Oh, the weather: More Bras d’Or and foggy shores to Halifax

Well, we had seen a little of Bras d’Or, Cape Breton, so our next step would now be to get down the eastern shore of Nova Scotia to Halifax, where we would be able to visit more with our kids and work on some boat projects. However, the weather was not looking great for sailing with strong SW head winds. After dropping off our company we had put down the hook again just around the corner of St. Peters Marina to figure out a plan. We weren’t too eager to trade the protected waters of Bras d’Or with bashing into the waves of the Atlantic. Probably also, because once out of Bras d’Or we would truly be on the Atlantic coast. 

I checked marine traffic just to see what other boats were around, which is a pastime when you are sailing. To my delight I saw “Bricolanto” was in the Canso Channel. I had met Colleen from Bricolanto on zoom calls during the early spring. My friend Julie, from SV Gaviidae, had connected a number of women who were all travelling with their partners out the St. Lawrence River this year. We had had some great chats, wine or cocktails in hand about all kinds of topics from safety equipment to possible anchorages to cocktail recipes (thanks, Elaine). We were all starting our voyages at different times over the summer and from different harbours but it was nice to know that there were some friends to share the adventures with. Here are the boats that are part of the posse apart from us: SV Gaviidae (US), SV Gaviidae (Can), SV True North (US), SV Bricolanto (CAN) and SV Willow (Can). We had met both the Gaviidaes in prior years of cruising the North Channel in Canada and True North on a maintenance/shake down trip to Rochester. However, although Bricolanto had been only a few days behind our route at times, we had not had a chance to meet in person yet.

Needless to say, it was an easy decision to just stay in Bras d’Or for a few more days. Watching their progress on AIS (remember they were held up at the scary Lennox bridge for hours – or was it for fishing?!) we waited out fog and had a beautiful afternoon sail up to Johnstown Harbour just 10NM north east of St. Peter’s. Oh, and when we were just pulling out of Strachans Bay where we had anchored, I noticed a black RCMP dinghy hovering just behind our boat. As I mentioned them to David, they came closer and politely asked if we minded if they checked our registration, PCOC and safety devices. Canadians, they are so polite! Of course, we invited officer Bruno on board to check things over. We were all good and had a lovely chat. Although it was a bit strange to have an RCMP dinghy steering your boat while we were both chatting and showing the officer around.

Colleen and Brian from Bricolanto pulled into our anchorage a few hours later and we had a great couple of days together, going for walks and runs, and kayaking. So nice to spend time chatting, comparing notes and boats and sharing drinks and meals. Johnstown Harbour is quite remote with a few houses along the shore line but great for kayaking as it’s protected from waves. We anchored just south of Campbell’s Island with view over the spit and Sheeps Island in the opening. Swimming was nice in here as well and not too cold (22C). After a great potluck dinner on our boat we parted ways in the morning – Bricolanto making use of the wind heading further into Bras d’Or on their way north east to Newfoundland and Vitae pointing back south west into the wind. We really needed to get a move on now to make it to Halifax.

By noon we went back through St. Peter’s Lock and anchored in Grande Greve Harbour, a small bay with a spit just south of the Lock. It was well protected from the SW winds and would offer us a quick and early start in the morning to head SW across the Canso Strait. In fact, we were so protected from the 25+kts winds that night that we woke up to dead calm conditions and fog at 1am. Dave and I both looked at each other and thought the same – no sense in sleeping – we might as well go now. We turned on AIS and Radar to head out, and just in time as we hadn’t noticed a catamaran anchored right behind us. You could not see all the lights on him as the fog was so dense. Saved again by modern technology!

As soon as we left the anchorage we could feel the ocean swell left from the strong winds the day before. There was no wind now, just heavy fog and darkness. The swell increased as we rounded the southern point of Isle Madame, coming from the south it was hitting us more and more on the beam. Even I was feeling a bit green after a few hours of confused waves. Fortunately, once it got lighter, Dave let me nap for an hour or so and that cleared it up. All day we had limited visibility with strong winds on the nose, not at an angle where we could sail. It was slow going, motoring at 5kts sometimes as slow as 3.8kts, but by 7pm we finally anchored in Liscomb Harbour. We tucked in beside another Ontario boat (“Kiwi Dream” from PCYC) right in front of Carrying Cove, with nice mud/sand holding. Sorry, no good pics as there was only fog!

From here we left in fog again the next morning. We had put up both sails right away, motor sailing to start but hoping the wind would fill in. Finally, at around 2pm it started to come at 10kts from the SE, but we kept the motor going as we wanted to make it to Halifax before dark. We had hoisted anchor at 6:30am and had hoped for stronger winds to get us there by 6 or 7pm. By 3pm we were making 6 to 6.5kts; our eta was now more like 9pm. But this was actually working to our dis-advantage. This was the day (Friday, July 21/23) that Nova Scotia, especially Halifax received more rain in one day then they would normally get in 3 months, which caused a state of emergency to be issued. Many roads were washed out around the area, sadly 4 people died and major flooding occurred (Reuters: Nova Scotia floods cause ‘unimaginable’ damage; four people missing).

We could see the rain and thunderstorms amassing over the Halifax area on the weather radar. All afternoon we saw clouds building over the coast with rain and at times thunderstorm, but miraculously they stayed over land. We got a couple drops and the winds stayed calmer than forecasted almost all day. Closer to Halifax we could finally see some shelf clouds on our port side which meant that the storm was maybe coming more over the water. We had been on a broad reach up to this point and furled the jib just in case of a sudden wind shift. We could suddenly see different ripples on the water and needed to get our preventer line for the boom off quickly. Well, it’s not a strong line with just a slip know so that it will let go quickly if need be, but a sudden wind shift had gotten it stuck so we had to move quickly and cut it. No harm done, just a bit of adrenaline flow and the wind change was not violent. In fact, after this the wind settled itself and we were able to set our jib again and make 7 1/2kts speed.

