Cheaspeake to Nova Scotia

DELTAVILLE

A tornado went through the town just prior to our arrival and sliced this church in half, a picture hanging above the altar was untouched....





The tornado did a lot of damage to houses and you could follow the path it took by the trees that had been up rooted and snapped off like match sticks



          

"Cuba Night" on Saliander with Don and Margaret, I thought I would dress for the occassion.....

Don and Margaret enjoying life in the water on board "Caribbee"

We had a wonderful lunch on Thyra's deck enjoying the prolific bird life that visited the feeding stations spread around the garden

Pete got to "play "on Thyra's lawn mower

ANNAPOLIS

Annapolis - spring and all the geese were out enjoying the lovely weather with their new families

We joined Robyn and Wolf at the Chart House to view the Wednesday night yacht racing

We were lucky enough to get a window table to view the boats as they finished the race

There were at least 40 boats racing

C&D CANAL

Early morning mist on the C and D Canal when we left Chespeake City

DELAWARE BAY

Light house on the Delaware Bay

CAPE MAY

Fishing boats on the dock

Houses built out over the water at Cape May, some even have their own boat garages

Early morning start leaving Cape May

A US aircraft carrier passed close by on our trip up to Newport

NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

Maltese Falcon arrives at Newport

We joined the crowd at New York Yacht Club for dinner on the deck

View from New york Yacht Club out over Newport Harbour

There are many historical Tall Ships that ply the Eastern Sea Boarder, Gazell is on her way to her homw port of Baltimore. The crew are all volunteers and will be on board for 5 weeks

GLOUCESTER, MAINE

We passed close by the light houses on Gloucester Point, Maine

NOVA SCOTIA

Light house at the entrance to Shelburne Harbour

Coming up the harbour to Shelbourne the water was oily calm, you can even see the reflections of the clouds in the water

Spring time in Nova Scotia and the Rhododendrons put on a stunning display

The fine weather only lasted a day, but the rain doesn't detract from the picturesque town of Shelburne

The 2 weeks we spent in Deltaville just flew by. We made up for lost time on the internet with emails and phone calls back home. We're also great fans of internet shopping which enabled us to order replacement parts etc for the boat. Margaret and Don, our "boat yard" parents (well, Don calls us his "boat yard kids" so I guess they must be our "boat yard parents") were just great. They made their car and bicycle available whenever we needed them, mostly for Pete's daily run to his favourite shop Hurds, the local hardware store. Margaret and I had a girls day shopping in Richmond visiting the craft and food shops, while Pete and Don had a boys day shopping in Gloucester visiting Perkins and hardware shops. We also found time to catch up on chores and maintenance. Pete installed our new VHF radio which has AIS (Automated Identification System), this makes it easier to contact other boats in the area on the VHF, especially commercial vessels who are required to have their boat name & details on AIS.


Don and Margaret really like Cuba and Cuban food, so we had a Cuban dinner on board Saliander. Margaret mad a delicious black bean soup for starters, it was so filling that we all had trouble eating the main course of fish, yellow rice with peas and salad (so we had "doggie bags" for lunch the next day). But we did manage to find room for desert (coconut rum flan - yummmm)

Even though the usual summer thunder storms had just started, the temperature was a very pleasant (20-30 degs C) and not too humid. Before we left Deltaville we spent a night on Thyra's dock and as it was the weekend we got to spend some time with both Thyra and Theresa, with dinner onboard Sali. We also had a wonderful impromptu lunch on Thyra's deck, enjoying the water view as well as all the beautiful birds that visit her feeding stations spread around the lovely gardens.

We headed up to Annapolis on 22nd May, stopping for a night in Reedville along the way. We had a good southerly to blow us up the Bay arriving in our anchorage in Back Creek just before dark. We had 5 days in Annapolis catching up with friends, Laura, Natalie, Robyn and Wolf. John and Gail were also coming over from the Eastern Shore to meet up for lunch. We visited them 2 years ago which was when I did my spectacular trick of flying down the 4ft drop in the companion way, which at the time was minus the stairs. Well "de ja vue", the day John & Gail were due to arrive I was busy polishing the stainless in the aft cockpit and; fell down the hatch. I didn't fall all the way though, I managed to get wedged with one leg down the hatch and one leg out. Oh, and the brand new bottle of polish got splattered all over Pete's freshly stained teak deck. Needless to say I had a number of bruises along with a very sore back and broken tooth. I spent the rest of the day wallowing in bed while Pete went out with John and Gail, I was in no shape to face visitors unfortunately.

Pete did his usual rounds of the marine stores and got a couple of good bargains from Bacons consignment store which sells second hand boat parts. One of his treasures was a line cutter which we will need for up in Maine as the waters are littered with lobster pots, even in the channels, and as the water is rather cold a line cutter, which attaches to the propeller shaft, is a good way to avoid having to go for a swim to untangle your propeller from the lobster pot lines.

