Where do we go from here?

I can make decisions on my own, but I realized that I greatly appreciated the back and forth suggestions and discussions that I had with the previous crew. Sasha started reading the cruising guide while we were doing the shakedown cruise in Maine, Mark started looking at it when he came aboard in Halifax. Katya was first happy to delegate all decisions to us, but after the passage from Sable island, she also took some time to look at what was around us, and ultimately we made some sort of consensus decision that made sense given the weather information at hand. So far, my sister and her husband implicitly delegated the decision making process to me. Well, we did have a decision that was made for us: the run to Wagmatcook to pick up Dima and his son Alex. Now that this part of the mission is accomplished, the possibilities are endless.

The weather is, of course, a major factor. Luckily, it appears that the Friday forecast for a low pressure system with 30-knot winds has been replaced with a high pressure system with modest to no wind. Definitely a much better option while having 4 kids aboard. This gives us an opportunity to venture out of the lake into the Gulf of St Lawrence.

But then there is the consideration of tidal currents. Mark and I were very lucky to catch the right current at the time of our (unintended) departure. This time around, the flood will be running till early afternoon, so going out early doesn’t really make sense. However, that limits how far we can get to for the night anchorage. Having observed the gulf and its rapid changes, I don’t want to spend a night exposed. I’ve been eying Jersey cove at the entrance to St Anns bay, but it isn’t mentioned neither in the guide nor on ActiveCaptain. And then I remembered that Bob sent us a link to cruising-cape-breton. The cove is mentioned there, so now I have a plan for today and Thursday. And plans are typically subject to change.

Rough night

Of course, when sailors hear “rough night”, the first thought is that the boat has been tossed around. That was not the case, the bay where we are staying is very shallow: we have only 3 feet under our keel, the holding ground is mud, so Salty Ginger has been as flat as if we were in a (tiny) apartment.

Alex’ eyes were closing while we were finishing the dinner, so he was sent into my cabin to sleep. He must have been anxious, because half hour later when I quietly came in to start assembling the linens for the bed in the saloon, he was lying there with the eyes wide open. Since us adults wanted to chat a bit more, we decided to have the boys sleep in the forward cabin — they will (or at least should) sleep in. Andres did a quiet protest and went to sleep into his sisters’ cabin.

Lights off, I fall asleep. Someone wakes up to go to the bathroom, then someone else. Then Dima’s phone starts ringing an alarm. A minute later Diego’s phone went off at full blast. We were informed that the police are looking for someone. At 2am I do not need to know that! I thought that I would happily drown that someone if I hear him swim towards the boat and fell asleep.

Then I hear someone else walk through the cabin and they touch my leg. I assumed that it was Alex who got up, but no, it was the dog who decided to jump onto the bed, perhaps to make sure that he wouldn’t get stepped on.

But that was not all. Some time around sunrise Alex did wake up and said that he couldn’t sleep and needed to charge his watch. I growled that he should put the watch into his backpack and get it out next week when he disembarks. Ultimately he crawled back into the bed and is still sleeping.

For whatever reason Andres woke up and decided that he will crawl back into his sisters’ cabin. Boys… Alina objected, but couldn’t kick him out, so I took that task and chased him back to the forward cabin and got up.

At 6:55 Dima’s phone went off again to inform us that the guy has been caught. Thanks! My phone is set into the automatic do-not-disturbed mode from 23:30 till 7:00, so I saw a blinking quiet message when I was done brushing my teeth.

Dima looked at me get up and even got dressed, but then reassessed the situation: it is 5am in Chicago right now, and he had to get up at an ungodly hour to catch the flight to Halifax.

And as for me… I made some coffee, looked at the weather, found the cruising guide and wrote up the adventures of the last 10 hours while observing the green greyness of Nyanza Bay.