Sunday 8th September 2019

This made me laugh

We are the green dot, direct hit from Hurricane Dorian 

We were really hesitant approaching Adriana scared for what we might see - but there she was just as we had left her. She does have some battle scars where the engine attached to the  fibreglass dingy had gouged into the hull and a few surface scratches. But that is nothing we were incredibly lucky.  The dingy had lost a seat and an oar but we will easily be able to replace them.

The fibreglass dingy that caused the damage 

Just a few surface scratches 

The oar must have got caught in the dock

  

We climbed aboard everything outside was covered in sea water and she was really cold and felt damp but nothing had moved around or caused any damage inside.  We hung around a while but it was still really windy and wet, and the seas were still rollie, so we scurried back to Pierrettes and decided to stay a second night in her lovely warm secure home :) 

Pierrettes huge cat Mr Benz has 7 toes on each paw 

Pierrette treating us to a beautiful dinner This was once we knew Adriana was OK 

Monday 9th September 2019

The next morning we were up early the sun was shining and the waters were calm, we borrowed Pierrettes car and took our suitcase and bags back to the boat then we started putting Adriana back together.  On went the solar panels, dodger flags etc It took us all day not even stopping for lunch. 

and back on went the solar panels 

The solar panels took the longest, the blocks holding the solar panels on, that we had cut off were salvageable but the bolts needed to be replaced.  I asked one of the young fishermen who was moving his boat back onto the harbour wall if he happened to have a spare bolt on his boat, he said he would check - well next minute he was driving to the hardware and returned with exactly what we needed.

I offered to pay but he wouldn't take anything so we left a couple of beers on his boat for him I hope he knew they were from us.

Craig who always has his eyes on the weather and is constantly planning ahead announced "We are leaving tonight" tomorrow there is another wild weather front coming through. Tonight has the best conditions for heading south from the Magdalene Islands. 

We literally ran back to Pierrettes and borrowed her car again, went to the bank and the supermarket I tried to buy Craig a hot roast chicken but they had sold out for the day so he had to settle for some ham and a baguette.  We paid Chislain for our last few day in Etand De Norg, said our goodbyes and more thank yous to Pierrette, as expected she would not take any money from us so I left her with one of  my favourite red silk scarves as a memento, and we purchased Mr Fox, we were sad to leave our new friends but also happy to be on the move again.

Renaud our new crew member 

We motored out of Etan De Nord around 6pm there was a stunning sunset and favourable winds we had 16-18 knots pushing us along, we sailed all through the night once we rounded that dreaded cape the conditions were not too bumpy or uncomfortable it just got cold.  

Another stunning sunset

We reheated spag bolognaise from the freezer and I even managed to get a couple of hours

sleep downstairs.  Craig gets his sleep upstairs so that if I need him he is very close by.

  

We sailed past Cape Breton Island in fact during the night we had the lights from Cape Breton Island on one side and Prince Edward Island on the other horizon.  

The blue dot is us

We were treated to another stunning sunrise as we entered into St Georges Bay our plan was to stop at Havre Boucher (another one of those names that sticks in your head sort of rolls of the tongue) - but it was still early afternoon and we had enough time before sunset to go through the Canso lock, Canso Canal and down the Canso Straight to our chosen  anchorage.  We had been sailing up until we reached the entrance to the lock so we were happy with the conditions we had had.

The lock was easy to manage, we are old hands at these locks now.  This one had only just reopened after 48 hours without power,  the Hurricane had wiped out power to most of Halifax too. Once through we kept the motor on for another 4nm  as we made our way through a couple of marked channels into a sheltered bay, behind Jankevin Island we dropped the anchor, literally had something to eat and fell into bed still recovering from our hurricane experience.

Nothing looks nice in the rain

There was some damage from the hurricane evident on land 

The winds were forecast to increase overnight so we kept the anchor alarm on just incase. It rained all the next day and we were happy to stay inside resting catching up on our lost
nights sleep.
The scenery was back to forest all spruce trees very rugged and remote.
One job we did was pull out all our maps for Halifax to New York, and put away our Ontario to Québec and the St Lawrence River ones - that was quite exciting we have traveled 1600 nautical miles.

Sorting out our charts now we are through the lakes and on our way to NYC

We had a very rocky second night and Adriana swung around with all the wind changes and we were glad to move on the next day its probably stunning in Summer but there was not much to see in the rain.

