LORD’S PRAYER LOG, Part 289:

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Moored at the Marina, Cap aux Meules, les Îles de la Madeline, Quebec Province

            As we prepare to walk in to the village, a couple in a caravan-type vehicle asks if we would like a ride to the village. We say “sure” and hop in. Our benefactors have a boat here in the marina – they refer to it as a trawler. Its name is Meduse. It looks nicer than any trawler I’ve seen! They are out of Montreal. Anyway I ask if the name Meduse is French for jellyfish. The answer is “yes” but that it also has another meaning. There was once a goddess known as Meduse (Medusa in English). The boat is named for that goddess, who we are told was a snake with three heads – presumably if one head were cut off another would grow. Our driver explains that this seemed to him to be an appropriate name for a boat because he says that whenever he fixes one problem, another crops up, and that if you have a boat and you can’t find at least three problems with it, you haven’t looked very hard.  We laugh in agreement saying, “That’s a boat alright”!

            We have a very fine walk about town, stopping for brunch in a little café and then going on to climb the hill at Cap aux Meules, where we look out on the fine view all around the Archipelago. It is a fine day with lots of sunshine and the wind is quite vigorous being out of the SW at around 20 kts. After climbing the hill, we take a walk along a path on the tops of the bluffs along the shore; the views here are quite beautiful. After about a mile and a half the path slopes down close to a beach and we walk out onto the sand and wade into the water; the water is rather brisk! At the south end of the beach there’s a fine formation of red sandstone cliffs. We walk over to see it close at hand; we marvel at the softness of the sandstone and how one can scrape a mark into the cliffs and how the sandstone crumbles in places or how the small sandstone pebbles at the foot of the cliffs can be crushed into sand in one’s hand. Yet the sandstone looks like solid rock! On our walk back to the boat we pass through the village of Cap aux Meules. We stop along the way for a café au lait at a pleasant little roadside shop.

            On return to the boat we listen to the weather on the VHF. The wind is still blowing rather briskly, although it is not as strong as it was yesterday. It is expected to be lighter by the wee hours tomorrow and then to strengthen again tomorrow afternoon. We consider this information in the light of our wish to leave for Cape Breton Island, NS and we decide to pay our marina bill now so that we might be free to make a pre-dawn departure in the morning tomorrow if the weather still looks favorable at that time. We walk to town for a last meal of French cuisine and retire early for the night. We plan to rise before daylight, check the weather, and probably depart before the sun appears.

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Moored at the Marina, Cap aux Meules, les Îles de la Madeline, Quebec Province

Today is Christine’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRIS!

0453 Lord’s Prayer is underway, bound for Cape Breton Island. We expect to stop either at Ingonish or at Dingwall this evening. The distance to Ingonish is 90 nm and to Dingwall it’s about 15 nm shorter. The decision as to which will be our destination will be made later in the day when we see how the wind and the waves develop this afternoon and what sort of an effect these are having on the boat after passing Cape North and turning south along the East coast of the Cape Breton Highlands.

0520 We get the main and jib set and then put the boat onto an ESE heading to pass north of Entry Island (Île d’Entrée), which is located 8 nm across the archipelago.  With this accomplished, we secure the engine. The wind is SW 12-15 kts in light rain with an overcast sky. The wind is forecast to become a good bit stronger this afternoon; we would like to be past Cape North before that occurs.

0539 Sunrise.

0602 A moderate-strength rain shower activates our radar guard zone alarm; the shower subsequently passes over the boat and blows off to leeward.

0635 The wind abates to less than 10 kts; we start the engine to keep the boat moving along at a nice pace.

1338 We receive a call on the VHF channel 17 from Rosebud with Rick and Jacques aboard – that’s the red hulled sailboat out of Halifax that overtook us in the passage at Île d’Entrée on Wednesday on our way into les Île de la Madeleine. We were tied alongside Rosebud in Havre Aubert overnight and we met up with the crew of Rosebud again in Cap aux Meules. Rosebud is a few miles ahead of us enroute to Cape Breton. They’ve had an engine problem, which appears to be due to some fuel tank sludge that may have been picked up and clogged the Racor filter. They’ve changed their filter and the engine appears to be operational again but Rick has expressed an uncertainty as to whether it will continue to operate if he has to motor for very long.

