant, so the boat speed varied from 2.5 to 7.5 knots.

As we were close to the marina, Bob texted us that he is starting a gig and we can pull in and tie up. Thanks, we’ll do that. But first! The water temperature was 25C! Mark said that he won’t go into the marina before taking a swim. That was great! It was hot the entire day, so plunging into the water felt wonderful. We washed off the salt, tied the fenders and pulled up to the dock. Bob took a break from playing the keyboard and came to meet us, saying that he was pleasantly surprised to have someone sail all the way to the end of the East Bay.

I do enjoy living aboard, but coming off the boat to meet new people and to break up the routine is very enjoyable. Especially so when the hosts are so hospitable and accommodating.