The Challenges
This morning we are happy to be leaving Garden Cove on Noddy Bay after two days of fetch, our centre board thudding and fisherman not slowing down when they pass, bringing great discomfort. It is a lovely place, we are very glad we got to shore, and I believe Harald is relieved to be finished his two days of kitchen duty.
It feels quite warm in the sun so we dress a bit lighter - sweater, ball cap, lined pants, deck shoes - no fleece-lined rubber boots today. This feeling of summer, though, is short lived and Harald retreats to the cabin to grab our warm coats, hats and gloves.
Rounding Cape Bauld we know we are in the most northerly point in Newfoundland and entering the open Atlantic Ocean. The lighthouse station and Coast Guard helicopter pad provide some comfort, knowing help isn’t far if needed. (I have a little moment of joy when I see they have their laundry hanging out in the stiff summer breeze.)
The seas are already higher than forecasted, and the wind at 25 knots, as we motor south to our destination of St. Lunaire, just 10 nautical miles. We let the auto-helm do the steering while we watch for marine life. The swells are growing and we find ourselves, just 3 miles from the wharf, slamming through the waves.
Our 4:30 arrival at the St. Lunaire wharf was a great relief after our engine stalled as we rounded the point into St. Lunaire Bay. As we entered the calmer water of the bay, the engine started and ran as it should, taking us along side the wharf. A fisherman takes our lines and we head down the pier in search of water, showers, laundry and groceries.
A group of men are cleaning cod on the wharf. We stop to chat and tell them about our engine. The consensus is that the fuel probably wasn’t getting to the engine as we rode up the waves. The “grinding” sound was probably the prop out of the water on the downside. Fishermen have been a great source of information for us many times in the past month: weather, directions to travel, best place to anchor or tie up and where to find all amenities on shore. We take some comfort in believing our engine is now happy and we will carry on tomorrow.
We are offered a ride to the grocery store, where we find some very reasonable prices, including for fresh romaine lettuce. The showers and laundry, however, can’t be located by us, so we go without.
Dinner is very late: steak, new potatoes, corn and Caesar salad - almost like summer at home but the steak is pan fried (too windy to bbq) and the corn is niblets from a can.
We leave St. Lunaire at 11:00 the next morning, after I wake early and see in the Marine Forecast that there is 35 knots of wind expected in a couple of days. We had hoped to visit a few places in this town, but instead we get up and take on necessary chores before we leave.
Harald is offered a ride to fill our jerry cans with diesel and then to make a few trips to the water hose with our spare water jug, topping up our front water tank. This gentleman is an off-duty Coast Guard so we mention our engine issue and he agrees with the diagnosis from the fishermen.
As we continue our southern journey, we cannot sail in the south wind but motor through with the plan to stop in 24 miles in Maiden Arm on the south shore of Hare Bay, staying a couple of days as we hear it is beautiful and secluded.
Our fridge is well stocked, our water tanks and diesel near full, so we decide not to go into St. Anthony, where we have visited before. It is a complicated and busy harbour and we would rather see new things as we move along the east side of the Northern Peninsula.
We see two whale spouts just off St. Anthony and later a dead seal floats past. (There is no napping or reading while we are on the move - one of us is always at the helm, watching the chart plotter, the iPad and as needed, the radar. We are always both looking over the water for whale spouts, fins and floating “anything”. I find all of this very unsettling since the “orca experience”. It is all very satisfying to see fins, spouts and surfacing whales and dolphins at a distance but rather heart stopping when they suddenly appear just feet from the cockpit.)
Maiden Arm is 24 nautical miles away, the wind is supposed to be 15-20 knots but it is actually over 25 knots so we hope to be able to sail when we make the slight course adjustment crossing Hare Bay toward Maiden Arm, just 9 miles away.
My time spent researching harbours over the winter and most days along the journey pays off, again, when our engine stalls as we round Goose Cape. Goose Cove is just inside Hare Bay, just before we would be crossing the open bay to Maiden Arm.
Harald is quick to unfurl the foresail and I steer us parallel to the very narrow entrance of Goose Cove. Then begins a slow dance of reducing sail, steering through buoys, tacking, aiming for shallow water, adding sail to move us enough to steer, then reducing sail so we can stop. The wind is light and we cannot find the safe water for anchoring so we drop it about 100 yards from the public wharf in 55 feet of water and I give several blasts on the air horn, hoping to get someone’s attention.
This is a lovely community of modern homes, some crab boats at the wharf and apparently about 175 people, at last census. Only one of them, though, is out and about this afternoon, and he just got in his car and drove away.
It’s not long though when he returns and another man appears beside us in his small fishing boat. Our faith in the Newfoundland people is restored! He very skillfully takes our anchor chain onto his boat using his electric winch he uses for drawing his nets. Then through a series of zig-zags he pulls us along the open side of the wharf where the first gentleman catches our lines. This is not the first time the fisherman has performed this maneuver!
He helps Harald get the anchor chain back in the locker and then joins us for a beer while we wait for his son-in-law, an engine mechanic, to get home from his shift as engineer on a Coast Guard vessel. Such luck!
The son-in-law and 6 year old daughter arrive within minutes and he trouble shoots with Harald as I visit with his daughter, along with Poppy who stands along side in his dory.
There are only 12 children in town and they are bussed to St Anthony for school. She tells me she has been to Disney World and St. John’s - at the end of summer for school supplies, clothes and toys. She has her own Skidoo which she rides when they travel to their cabin in the winter. Kids can’t play outside here in the winter due to the rise in polar bear visits. There were 4 polar bears here last winter - entered homes, raided fridges and killed 4 sheep. Poppy tells me the people here always travel with a gun in the winter.
Our friendly mechanic changes our Racor filter after checking for any other possible problems but believes we should be fine to continue on our journey. So perhaps the fishermen’s diagnosis was not correct, but certainly worth considering.
We decide it’s best to get off the dock tonight before the fishing boats come in at 8am as we are docked right at the crane used to lift the fish from the boats.
There is still nearly 3 hours of daylight when we leave the wharf at 6:30pm to finish the 9 miles across Hare Bay. Wind is already at 23knots again on our bow, so I motor us across - happy to see the entrance through Death’s Head and Starboard Islands as the sun is setting in just 30 minutes.
Through a series of s-turns we arrive at the head of the last cove and drop the anchor at 8:45pm in 14 feet of water. It was a long day and too late to prepare the planned chicken dinner, so we start the furnace, enclose the cockpit, pour the rye and devour a bag of snack mix.
The near-full moon rises at 9:40 and we head to bed.