1400 The high land at Cape St Lawrence is in sight in the mist now 2.5 nm on our starboard bow. It is quite a marvelous sight. Breathtaking! And the visibility has improved such that we now have Rosebud in sight ahead at 1.7 nm.

1445 We spot several dolphins around us; one passes very close from our starboard to port side. Awesome!

1500 We pass around Cape North with the wind now having gone light. Rosebud is talking to us about wanting to go on to Ingonish. Their engine ran for only about 5 minutes before conking out again. We tell them we will stay in company while they sort things out… that we won’t be able to tow them upwind in anything but light winds due to the limited power of our engine… but that we might be able to give them a tow to get through an inlet into a harbor.

1600 The Canadian Coast Guard gets into the act on the radio with Rosebud. They make contact with a fisherman out of Dingwall who has expressed a willingness to assist. He’ll be coming out of Dingwall shortly.

1710 The fisherman is on scene with Rosebud preparing to assist. We crank up our engine and head for Dingwall, motorsailing.

1810 Approaching Dingwall Harbor, we are impressed by the extraordinary natural beauty of the area. High mountains are at either side of our bow as we approach. Ahead there is an area of low lands, coastal bars and ponds behind long sandbars.

1819 We motor very slowly through the entrance to Dingwall. We’ve read that there is frequent shoaling at the entrance of this harbor and we don’t know quite what to expect in the way of water depth. The shallowest water shown on the chart on entry here is 6 feet and the present tide state is 2.4 feet. So we should see no less than 8.4 feet.

1823 We pass through the channel and the least water depth we see is 12’ as we pass through the inner set of breakwaters. Looking ahead we see that there’s a goodly amount of dredging equipment on hand here in the little harbor. So it is probably safe to suppose that dredging is in progress.

1840 We secure Lord’s Prayer alongside Rosebud, which by now, is tied to the Fitzgerald pier (on the south side of the harbor) – Scott, Paul and John Fitzgerald are on hand; they are 3 of the 4 brothers who own the pier; they all fish from Dingwall – Scott was running the towboat that brought Rosebud in. The Fitzgeralds are currently fishing for snow crabs. Clearly they also fish for lobsters when they are in season, as there are lots of lobster traps stacked up on their wharf. These fishermen tell us that they arise early at 0200 on fishing days and shove off in their boats around 0300. We find ourselves moored in 16 feet of water at position: 46 54.069 N 60 27.733 W. This little harbor is extraordinarily pretty with relatively level land in immediate vicinity; in the distance we can see the mountains all about. There is no cell phone service here, but remarkably we can pick up 2 English speaking TV channels.

1930 We walk up the road to the Celtic Touch Bakery and Pizzeria; here we fetch a couple of pizzas and bring them back to the boats to share with Rick and Jacques and the men who are trying to get Rosebud’s engine running.

2100 The engine in Rosebud starts and runs. Rick tells us he is probably going to stay over another day though, as he is in need of some spare Racor filters. We pull out what we have aboard Lord’s Prayer but these evidently are not large enough to do what he needs. He tells us that someone will bring the right filters to Dingwall tomorrow. We call it a night and put the screens into the companionway, as the mosquitoes have suddenly become quite fierce. Aboard Lord’s Prayer we retire early to be ready for an early departure in the morning.

Chris adds: Well, this has been a birthday like no other. Up early to cast off lines in the rain, motor-sailing most of the day, dolphins around us, and a rescue too! Quite exciting!

Monday, July 28, 2003

Moored to the Fitzgerald Pier, Dingwall Harbor, Cape Breton Island, NS

Today is Jim’s birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIM!

0536 Sunrise.

0555 Lord’s Prayer is underway. We have laid out a course to take us to Baddeck in the Bras d’Or Lakes today. The distance is 63 nm. The wind forecast yesterday morning for today was for strong westerlies, which would have meant a fair wind for us. But this morning the wind is now forecast to be strong SW with gusts to gale force. At the moment the wind is light. If it becomes strong out of the SW we may put into Ingonish, which is 15 nm south of Dingwall; if we go in there, we’ll wait for the wind to abate and to veer to a fair direction. Or if it comes on strong out of the SW within the next 2-3 hours we might turn around and return to Dingwall.

0604 We pass through the channel exiting Dingwall Harbor.

0623 At position 46 53.943 N 60 24.882 W in Aspy Bay, we find ourselves motoring through a fuel spill. We’ve got no clue where it came from.

