July 2008

On Monday July 7, 2008 I stepped out of a cab at the Dobson Yacht Club in Sydney, Nova Scotia. After the long winter, I had finally returned to Windsong. There she was, faded from ten months of sun. I climbed up and dialled the combination into an astonishingly rusty lock. The companionway slid open and a gentle waft of "eau de mildew" met my nostrils. Ah home, sweet home!

So began two and a half weeks of scrubbing, painting, rigging and installing. In the end she was sweet smelling and back afloat with a new RADAR, new wind generator, new battery monitor system, and most of last year’s breakages fixed.

Dad arrived before the work was done. He brought with him the tail end of a hurricane that dumped rain on us for three of those days, stretching two days work into four. Finally, on July 25, the skies cleared and we departed over calm seas to Neil’s Harbour on the northeast coast of Cape Breton Island.  A pod of dolphins escorted us out of Sydney Harbour.

Everything worked on our shakedown, so the next morning we departed for our 130 mile crossing to St. Pierre, France. The wind steadily built until 30 miles out. We were close reaching with a reefed main and half a genoa, and struggling to keep the rail out of the water. The forecast was for conditions to improve, but then again, it was never supposed to build to 30-35 knots. We decided to turn back. As the genny came across, there was a huge bang and the dinghy, that had been strapped to the foredeck, was suddenly on its side against the lower lifelines. It wasn’t until I went forward to resecure the dinghy that I realized what had happened. The genny sheet had caught under the dinghy. The heavier lines I had added after the Baie Chaleur gale had held. Instead it had ripped a chunk out of the handrail it had been tied to. Soon after we turned around, the forecast was upgraded to a wind warning. Good call!

Sunday’s forecast was for the winds to shift to the SE which would have been almost on the nose for St. Pierre so we set sail instead for Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. Sure to its reputation, we entered a fog bank 18 miles before we reached "The Rock". We called in to Port aux Basques Traffic as we entered this busy shipping area known for its poor visibility. They informed us that visibility in the harbour was zero and that we would have to call in again at two more designated places on our approach. The RADAR found the buoys and we began our approach. Once in the harbour we could only see the odd shadow indicating the land. I went forward, dropped the main and began folding it when I was almost basted off of the deck by a ship’s fog horn at extremely close range. We were searching frantically for a wall of steel approaching us when Port aux Basques traffic called and informed us that was the ferry’s warning that it would be departing in 30 minutes. What a relief!

We tied to the wharf along with two other cruising boats then watched the ghost of the 300 foot ferry pass almost invisibly 100 feet away. The locals were happily fishing off of the wharf in this dense fog. Is this what it was always like on this rock in the Atlantic? According to the other cruisers on the dock, it pretty much was.

Two days later we sailed back into the murk, bound for Grand Bruit (Grand Brit), a small outport that the other cruisers had raved about. We were joined by a boat from France. It was owned by a club in which the members sail the boats in four week shifts all over the world. It had sailed across the Atlantic to take part in the 400^th anniversary celebrations in Quebec City. This crew of nine had joined the boat in Gaspe, had sailed to the Magdalene Islands, and were now on their way to St. Pierre where they would meet the crew who would bring her home.

Grand Bruit was entered by Braille. Our position on the chart plotter and the radar echos were all we had to go on until the breakers emerged out of the mist. Here we were in this improbable little town perched on the rocks trying to scratch a living out of this unforgiving sea. We joined the locals at the local gathering place, the ten foot by ten foot "Cramalot Inn". Most of the houses were built on stilts because the terrain is so steep. The roads were sidewalks and like any true outport, the only way in or out was via the sea. A man from Cornwall had retired here at set up a museum by restoring a house to show how life had been here only fifty years ago, before electricity had been run to the town. The ceilings were about six and a half feet downstairs and five foot ten upstairs to keep in the heat produced by the wood burning stove. He had the original feather mattresses and clothing and rugs that had been made with bleached and dyed flour sacks. Nothing could be wasted. Running water had been around for a long time since it could be obtained by running pipes from the pond above town that supplied the waterfall that created the great noise the town was named after. Still, it was only used for the kitchen sink. The only modern convenience that had been added later was a flush toilet. There was no shower. You just did your morning ablutions at the wash stand next to the kitchen sink. The surrounding hills were completely barren. Wood for building and heating still has to be obtained by a boat trip to neighbouring Cinq Cerf Bay.

The French did not find the fog to be enough of a challenge, so they departed in the pitch black of 4 am. We waited until 7:30 for our own voyage into the murk bound for Grey River. On our approach, all we saw of the 300 foot cliffs, other than their radar echoes, was the breakers at their base. The opening was right where the chart said it would be and we slid through to find ourselves suddenly in a brilliantly sunlit fjord. We journeyed up the fjord a little before deciding to tied to the ferry dock in the town for the night. We were accompanied by an Irish boat that was nearly finished a circumnavigation of the Atlantic, through Africa, South America, and now North America. This was their short trip. On the previous trip they had sailed around the world.

Grey River was a bigger outport but far more compact. The habitable land consisted of a shelf at the base of the cliff in a little bay in the side of the fjord. Habitable was subject to a Newfoundlander’s definition. It was so far from the nearest road, and the terrain so impassable, that they could not run hydro wires. Power was instead supplied by a huge diesel generator. The town was in high spirits. A local named Ira was dropped by helicopter near the dock and told us about the two mining explorations that were going on above the town. He had just come down from one. The other source of excitement was the Jamboree that was to take place on the weekend. Half of the town was out setting up the tent for the band shell, and a dory to fill with ice and beer (I’m not kidding!).

July 31 we departed for St. Pierre. For the first time in our Newfoundland experience, there was no fog. We tied to the yacht club pier along with two French boats, a Swiss boat, and three Americans. If any of the instructors at South Port speaks French, there is plenty of work in St. Pierre. They have a huge sailing school at the yacht club because sailing is part of the high school curriculum. The terrain looks like Scotland and the buildings look like large versions of the outport salt box houses, but we are definitely in France. The cars are Renauds, Peugots, and Citrons and there are fantastic restaurants everywhere!