On we went through the day and the next night as well, this time we got really cold !! We had all our wet weather gear on our thermals plus 3 layers, our beanies blankets from below, so coId I even had to go and makeup 2 hot water bottles during the night.  We sat huddled together wrapped in blankets with so many clothes on we could hardly move.  But we were excited to be out in the North Atlantic heading towards Halifax.

Night sailing 

Our first view of Port of Halifax

 

9.31 am  13th September 2019

We pulled down our sails as we approached the Port of Halifax our destination for a few days was the West Arm we had heard that we could anchor there, it was close to the Binnacle store, a Yacht Club and public transport.

Halifax Friday 13th September 

We had fun for a few days catching buses to enjoy some shopping we treated ourselves to a new camera - iPhones are a bit limited so we are excited to have a good camera we just wish we had access to a camera shop months ago. We treated ourselves to a new TV
Adriana's TV had been locked on "headphone mode" and was useless. I dragged Craig to one of the biggest thrift shops I have ever seen and he managed to find a brand new pair of Levis that fitted him perfectly and a couple of pairs of track pants, me I found nothing. We did a couple of trips to the supermarket as we could only buy what we could carry plus we had to catch the local bus and walk down a hill to the YC.

The shop Binnacle was great we replaced a couple of lines (ropes) that were old and stiff the new ones just fly through the winches. I made Craig buy a pair of really good warm waterproof gloves as he is the one who has to stand at the wheel out in the wind, I can shelter under the dodger.  And we had our first junk food for months I'm not going to admit what it was but as usual it tastes ok while your eating it but you really don't enjoy it that much it is that ingrained image of how its going to make you feel good that gets you every time.

The Yacht Club and surrounds 

View from Adriana to YC 

Halifax is a great city we had a day walking  down to and then around the harbour/waterfront checking out the history and people watching.  Nova Scotians have a very different accent, its got a European/Scottish twang to it and sometimes its quite hard to decipher.  Its very true to its name and there is a lot of Scottish history with so many suburbs having names originating from Scotland and Ireland. A couple  of evenings we could hear the sound of bagpipes coming from the park opposite where we were anchored it must have been a local piper practicing.   There were a couple of other cruising boats anchored beside us and we got  to say hello, the most interesting one had just arrived back from spending the Summer in Greenland - Terry is British born but has been cruising for 30 years, he had even been to Antarctica twice !!

We had so many questions and we managed to spend an hour or so chatting in the Armdale YC one evening.  We met Paul and Catherine on their twin Hull, the three of us went back to the huge thrift store, it took 2 buses to get there and 2 buses to get back it literally took all day. 

I spent a day sitting in the YC, we made the local paper at home, with our hurricane adventure, so the pressure was on to update the blog.  I sat from 11 - 4 we felt obliged

to stay for a beer and buy dinner, no one said anything about me plugging into their electricity and using the Wi-Fi but I felt uncomfortable.  The meal was delicious and it was nice to eat out for a change.

Wednesday 18th September 2019

Our anchor windlass had still been playing up there is a part of the mechanism that has broken it  is a round plastic piece that helps feed the chain into the locker and prevents it from bunching up on itself.  We had checked the wind forecast and there was a window for today we were all ready to go and Craig was pulling up the anchor and I was in my place at the wheel with the engine in neutral ready to go forward over the anchor on Craig's command and then steer out once the anchor is pulled upl.  Craig stopped halfway and came back to the cockpit, he explained what was wrong and immediatly rang Binnacle to source the part.  We were told "its going to take at least 2 weeks for the part to arrive here in Halifax"
We were enjoying our spot at the Armdale YC but didn't want to spend another week there. 

Craig went out and tried the winch again and was able to lift the anchor, as long as he takes it up slow and hand feeds the chain.  Once we knew we could lift the anchor we decided to just go, we paid for the part over the phone and Binnacle will send it on to us once they receive it.

We motored out of Halifax passing some huge ships including this luxury cruise ship - we googled it is deemed to have a 7 star rating, it is  $10,000 a week, and that was the "special price"

Luxury Cruise ship 7 nights $10,000 pp

The fog can get really thick around this part of the Atlantic with the warm water and cold air, we passed these huge buoys they have bellows inside that makes the most haunting noise, that can be heard for miles.  

We managed to sail most of the way but the wind dropped late in the afternoon so on went the engine, its good to run the motor as this heats the hot water perfect timing as we are coming into a port we can then take a hot shower and do the dishes from the passage. The wind did pick up so we were able to put the sails back up and sailed  from Mahone Bay into Lunenburg.

                                            Lunenburg is postcard pretty.