Meanwhile, the boat that appeared on AIS behind us was making almost twice that speed. Its name was Thirst, a Gunboat 55. If you don’t know what that is, check it out. It had been anchored beside us in St. Peter and for a catamaran, it’s beautiful. We really tried to hold them off as long as possible, and we can say we made it around the red entrance buoy to the Halifax harbour first – they caught us just there and went on the inside! Well, we also had a huge head start, but it was still fun.

We came into the Northwest Arm of Halifax just after sunset, I was prepping dinner below while Dave was trying to navigate with radar into the back end to Armdale Yacht Club anchorage. He called me up in desperation. More eyes were needed as boats were anchored and moored all over this channel with no anchor lights. By the time we got to the anchorage it was dark and we motored around for a while to find a suitable spot. We tried to put down anchor in the Armdale mooring field but got too close to another boat. Anchor up again! It’s quite deep here too, about 20′ to 30′. As I hoisted the anchor the chain came up 3 times its diameter with black, stinky mud. I tried to get it off, but couldn’t as I had to move quickly. So it all went in the anchor locker (and we don’t have a handy wash down!). I cringed – and then I saw the anchor: it had a giant lettuce leaf of seaweed on it with the root wrapped around the chain and on top, like a little cherry, was a beautiful pink starfish! How could I hoist that up. I brought it up as much as I could and let it float right at the water surface. We moved out of the mooring field and across the bay SE of the spit at Horseshoe Island park, where we finally settled between 2 other anchored sailboats. We bbq’ed steaks and celebrated with a great dinner at 11pm. 2 very long days of travel, but we were there and now we could rest up and explore. We sat up until after midnight soaking in the lights of the city and although Halifax had had all that rain, while we anchored, had dinner and watched the lights there was a reprieve from the rain.

It did rain again during the night though and all day Saturday it poured on and off. So what better than to meet up with Uwe, Martina and Elias from our buddy boat Europa and head into downtown Halifax to explore the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. We had done this museum on previous visits but we never grow tired of learning about the development of the ship building in the Maritimes, or to see more about the Titanic or the Halifax explosion. They even let us in for free because it was so rainy!

After that we explored the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. The museum occupies part of Pier 21, the former ocean liner terminal and immigration shed from 1928 to 1971. Pier 21 is Canada’s last remaining ocean immigration shed. It was really interesting to learn more about all the different waves of immigrants that had come over the centuries and also to learn more about the indigenous Mi’kmaw history as well as the Acadians. All of us had very different immigration stories. I had come from Germany with my parents in the late 80’s, David was born here but his family had all come from various parts in Germany, many generations ago. In fact, we have a book at home put together by a distant relative who was a Math professor at Waterloo University, Ontario, dating David’s grandmothers family line back to the ships manifest which proves that ancestors with the name Wentzell came to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1751. So for us it was quite fascinating to fit our personal histories into the larger frame of immigration to Canada. By the way, there’s a little town called Wentzell’s Lake near Lunenburg, where the family settled and where David’s Grandmother grew up. Of course, we were going to do a little side excursion, so stay tuned.

But now back to Halifax. That night we had a great dinner at a fabulous pizza place with the Europa crew and our son Evan and his girlfriend Kare. This was our ‘Fair well’ to Uwe, Martina and Elias as they had to move down towards Maine, where they would keep their boat this winter. We also got to meet some new friends, Anne and Greg from SV Halekai, who are making their way down the east coast to the Bahamas for the winter. We are hoping to meet them again along the way.

Other highlights in Halifax were of course numerous trips by car to resupply. Thanks to Kare’s infinite patience in taking us shopping to bicycle stores, grocery stores, pet stores and the NSLC. Of course, there’s Binnacle right around the corner from Armdale Yacht Club, where we lost way too much money. The boat got a new stainless anchor snubber (replacing the piece of rust we had), new dyneema lifelines, a few other expensive stainless parts, pumps and hoses.

We enjoyed some bike rides around town especially the trails in Point Pleasant Park. We also took a dinghy ride all the way from Armdale anchorage to downtown, picking up Kare and Evan and going out to Georges Island , where we toured Fort Charlotte and the tunnels. This fort was used to defend Halifax harbour even as recent as WWII.

Last but not least, we had a beautiful daysail out the Northwest Arm, passing by downtown and then anchoring across the bay at MacNab Island for lunch with Evan, Kare and her parents Ziggy and Eva.

Here are some of the shots along the Northwest Arm with some spectacular houses. It’s a beautiful boat promenade to tour up and down – you can even do it under sail in light wind, just watch for boat traffic. Out in the harbour one has to watch for the big container ships – but Halifax traffic on VHF keeps an eye out and manages traffic politely.

Date	Description	Distance	Time
July 17/23	Strachans Bay anchorage to Johnstown Harbour anchorage	10.58NM	2:44h
July 18/23	Johnstown Harbour anchorage	NM	h
July 19/23	Johnstown Harbour anchorage to Grande Greve Harbour anchorage (south of St. Peter’s Lock)	12.04NM	3:23h
July 20/23	Grande Greve Harbour anchorage to Liscomb Harbour anchorage	77.3NM	17:13h
July 21/23	Liscomb Harbour anchorage to Halifax, Northwest Arm (Horseshoe Point anchorage)	84.39NM	15:38h
July 22 to August 1/23	Halifax, Northwest Arm (Horseshoe Point anchorage); (daysail on July 29)	11NM	5h
16 days	Total	195.31NM	43:58h
56 days	Total trip so far	1232.88NM	244:37h