0626 We’re clear of the spill. The wind is SSW 6-7 kts. The wind will be pretty much right on the nose when we round Cape Egmont about 6 nm ahead. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed that it stays light long enough for us to make some southing!

0648 We transfer 12 gallons of fuel from deck jugs to the internal tank.

0652 At White Point, four little fishing boats are at work fishing for mackerel. There is a sailboat tied behind the breakwater at White Point Harbor.

0714 As we motor SE along the coast between White Point and Cape Egmont, the wind is nearly on the nose – slightly to starboard of bow: SSE 7-10 kts; the wind direction is probably being influenced by the presence of the near shore, which is quite bold and only a quarter mile to starboard.

0748 As we round Cape Egmont, the conditions become positively ugly with the wind strengthening and the sea surface turning into a very short chop. We re-plan our navigation to divert into New Haven Harbour (Hungry Cove), which is located about 2 nm ahead; it’s approximately half way between Dingwall and Ingonish. We’ll wait there for the winds to become more favorable. Chris adds: I went back to bed after helping get lines off and fenders stowed. When we hit this stretch of sea, the motion woke both Onyx and me. In fact, Onyx’s eyes were great big around and he was voicing his displeasure!

0822 We enter the narrow channel to Hungry Cove. The buoyed part of the channel is maybe 35’ wide.

0850 After some conversation with local fishermen, at work on the government wharf, about where we might tie up, we secure Lord’s Prayer alongside the lobster boat Tumbleweed III. We are told that the owner of Tumbleweed III is out crabbing with his brother in his crab-boat and won’t be using his boat today. Our position is: 46 49.237 N 60 19.260 W. We’re in 8.5’ of water according to our depth meter; the tide state now is 3.7’; the low tide this afternoon is supposed to drop to 0.8’ at 1500, so there should be about 5.5’ of water here at that time, which presumably will leave 3-4 inches of water under our keel.

0935 A couple out walking hail us (they introduce themselves as Bruce and Jacqueline). We’re still aboard Lord’s Prayer. Bruce and Jacqueline are sailors out of Ottawa; currently they keep their boat at Souris, PEI and spend about a month aboard each summer. Their boat is a Gozzard 31 named Wave Equation. They’re currently moored at Neil’s Harbour, a 20-minute walk south of here. They’re awaiting more suitable wind conditions before continuing south to the Bras d’Or.

1030 The first of the fishing boats comes in. It is a crab-boat (about the size of a Maine lobster boat) and it is floating well below its water line aft. When the crew starts offloading the boat at the fish plant wharf, we see why they are floating so low in the water; they are loaded full of snow crabs. We watch the off-loading operation. There are probably about 15 men employed in the operation. It appears that the Snow Crab fishing in this area is pretty productive. Presumably each of the local boat captains here has agreed with the fish plant to not bring in more than 4,000 lbs of snow crabs per day. This agreement has been made with the fish plant in an attempt to maintain a reasonably level workload for the folks in the fish processing plant. There are 18 boats offloading crabs here each day. The legal quota in this particular area is 35,000 lbs of crabs per boat per season. So each boat here is expected to have its quota in maybe about 10 days. There are other boats hereabouts that are fishing for mackerel by hook and line. We are told that this method can be productive when the mackerel are running – which apparently isn’t the case at the moment. We watch several more boats offload their catch of snow crabs. We are astonished at the quantities of crabs coming ashore. The whole back end of each of the boats is loaded right up to the gunwales with crabs.

1200 We take a walk to Neil’s Harbor and have a bite to eat in a local seafood eatery. We take photos along the way. Midway between Neil’s Harbor and New Haven Harbor there’s a Co-Op grocery with a pay phone out front. We make some calls from here to talk to family since there’s no cell phone service hereabouts. Also we leave a voicemail message for Erwin & Diane aboard Ocean Wanderer regarding the water depth at the entrance to Dingwall Harbour, as they were interested in perhaps using that port on Tuesday.

