Heading Northwest
We spend most of the morning in the harbour master’s office, charging and updating and backing up all devices and taking our last showers for a few days. We settle our bill with Clyde: $13 per night plus 2 showers each equals $60 and extend our thanks once again to him and Marilyn.
Gary and Kevin have decided not to proceed to Labrador but to spend a few days in Fleur de Lys before heading back east to home. We suggest some highlights to them and ask them to send our greetings to Kim, the harbour master, chef and owner of the best B and B.
After leaving the floating docks at 12:10 we head across the bay to the ice plant where we can get water for our tanks. The hose isn’t quite long enough to reach where we have to dock, so we run a small bucket brigade, filling our 20 litre jug six times. This tops up the aft tank so we should be ok for a week.
By 1:15 we are sailing but off course about 45 degrees, heading toward the Horse Islands. Mamasheeis just ahead of us. We motor sail as the wind decreases and then we spot the first whale, just a few miles off the La Scie channel.
Whales in Coachman Harbour
We spot about eight during our 20 nautical mile run to Coachman’s Harbour. There appears to be at least two different kinds: the shy minkes, their black, slick backs slipping up and down with just the sound of their narrow blow spray and the “show off” humpbacks or maybe orcas, breaching and splashing with the sound of distant thunder. Their spray is much wider and can easily be spotted against the horizon. They are all dining on the capelin as they swim back and forth in our path, some waving their tail fins as they slip back under the surface.
Some, we believe to be humpbacks are making a growling, snarling sound as they linger at the surface. We have to slow the engine at The Sisters rocks so we aren’t barreling into their feeding ground. We’ve been told they will sense us if our engine is running, but the humpbacks don’t use echolocation so would not know our location if we are sailing.
We have some unusual trouble anchoring at Coachman’s Harbour, after finding the South Cove, as suggested in the Government issued Sailing Directions. The chart indicates the bottom is sand but Harald says we are dragging as soon as the anchor is down, assuming it is rock. We later determine perhaps it was very hard sand. There is a wharf but one small day cruiser is tied in the middle of the open side, leaving no room for us to safely manoeuvre ahead or behind him.
We prefer anchoring but the open exposure in the North Cove is not favourable. The wind is not to be strong, and expected to shift to the north, so we settle in as close to shore as possible in the North Cove, providing an excellent view of the whales that continue to surface just outside the harbour: their sleek backs so visible against the white, cloudy sky and the flat water.
The cove looks very different from what we remember on our road visit just five weeks earlier, when all was covered in slab ice.
Anchoring took an hour so we are both tired and it is still very warm. We rest until a late supper of BBQd sausage and hash browns. There is no wind but we do have a bit of roll coming from the bow which actually rocks us to sleep.
Friday July 21
For some reason I always wake early on the days we are heading out. After a cold breakfast, we are free of the bay at 8:30 and continue to watch whales as we move northwest toward Orange Bay where the resettled community of Great Harbour Deep still has some summer residents.
According to the Cruising Guide, the last residents relocated 20 years ago. “In 1999 the town had one merger grocery store. The fish plant was in poor repair and barely operating. The young owner, who had inherited the plant from his father and his father’s father, said he would be out of business altogether within five years. (He was right.) The population had dropped from 450 to 130 in just one decade.”
Our plan is to not visit the abandoned community and its wharf, but to return to last year’s anchorage, up Soufflets Arm, past Observatory Point and into the well-protected basin.
The wind picks up as we head into White Bay, past Partridge Point, the last point of land on the Baie Verte Peninsula. We run on one tack, close reach to beam reach in 10 to 15 knots of wind. The best sail we have had in a long time, running 6 to 7.5 knots. It is sunny but there are mares tail clouds so we expect the forecast of rain in the next 24 hours is accurate.
A gannet passes, flying low to the water - the first we have seen. A few puffins bob on the waves and some whale spray can be seen in the distance.
The gleaming white of an ice berg sits in our path, just a couple of miles from the entrance to Orange Bay. I take some photos and then next I look, it has changed shape. There was no sound of it breaking, and no noticeable ice field around it, so we believe it must of rolled - and we missed it, but glad we weren’t any closer. It is now shining with moisture as we pass, water running down from its rounded top.
A boat that has been following us, at a distance for most of the morning, now passes us in the entrance to the bay. I find this rather “unsailorlike” and certainly not something we have seen before. They must be in a hurry! The 42 foot sailboat from St. John’s heads past us and toward the wharf at Great Harbour Deep.
We continue the four miles to our favoured anchorage, grateful for last year’s track still in the chart plotter. The chart is off here about 1/4 mile, meaning for the last half mile we appear to be cruising on shore.
By 2:00 we are settled in the same spot as on our last visit. This was where we met Duncan and Rene on Torngat, but there is nobody here today, except for the two osprey that flew from shore as we cruised past.
I make hamburgers and Caesar salad for supper and we watch the “parade” of jelly fish float by while we are dining in the cockpit. (We think that is what they are, but they are on the water’s surface. We will have to investigate when next we get to shore. Update: July 26 spoke with marine biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. He is very perplexed by the photo I show him. So no further ahead.) We read after supper and watch the cloud come from the southeast. The wind dies and we enjoy a very quiet night.
