Goodbye Nova Scotia

October 3, 2024

I am back in the cockpit of Salty Ginger. James, our self-steering vane is driving, Mark is taking a nap and I have a bit of time to write about the next adventure which was unplanned at the beginning of the year. Salty Ginger is under sail doing 7 knots. It’d be nice to go southwest, but alas King Neptune is setting his agenda, so we are sailing south. Our destination: Newport, RI.

At Bob & Carol’s

Mark and I met up at gate 49 in Montreal airport to take the flight to Sydney, NS. He just flew in from New York, me from Zurich. Both of us got up at 4:30 in our respective time zones, but we had things to talk about, so yawning was postponed until we were in the airplane and both of us tried to take naps.

During most of the flight we could only see clouds under the wing, but as soon as we were above Cape Breton Island it was clear! We could see St Peter’s channel leading from Bras d’Or Lake — at its end Salty Ginger was waiting for us. Further down we saw the marina at Ben Eoin, where we met up with Bob in August while he was playing his gig. Just a bit further down we could make out Bob & Carol’s house. 10 minutes later we landed.

Sydney airport is tiny. It gets only a handful of flights each day: from Montreal and from Halifax. The nice thing about the scale is that you just can’t get lost! Amazingly enough, our luggage was not lost either. Each of us had a bag stuffed with warm clothes. This is Nova Scotia after all!
Bob picked us up and we went to watch his oldest daughter play soccer before we went into downtown Sydney for dinner. The girls were at a ceramics class until 8pm, so we could have uninterrupted adult time.

Back at their house we had a beer and just as I was ready to hit the sack, the girls suggested we play ping pong. I figured that the best way to get over the jet lag was to be active till as late as reasonably possible, so I agreed to play for a little bit. That didn’t prevent me from waking up at 5:15, but hey, that’s much better than 3!

In the evening and then again in the morning Bob was checking the forecast for our crossing. “Oh, you guys are going to have a great time! You should motor while it’s calm, but then you will get northeasterlies. Oh, you will fly!” Carol was also enthusiastically approving of the time window that we got dealt. Of course, we invited both (or at least one of them) to come along — after all, we have an empty cabin — but logistically it was not possible.

Hello, Salty Ginger!

Bob drove us to St Peters, where he had never been before. Gerry was the first person we saw. With his friendly demeanor he said “You’re back!” He told us all about the boats he was storing for the winter: French, German, Canadian, American, even one from Falkland Islands. “Your boat is fine. But you might have some mussels on your dinghy!” He told us which dock we could tie-up to for water and to load groceries and went on to do his work.

The bottom of the dinghy was not covered in mussels. Instead we found some other soft marine life which would squirt water when we tried to get them off. With the oars we were able to scrub enough of them off and agreed to finish the rest of the job with a brush. Bob gave us hugs and left us to get ready for the voyage.

Back aboard indeed everything looked fine. We put on the foresail, the dodger and the bimini. I washed the chemicals out of the desalinator and ensured that it worked. Then we motored to the dock and started to clean the mucky bottom of the dinghy. That job took a while, but it was by far the most intensive task we had to do, and we clearly didn’t want to walk past a mucky dinghy the entire voyage.

We got  probably more groceries than we need for the 4-5 day crossing, and as we were carrying them back, Mark correctly remarked that it’s better not to shop for food while being hungry. Oh, well, better too much than not enough.

After our exquisite lunch of pasta with truffle (freshly delivered from Switzerland after Irina found it with our dog) we packed the dinghy, cleaned up the cabin enough for us to motor (it was absolutely windless) and we were ready to head out for St Peters canal.

I went to the marina office to settle with Gerry. I jokingly said that I need to pay him cause otherwise he will send Canadian Coast Guard to prevent me leaving the country. Gerry likes to tell stories. He said that there was only one guy who tried to leave without paying. Gerry called on the operator of the gates at the canal and the boat was stuck between the locks until the guy paid what he owed. He then told me in great detail the story of a boat that ran aground during the storm this September. “It was his mistake, alright. The mooring is good. His lines were chafed by the anchor. We were there 5 minutes after it ran aground, no damage. You did everything right.” Gerry ended up charging me less than half of what I expected to pay and after we shook hands he said, “You’ll be back. I know you will.”

Out in the bay

After a nice chat with the canal operators we started motoring south, but we were faced with a big surprise. The chart did not show any detail below a couple of miles. No buoys, no lighthouses — just the outline of the land. Oh, and the knot meter was not showing our speed over water.

The  speed problem was resolved by cleaning barnacles out of the little wheel that is turned by the motion of the water. Easy. The first problem was resolved by inserting the old chart chip (good thing I didn’t throw it away!). And just in time: we were about to leave a bouy on the side of the rocks that it was marking!

Mark and I alternated going down below to clean up the boat, to make beds, stow things away, etc. Then I heard him yell, “Dolphins!” A pod was fishing in the distance, but a few of them came to check us out and then headed back to the pod. It was as if they were saying goodbye on behalf of Nova Scotia. Maybe they were Canadian coast guard dolphins, making sure that Salty Ginger was headed out of the territorial waters…

Once we set sails and turned the motor off, a few came by again, but just like the last time, they didn’t stay long. Maybe they were curious why we weren’t making the engine noise anymore.
Sunset to starboard

A fresh breeze picked up from the southwest. While that was not ideal, we still had to clear Canso, and it is more fun to sail than to motor anyway. We had to reef the genoa to reduce the heel angle (it was a bit too late for things flying around in the cabin. And off we were, full speed ahead.

We agreed that Mark would take the 8 to midnight shift as the start of the shift rotation, so he went off to take a nap. A few dolphins continued to jump in the distance, and other than a few ships visible on AIS there was nobody around.

One of the things I love about overnight passages is observing the sun and the moon rise and set. The moon is new, so we won’t see much of it, but the sunsets and the sunrises will still be ours to enjoy. And when there are some clouds on the horizon, the sight is much more dramatic!
James is the quietest driver imaginable! Between August and now I refreshed my understanding of the Hydrovane, so I got him to be in tune with the sailplane. The crazy wind calmed down and shifted a bit in a favorable direction, so we are sailing fast, and yet it feels very peaceful. Time to cook dinner.