1400 When we get back to Lord’s Prayer the crab boats are still being offloaded. We watch some more and then return to the boat. We discover that our rudder has bumped against a rock as the tide went out; the rock moved the rudder to the side as the boat moved around slightly in the wind. An event of this nature has the potential for doing some serious damage to the rudder and we do the best we can to give it a good checkout. As near as we can tell there is no damage. That is a relief! In any case we move the boat ahead a few feet relative to Tumbleweed III and then put some extra lines onto both boats to keep the two boats from moving back aft enough for the rudder to touch the rock again. I make a mental note to myself to not moor the boat alongside a pier again with the stern toward the shore… unless I’m familiar with the water at the particular pier. Lord’s Prayer draws less water under her bow than under her stern and she’s less vulnerable forward than aft. You live and you learn!

1500 We check on the weather forecast over the VHF. It is a beautiful sunny day here today but the winds are quite strong out of the SW; they’re gusting to gale force. The strong winds are expected to continue until tomorrow morning. We couldn’t be more delighted to be enjoying ourselves ashore here today rather than being out there on the water fighting our way up-wind toward the Bras d’Or. We contemplate the fact that with a boat like Tom Babbitt’s marvelous J-42 Bravo, one might have chosen to sail upwind today under these conditions, since Bravo is a more weatherly boat than Lord’s Prayer. But were it the case that we were sailing such a boat, we would very likely have missed this delightful little port and not had this fine day ashore while awaiting a wind that’s a bit more to our liking!

1530 We take a walk to the north side of the harbor and take some pictures before returning to the boat for a rest.

1900 We walk back to Neil’s Harbor and have supper at another seafood place. Afterward we stop and visit with Bruce and Jacqueline aboard Wave Equation.

They’ll probably go to Baddeck in the Bras d’Or Lakes tomorrow, weather permitting; and that’s what we are planning to do tomorrow also.

2045 The sky is clouding over – especially to the North. But to the south it’s still relatively clear. We return to Lord’s Prayer and close up for the night. The weather forecast is calling for rain showers around midnight. The wind is still strong although maybe not quite as strong as it was earlier. It’s forecast to veer into the west 20-25 kts around dawn and to NW 15 kts tomorrow afternoon. We currently plan to get underway sometime around 0800 tomorrow if the wind has developed by then as forecast.

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Moored to the fish-plant wharf, New Haven Harbor, Cape Breton Island, NS

There is a certain aroma surrounding a working fish plant that tends to remind you exactly where you are moored; and we occasionally get a whiff of it. Someone in St Anthony, Newfoundland once told me that folks around the fish plant in that harbor were particularly fond of the aroma; that person explained to me that if you could smell the fish plant, it meant that folks around there were working! So, the fish plant smell is a good thing!

0740 Lord’s Prayer is underway; we’re bound for Baddeck, a distance of 52 nm.

0755 Outside the harbor, we hoist the mainsail and haul out the jib. We’re close-hauled on starboard tack. We’ll want to be turning further starboard in about a mile. Whether the wind direction will allow us to come to our next course, however, remains to be seen.

0830 The wind is just a little bit south of west 8-13 kts and it is flukey coming off the high landmasses to our west. There is enough of a chop to the waves to practically bring us to a stop as we try to sail close-hauled; as a result we are motorsailing with just enough power to keep the boat moving; we’re making about 4 kts through the water and 5 kts over the ground as we seem to have a favorable current (at least for the moment); it’s running south along the east coast of the Cape Breton Highlands.

0850 The wind is W 4 kts in a rain shower; we crank up the engine to a higher rpm: 2500.

0903 The wind is WSW 18 kts; we secure the engine; the boat is making 6.4 kts through the water close-hauled (the water is flattened out considerably at the moment – probably because we’re in the lee of Ingonish Island 1.5 nm ahead on our starboard bow).

0923 As we sail along the coast off of Ingonish, the view of the coast is just breathtaking. And although the sky is mostly overcast, there are a few breaks in the clouds and bright sunshine pours down through these holes in the clouds; it spotlights various pieces of the coast. In other locations we can see rain showers in the mountains or along the shore. Everywhere the mountains and coastal highlands are forested in green. Here and there a white church spire or a chalet protrudes up through the greenery. On the east slope of one of the mountains we can see the Ingonish ski trails wending their way down the mountainside. Little fishing boats dot the sea surface near us.  So far today we have not yet seen another sail out here on the water, although we know of 3 other sailboats that were in harbors along the coast, and they are all likely to be coming out sometime today. The wind freshens in puffs of 20 kts and the boat heels to 30 degrees; our lee rail goes into the water. In spite of the strong wind, the water continues to be relatively flat with it coming off the land; as a result we are having a perfectly delightful sail. Chris adds: Jim calls me to come out of the cabin where I’ve been sitting on the leeward bunk reading, to see the beautiful coastline. I want to but standing up from the leeward side with a 30-degree heel is more than a notion. However, I manage to overcome gravity and go topside. It is just as beautiful as he describes. No wonder we love coming to Nova Scotia so much!

