LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 69:
Sunday, July 23, 2000
Rafted to the fish pier, Jacques Cartier Road, Quirpon Harbor, Newfoundland.
0030 I finish exchanging email over the SSB. It has been a tedious process
acquiring and maintaining a connection with PinOak. Eventually I complete a very
slow transfer. This occurs after an earlier failed connection, which broke
when about half of a 17kb file had been transmitted.
0523 Sunrise
1030 I take on 111 liters (29.3 gal) of diesel at $2.31(Canadian)/gal from an
Exxon truck that has just refueled some shrimp trawlers. Engine Time: 1863.0. It
looks like the truck is going to refuel most of the boats in the flotilla. This
is a good deal because it can be difficult to get a truck to provide the small
amounts of fuel normally needed by yachts.
1257 I complete an oil change, an oil filter change, and a Racor fuel filter
change. I also check the air filter and clean some seaweed from the cooling
water strainer.
1400 The women of Quirpon put on a meal for the Newfoundland Flotilla 2000. The
food is marvelous: calamari, vegetable hors d'oeuvres with dip, moose meat
in gravy, meatballs made from moose meat, roast beef, ham, home made baked
beans, codfish cakes, codfish au gratin, mashed potatoes with mixed vegetables,
shrimp & pasta salad. For desert the ladies have prepared three types of
desert squares each with a different topping: bakeapple berries,
partridgeberries, and strawberries. Wow! What a feast!
1530 The group scatters. Some of us walk over to see some quilts that a group of local
women have been making. The quilts are very nice.
1545 The weather could not have been nicer today: absolutely clear and warm in
the sun. Light winds.
1600 Half a dozen of us catch a ride in a van over to L'Anse Aux Meadows to see
the archeological site and we take the tour. There is a very nice Interpretation Center
here where we see some of the artifacts recovered from by archeological dig.
There is also a replica of a small Viking boat, which was used as a tender to
the larger knarr, a freighter that could carry about 25 tons of cargo. The
site itself is well preserved. Our tour guide shows us the mounds that outline
the old buildings. The locals knew of these mounds for years but they were
thought to be Indian burial mounds. This is because it was not unusual to
find arrowheads in the area. It turns out that the arrowheads were from an
aboriginal people that were here several thousand years before the Vikings. In
the early 1960s Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad of Norway, with the help of a local
fisherman George Decker discovered that these mounds were actually the remains
of a Viking settlement. Today this is the only authenticated Viking site in
North America. The Vikings established this site as their base camp. From here,
Lief Erickson and his companions proceeded to explore to the southern reaches of
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They found vast hardwood forests, grassy meadows,
rivers and coastal waters teeming with fish, and wild grapes - thus the name
given to the region, "Vinland."
1930 I finish reading the May 2000 National Geographic article "In Search
of Vikings" that was loaned to be by Bill & Peg Kirk of Cambridge MD.
This gives a good overview of the Vikings penetration into this continent.
2000 I read from Farley Mowat's "Westviking - The Ancient Norse in
Greenland and North America". Although this book (copyright 1965) is
out of print, it was available through a used book outlet on the Internet.
2112 Sunset
Monday, July 24, 2000
Rafted to the fish pier, Jacques Cartier Road, Quirpon Harbor, Newfoundland.
0900 I clean up the boat with the vacuum cleaner, have breakfast, a sponge bath, and
I check the fluid level in the autopilot reservoir. I am curious to see if any
fluid is leaking with the autopilot in a static condition. There is no evidence
that any fluid has been lost in the last two days since I last added fluid.
1030 I do my navigation planning for a trip over to Saint Anthony.
1053 Lord's Prayer is underway for St. Anthony a distance of 20 NM. The wind is
light and variable, the water surface is relatively flat, Air temperature: 54.
Seawater temperature: 53. Visibility is about 500' in fog.
1103 I proceed out Quirpon Tickle. Transiting the narrows between Herbert Point
and Nobel Point there is Butterpot Rock, usually invisible, in the center of the channel.
It is necessary to hug the northern point to slip past the rock, as the floating
marker by it has a reputation of swinging a pretty wide circle on its mooring.
1230 The fog begins to lift off of White Dog Point.
1243 A Canadian Coast Guard vessel passes < NM to port opposite direction.
1259 East of Little Brehat bay shoals, a minke whale broaches about 50 yards to
starboard.
1330 The fog socks in thick again.
1424 I round Cape St Anthony. The fog signal on Fishing Point across St Anthony
Bight sounds off loud and clear every 60 seconds.
1428 The fog lifts and I can see across St Anthony Bight.
1510 Lord's Prayer is moored starboard side to - alongside "Chaminuka"
in a raft of two sailboats at the St. Anthony Public Wharf.
1600 I visit Handy Andy's Auto-Marine Supply to see if I can pick up some
hydraulic steering fluid. The correct fluid is unavailable locally. But I am
able to have some SeaStar steering oil placed on order. Presumably the delivery
will be accomplished in 4-days.
2000 The flotilla members do a potluck supper aboard Ombre Rose and Kalinka I.
END OF PART 69
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