From Annapolis we went to C and D Canal, stopping off at Baltimore to pick up some second hand charts and pilot books from a couple of retired cruisers, Ron and Diane, who just happen to know Salianders previous owners, small world.... We also had an overnight stop in Sassafras River before reaching Chesapeake City on Sunday 29th May which happened to be Memorial Weekend. This long weekend is basically the start of summer so there were plenty of boats out on the water, especially the "go fast" cigarette boats. Robyn and Wolf called in and joined us for dinner on their way back from Cape May to Annapolis. The next day was a slow trip motor sailing down the Delaware Bay to Cape May where we spent a couple of days, long enough for me to get my broken tooth fixed.

1st June we had an early start for our overnight sail up to Newport Rhode Island. As usual we had a mixed bag of weather, we managed to avoid 2 good electrical storms and the wind was gusting up over 30 knots when we arrived at Newport. It's always very busy/buzy in Newport with lots of activity on and off the water and what made it even better was the fabulous days of beautiful clear sunny skies that we enjoyed in Newport. We enjoyed dinner at the New York Yacht Club with Jane & Bruce, whom we met in Croatia in 2009 and then again in Newport last year. We also spent some time with 3 other English cruising boats, we had previously seen Tamsin and David on Twice Eleven in 2009 when we passed them on our Atlantic crossing. David and Tamsin are also on their way up to New Foundland to participate in the rally we are going on. Pete's mate Fuzzy arrived in town on the Annapolis to Newport yacht race, so we caught up over a coffee, we missed out on seeing him in Annapolis as he was out of the country so this was a nice surprise. Newport, being a "Yachting Mecca", is full of antipodean sailors and we saw several well known Kiwi sailors around town. After 6 days Pete had done his rounds of the consignment and marine stores, and we had topped up our supply of winter clothing so it was time to drag ourselves away from the social activities in Newport and head off for Nova Scotia.

Wednesday 8th June the day started out with no wind, but by lunch time the breeze had set in so we headed up Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Canal with a following wind and the spinnaker flying. We were approaching the canal entrance just on dark when Pete heard someone yelling in the water. He turned around and saw a head bobbing in the water so it was “action stations”, we turned around and retrieved him with our life sling (probably the first and only time it's been used). It wasn't quite so easy to retrieve his kayak which was half filled with water but we managed to get it after several attempts. Our visitor was an 18 year old young man named Dan. He had set out in his kayak at 2.30pm and when we picked him up at 8.30pm he had capsized and been in the water about half an hour. The wind and currents had carried him well off shore and out into the channel. He was very very lucky as we were the only boat traffic around and just happened to be passing close by, the water temperature was 20deg C. The Coast Guard had mounted a search for him and we could see the helicopter carrying out a grid search, however apparently the position where we found him was not on their search plan. As you can imagine Dan and his parents were very grateful and I think we'll all take some valuable lessons out of the whole experience. Dan and his kayak were transferred onto Harbour Patrol boats in the calmer waters of the canal we continued up the canal arriving at the eastern entrance at midnight. By this time there were severe weather warnings of electrical storms rolling down the coast and crossing Buzzards Bay, these storms bring 60knot winds big hail stones the size of golf balls. We could see the lightening in the distance and were very thankful that we found Dan as I dread to think what would have happened if he had to endure a night in the water enduring those conditions.

We decided we'd had enough excitement for one day so dropped anchor for a few hours to catch some sleep before setting off at dawn the next day. Our intention was to make a bee line from Cape Cod to the southern end of Nova Scotia, we started out in squally conditions and one reef in the main sail, but by mid-morning the winds had lightened off so we headed up the Massachusetts and Maine coast instead. We were about to go into Gloucester Harbour when the wind picked up again, so we altered course back to Nova Scotia. The wind was holding up and we were going well until we got caught in an electrical storm at 5.30pm. No sooner had we put another reef in the main sail and put away the genoa, than the winds picked up with gusts up over 50 knots and down came the rain. We ended up heading off at a 90 degree angle from our course and did a 5 nml detour before the winds abated and we were able to make course again. The dark clouds and lightening continued to hang around for another couple of hours after the wind died. Around 8pm Pete saw a Basking Shark cruising by, they grow up to 45ft long and swim along at a rate of 3 miles per hour, 5 minutes later we hit one with a big thud!!! Thankfully we've got a good solid boat and as far as we could tell there was no damage done, the only thing that seemed to have suffered were our nerves. Not sure how well the shark feared though.....

For the last 19 hours of our passage the wind just died completely and we were motoring as we needed to reach our destination before the wind came around on to the nose as the forecast predicted. By the time we were coming up the eastern coast to Shelburne the waves had died down and the water was oily calm. We spotted another Basking Shark and cruised up behind him. We expected him to take off to get away from us but he just carried on as if we weren't there and we had to hit reverse so we didn't run over the top of him. We could see him very clearly under the water, he was about 30ft long and 6ft wide, quite magnificent.

The scenery coming up into Shelburne Harbour was quite breath taking with clear blue skies and the temperature was over 20 deg C. I think we were very lucky as I suspect the days weather like this would be very rare here. The temperature has now dropped to 11 degs C, we're dressed in our winter clothes and it's been overcast with light rain, never the less we're still enjoying this lovely town with its' colonial houses and friendly people. The local yacht club is very welcoming and have great facilities so I’m off there now to catch up on the laundry.