Artic Nova Scotia to Tropical Rhode Island

You know you are in Canada when you’ve found the town curling club.

After a rainy and cold day in Halifax, we continued the passage down the Nova Scotian coast. Next stop was Lunenberg. A couple of hundred year old fishing and boat building town. Probably most famous for building the Canadian fishing and racing schooner, the Bluenose, in 1921. Probably most infamous for contributing to the total collapse of the cod fisheries on the Grand Banks. It’s a pretty cool working/tourist town now. Lots of Victorian buildings.

(Steve C, here’s another one for you to fix up)
Mostly well cared for as private homes, B&Bs or businesses. The people are, how would you say it, talkative. Once you’ve opened up to them by saying something revealing like ‘Hi. Sure is wet today’. After that you are likely to get the town’s latest gossip, the fishing report, what boats are in bankruptcy and your new best friend’s life history. Great people!
We stayed 2 days in Lunenberg because of the winds, cold and dumping rain. We don’t have a lot of cloths with us we could only carry what fit in our airline bags. Getting all the warm stuff soaking wet in the dinghy rides isn’t helping in keeping the core body temperatures where they should be. We left Lunenberg for a slog to windward to Lockeport. The cruising guide describes it as a typical, down on its luck, Nova Scotian fishing town. Friendly enough place, with less to gossip about.
The next passage was a two and half day crossing from the bottom of Nova Scotia to inside of Cape Code, MA. We sailed it all to windward, blowing mostly about 15-25kts. We would sail a long starboard tack. Then when the wind got light or the tide turned against us, we’d do a diesel assisted tack due south. Cold on the night watches. Lots of good, hot soups out of the new galley. We ended up sailing back and forth in 25kts of wind for 3 hours in front of the Cape Cod canal, while waiting for the tide to change so we could enter the canal without bucking a big current.
All and all its been good trip down so far. The boat is pleasure to sail. Much easier on the crew than the J. We’ve had a few exciting docking moments, but that will get better. We broke the typical amount of things on a passage:

• Broke the toilet seat cover
• Wind instruments quit working
• The engine water-in-fuel alarm goes of intermittently
• Lost an anchor snubber overboard
• Skyed a jib halyard
• The pressure water is a bit flaky
• Got my foul weather jacket caught in the power winch (which Chris was too tired to even laugh at when I called her up to release me)

We stopped in Portsmouth, RI, (next to Newport) and cleared into customs. Very low key check in. We got to meet up with Bill and Lori on their Outbound 44 Toodle-oo who I’d been talking to on email as we considered our purchase (the only one on the market). Good to meet up with them in person and to check out what they have done on their OB. They plan to cut the ties and take off next summer!
We also stopped for the night in Block Island, RI, and had dinner on our boat with Tom and Cary off Dragon’s Toy, our friends from El Salvador. Huge beautiful anchorage with hundreds of boats and even more people who have come over to celebrate the 4th. It’s a beautiful place, we enjoyed our walk into town along the shore and old homes.
Tonight it is New Haven, CT, and more fireworks. Tomorrow it is NEW YORK CITY!
Paul

New boat delivery

Well we did it. We bought a new, to us, boat. It’s a 2003 Outbound 44. Her prior name was ‘Ginger’. Her new name is ‘Georgia’. Turns out we misspelled Jeorgia on our J/37. Seems like a distinct lack of imagination, but lots of folks know us as Jeorgia, so we decided to keep the name something way close. Also, I couldn’t resist the comments from the S. Carolina bridge tenders. You go under one of the opening bridges there and they always ask for the boat name and home port. We tell them Jeorgia and Seattle. The response is something drawled out like “Georgiaaa, what’s a boat from Sea- At- hell doin’ with name like dhat?’

Here’s Chris signing away for the new home.
We really like Jeorgia. Great sailor and actually a fun boat to cruise. Since this is our full time home, we just wanted more space and more storage. The Outbound (new Georgia) has a ton of storage. It has great galley layout. Even more important it has a man-cave. The port side locker is dedicated machine room/workshop. I can hide back there and Chris isn’t even allowed to come in. What a treat it was to take a frozen shackle back there and break it loose on the mounted vice.

Sign on man-cave

Layout

We bought the boat from a couple who has had it up in Cape Breton for the last few years. If you don’t know where Cape Breton is, join the club. It is very near the frozen north of Canada. They call it the Canadian Maritimes. It is just above Nova Scotia, with the biggest nearby city being Halifax, a mere 4 ½ hours drive. Nova Scotia is way east, located almost directly above Bermuda. The boat was at the Cape Breton Boat Yard. Nice folks. The owner, Henry, was very helpful. He sees almost all the high latitude cruisers who are headed to New Foundland or Greenland as they come through his marina.
One day when I’m feeling particularly cynical I think I’ll write a blog on boat buying. There was a listing broker for the Outbound plus we had our friend Torben off of Tivoli on our side (Torben Bensten Passage Yachts San Francisco, http://www.passageyachts.com/torben.html). Torben and Judy flew up to Halifax and drove us to Baddeck, Cape Breton for the sea trial. It was great to get back together with them.
Right now we are doing the delivery back to Virginia. The goal is cross to Cape Cod from Nova Scotia. Then head through the Cape Cod Canal to Rhode Island. Work our way down Long Island and sail past the Statue of Liberty. Then beeline down the NJ and Delaware Coasts to the entrance to the Chesapeake. We need to get the Outbound down near Jeorgia so we can unload our cruising gear from Jeorgia. Then we’ll do some cosmetics and get her on the market. Know anyone who wants clean J/37 with a brand new Yanmar engine?

We are back in whale and sea lion country. We think this is a humpback who came to visit us on the passage from Baddeck to Halifax. It is also cold and wet – first day of summer or not.
Paul