0943 A sail appears on the horizon several miles astern. We are able now to see into the South Bay Ingonish; there are white sand beaches along the shore with verdant mountains and valleys beyond. It’s a shoreline whose beauty really defies adequate description with words. The fairway whistle buoy at the center of South Bay Ingonish groans loudly as we sail past. Several scattered rain showers are visible on the sea’s horizon to leeward.

0955 Another sailboat under its mainsail motorsails out around the high headland at the south side of South Bay Ingonish and it turns south. Our wind nearly dies and then becomes very flukey in the lee of the high headland. We start the engine to push the boat through the area of foul wind.

1005 We secure the engine; the wind is still quite puffy: 8-18 kts.

1023 The sailboat that came out of Ingonish has its jib set now. The boat is a sloop with a reef in both main and jib; the hull is a kind of beige color and there’s an orange dinghy on davits aft.

1035 The beige sailboat crosses ahead of us, perhaps on a heading for Sydney. From this perspective she appears to be a Mason design of about 30-35’; she is probably one of Mason’s steel hulled designs with several chines; these boats are frequently seen in this area.

1040 We crack the sheets out a little and let the top of the mainsail feather off to leeward to de-power the sail. The wind has veered just a bit so it’s now a tad north of west and it’s a bit stronger too – holding between 18-21 kts.

1105 The beige sailboat slips off to leeward; we reset our guard zone alarm on the radar.

1218 We harden on the wind trimming the sails in flat in the lee of Ciboux Island and turn toward the entrance to the Great Bras d’Or Channel 6 nm ahead. At the entrance to the channel there’s a sail in view.

1311 Entering the narrows at the entrance to the Great Bras d’Or Channel, we’re sailing very close to the wind; it is unlikely that we’ll be able to carry our sails much of the way into the channel, as the wind will probably be funneled onto the nose by the highlands on either side of the channel.

1322 Our jib luffs and the boat slows as we pass between Carey and Noir Points; we start the engine and douse the jib.

1330 The wind comes dead on the nose and we drop the mainsail.

1340 The wind is gusting to 23 kts dead on the nose.

1600 We are continuing to run inbound in the Great Bras d’Or Channel. The channel is about 17 nm in length; we’re about half through it at this point. We have a head wind that often exceeds 20 kts in gusts and a head current exceeding 2.5 kts. We’ve steered the boat off to the side of the channel to hug the banks in an attempt to find a slower moving current and a reduced headwind. We’ve been marginally successful in that effort. Our current estimate of our arrival time at Baddeck is about 1900.

1630 We spy two bald eagles perched on treetops less than a quarter mile apart along the north bank of the Great Bras d’Or Channel.

1835 Baddeck comes into sight as we exit the Great Bras d’Or channel; we turn and pass Beinn Bhreagh, the former home of the late Alexander Graham Bell.

1844 Lord’s Prayer is anchored in Baddeck Harbour at position: 46 05.972 N 60 44.743 W. We’re anchored in 28 feet of water on the Spade anchor with 125’ of chain rode deployed. Engine time: 199.2 hours.

1909 We inflate the dinghy, load gear aboard, toss the boat in the water, mount the outboard motor, and make ready to go ashore.

1920 After motoring ashore and tying the dinghy to the yacht club float, we take a walk to the grocery to check its hours. It closed at 1800 but it’ll be open again at 0830 tomorrow. We check the local auto rental place to see if there is anything available tomorrow; there’s not. We have a soup and salad at the High Wheeler Café, which has a particularly good French onion soup. We also pick up some oatcakes to take back to the boat. These are a local item that we discovered last summer and we’ve been looking forward to getting some more of them this year from the High Wheeler. We have a coffee and an herbal tea at the Mello Cello on our way back to the boat. There’s a fellow there singing and playing the guitar; we listen to his music for a while. He has a very appealing voice and I like the music he is playing.