We had a beautiful easy morning in early August, with perfect wind and hoisted sails right away. Our son, Evan was joining us on this leg of the trip from Halifax to Lunenburg, where his girlfriend Kare was going to meet up with us and spend another weekend. We sailed out of Halifax Harbour with light winds along the south western shore following Mimi Jane, a beautifully newly built 51′ steel yawl, (a replica of the tuna fishing dundees found in northwestern France) designed and built by Murielle and Mark. We had seen this boat last year while in Brockville,ON at the Tall Ships Festival. Halifax Harbour control was hailing us both on VHF at one time to let us know a large ship, the Orion, was leaving harbour and would be crossing our path. It was loaded with wind turbine bases.
After a pleasant 8h sail we rounded Big Head Rock and headed into the area around Rogue’s Roost, which we were told by many cruisers, was one of their favourite anchorages. We felt it might be a bit of a tight squeeze to get through the entrance, and as the weather and conditions were beautiful, with winds from the west – the alternate anchorage just east of the sand beach on Hearn Island looked just too inviting. It’s a small, exposed anchorage with good holding in sand bottom. As it’s such a glorious beach at low tide, there was plenty of smaller boat traffic stopping and people were even swimming in the cold waters. Evan took the dinghy out in the morning and shortly after we received an excited call from him. He had stopped the engine and was floating in a pod of dolphins. He came back to pick us up and we were thrilled watching them swimming around and even under the dinghy. After checking, I am pretty certain they looked like white sided dolphins. They swam around the bay all day long. We got our kayaks out and later paddled through Rogues Roost and around to Club Basin and back to ‘our’ little beach.
pics of Rogues roost, rocks and kayaks
After another calm night here, we hoisted anchor and sailed to Lunenburg, where we dropped the hook amongst other moored and anchored boats. It’s a beautiful harbour, especially from the water, with traditional sailing vessels such as the Bluenose II and Eastern Star sailing daily in and out of the harbour for tours. Yet there’s also Whale watching and Harbour tour boats, and the anchorage is a bit exposed to the south. Not a quiet anchorage but the town is fun to walk around in, shop or stop in a restaurant. There were lots of quaint little galleries to walk through as well as the Fisheries Museum, which packed much more information than its humble outside would suggest. We learned a lot about how lobster and other fish were caught and also got more of a sense how fishing is such an intricate part of maritime culture and history. Well worth the stop.
Kare drove down from Halifax to meet us for the weekend and all four of us were going to do some discovering of our own family heritage. I think, I mentioned before that we have a book at home that documents David’s grandmother’s family, the Wentzell’s (Wilhelm Wentzell) coming across by boat to Halifax in 1751. They had come across on the “Murdoch” from Darmstadt, Germany lured like many others, by the promises of fertile farm land.
The British advertised to Germans and other Europeans, (mostly Protestants), the offer of settlement in the Lunenburg area of Nova Scotia. Reasons being politically driven, as most of those already settled were still of French and Roman Catholic decent rather than loyal to Britain. The 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle between Britain and France had once more established British power over Nova Scotia ( L. Richter: “Germans in Nova Scotia” ). So our ancestors just like over 2000 other mostly German citizens were trying to establish themselves in this new country which wasn’t easy. Many had been under the false assumption that passage on the Murdoch and other ships would be free, but when they got to Halifax found out that they had to remain in Halifax for the first year or two until they had worked off the price of the fare. Conditions were hard, with an extremely cold winter. Many of them were farmers not expecting to have to do menial labour in town. Eventually, the more persistent of them got to move to Lunenburg where they were given a small garden to start growing some food. (On google maps you can still see a part of Lunenburg called Garden Lots). Many settlers were discontent and disappointed with how long they were made to wait and work before they could finally receive the promised larger parcel of farmland further inland. Many left for other areas of New England. Some of the Wentzells stayed and settled up by what is now called Wentzell’s Lake, inland from the LaHave River, north west of Lunenburg.
David’s grandmother was a Wentzell, who grew up at a farm near Wentzells Lake and although the property is no longer in the family, David’s sister Lisa had been able to visit the homestead a few years back and put us in touch with the new owners. Ally, Mick and their 4 adorable children invited us into their home with open arms. They were just as eager to share their love for the homestead as we were to tell them stories about our grandmother growing up here. They were a young family who had started a tree and seed farm aptly called “Little Tree Farm” and it felt so nice to see this house again so full of life. Audrey, the gregarious little 7 year old, proudly showed us the ducks, chickens and pigs they owned. Soon they were hoping to add a cow. Mick and Ally let us see the entire house and barn, take pictures, ask questions and even invited us in for coffee with fresh heavy cream from a neighbours cow and cookies still warm out of the oven. We really enjoyed our visit and it made us miss our own kids and grandkids. When it was time to say goodbye, they sent us with a fresh loaf of home backed bread, that smelled so delicious we had a hard time not devouring it during the drive back to the boat in Lunenburg.
The weekend with Evan and Kare had gone by in a flash and it was time to say good bye to them as well. After they drove off in Kare’s little Golf, it was time to take the boat to the dock and fill the water tanks, do some laundry and reprovision so we would be ready to head down the south west coast of Nova Scotia.
By 8am the next morning we were on our way to find a quieter and more sheltered anchorage area. There were strong wind warnings and lots of rain heading our way. We headed up the LaHave river to get out of the ocean swell. This is also the river that flows through Wentzell’s Lake. As the forecast was for SE winds we followed it right up past the narrows at Fort Point and hooked East into Ritcey Cove by Riverport.
From there we took the dinghy over to LaHave, docked on the floating dock at the historic La Have Bakery and Bookstore and strolled down past cute little galleries to the Fort Point Museum.
We stayed in this anchorage for another day as the rain and wind howled, and were delighted to see about 6-8 schooners of varying sizes tack up and down the bay under full sail. They were taking part in the annual schooner races that held each year in LaHave, and moored in the same bay.
As the winds were coming more and more from the NW we were now exposed to the long fetch following the river. It was time to move just down into Moshers Harbour, the more open area where the LaHave River widens into the Atlantic. Here we found a spot to anchor in the shelter East of Hirtle Island. By dinghy we discovered that there are numerous islands and channels here, not all passable by keel boat but some of the islands are connected with low bridges and many have fishing docks and there’s even a little LaHave Island Marine Museum.
| Date | Description | Distance | Time |
| August 2/23 | Halifax, Northwest Arm anchorage to Rogues Roost alternate anchorage | 32.4NM | 7:55h |
| August 3/23 | Rogues Roost alternate anchorage | NM | h |
| August 4/23 | Rogues Roost alternate anchorage to Lunenburg Harbour anchorage | 25.75NM | 6:26h |
| August 5 to 7/23 | Lunenburg Harbour anchorage | NM | h |
| August 8/23 | Lunenburg Harbour anchorage to Ritcey Cove, Riverport (LaHave River) | 17.58NM | 3:50h |
| August 9/23 | Ritcey Cove (LaHave River) | NM | h |
| August 10/23 | Ritcey Cove to Hirtle Island anchorage (LaHave River) | 3.2NM | 1:06h |
| August 11/23 | Hirtle Island | NM | h |
| 10 days | Total | 78.93NM | 12:17h |
| 66 days | Total trip so far | 1311.81NM | 256:54h |
Sailing Vitae 