Sleepless In Round Harbour
Yesterday was a 20 mile passage, beginning with the rounding of Cape St. John and ending at the wharf in the abandoned community of Round Harbour, on the northern entrance to Snook’s Arm. We motor-sailed most of the way, with the mainsail raised for stability. The sea is choppy and the wind is pushing 25 knots but we see speeds of 7.5 knots when we steer enough off course to catch some wind. The shoreline is as rugged as we’ve seen to date, but these rocks are not smooth and round but rather jagged and sharp with many deep crevices between. We see no other boats and no marine life. The sky is grey and the air is cool.
The entrance to Round Harbour is narrow but we find the safe space to lower the mainsail and head to the wharf which we see now holds two fishing boats - one on each side of the very short dock. The harbour is indeed, somewhat round at the head and about 120 yards wide. There is enough space to anchor, but we abort our attempt when we hear the anchor skidding along the rock below us. So we head back to the wharf and get secured along the front face on the first try.
Our dinghy is hanging in front of the fishing boat on one side and our bow is in front of the smaller boat on the other side. We know we are welcome to stay at any public wharf and will deal with having to move if either of these boats has to leave.
But nobody comes by, in fact, we only see lights in one home on the steep-sided harbour and perhaps three others might be occupied at some point during the summer. The rest of the settlement is abandoned houses, hugging the slim space between water and steep cliffs, stages and wharfs. Many of these have collapsed into piles of driftwood along the shore. The scene is haunting and I recall Ed O’Reilly’s drone footage as being just as we are seeing now.
I walk down the wharf and up the hill but find nothing of note. The people in the house don’t venture down and they are gone in the morning when we wake….but before morning, comes night…and we had a doozy.
We have a late dinner of fried pork chops, potato salad, broccoli and carrots and small servings of Dana’s pickled beets, followed by our nightly Skipbo game. Then the wind shifts to the east - straight in the opening of the small harbour.
Our boat has a four and half foot keel and inside of it is a four foot long centreboard which we can lower to lengthen our keel in certain winds and sea conditions. We are wanting to have it serviced as it seems we can no longer pull it all the way up and sometimes, if the wind and waves are coming in different directions, we get a thumping sound - usually during the night.
Can you imagine trying to sleep in the timpani section of the orchestra, with the rest of the percussion section very nearby? For seven hours we listened to “Bah BOOM, Bah BOOM, Bah BOOM at 3 second intervals. In the intervals we listened to the fenders squeaking against the dock and fender boards slamming so loud we were sure they would be in splinters by morning. The fetch was pushing us into the dock and the centreboard slamming sideways in its housing within the keel.
Harald went topside several times during his brief rest on the settee but by 7:00 am, when things started to die down, we both took a Gravol and crawled back into a quieter bed, sleeping until 11:00.
After a bowl of cereal and tea prepared for the journey, we are somewhat relieved to leave Round Harbour at 1:30 and cross the 15 short miles to Little Bay Islands.