St Peter’s Bras d’Or Lake NS Canada

Leaving Johnstown Harbour

Johnstown Harbour was a pleasant overnight stop but we felt that we should move on to St Peter’s and so at 9am on Monday 27 August we raised the anchor and headed out of the narrow entrance.

From Johnstown Harbour to St Peter’s is just 12nm but it’s mostly along a winding passage between wooded islands and with less than 5 knots of wind the only sensible option was to motor.  Whilst we didn’t get to sail, we did get a tank of hot water and fully charged batteries out of the passage.

Anchored off St Peter’s again

By 11am we were alongside the fuelling pontoon at St Peter’s.  We were in no way short of fuel but it seemed sensible to completely fill our tanks because it was easy to do so here and we wanted to fill up with fresh water.  Once BV was brimming, we moved out to anchor a little way away from the moorings and set about catching up on emails and some home admin.

Monday evening was very quiet in the anchorage and the settled weather, with no wind, was set to continue for a few days.  So, instead of motoring all the way to Halifax, we decided to stay at St Peter’s ticking off some maintenance chores until the wind came again.

Tuesday was washing day and St Peter’s marina has an excellent array of washers and driers for use at a very reasonable cost.  Whilst Nicky was ashore battling with the washing machines she met up with Marylou on sailing yacht Kiviuq, also an OCC member.  Kiviuqis a sturdy aluminium yacht which Alan and Marylou had arranged to have built and which then they fitted out themselves with some help from some craftsmen.  They had just returned from exploring Newfoundland, where we hope to visit next year, and so Nicky invited them on board BV for drinks in the evening so that we could hear about their experiences there.

Left back aboard BV, I started pulling bolts.  We had one on the starboard forward lower shroud, one on the backstay bracket, some on the generator exhaust and some on one of the running backstays that had all started to ‘bleed’ rust marks onto the deck.  Clearly, they had lost their seal and needed to be pulled, checked, cleaned up and then bedded down in fresh sealant.  Sorting out the forward lowers bolt was a mammoth task which involved pulling apart the drinks cabinet to get access to the nut.  It took most of the morning to do that and get the bolt out and then only about 20 minutes to clean it all up, check it wasn’t pitted and then seal it back down.  I still had time before Alan and Maryou arrived to get the generator exhaust bolts and the running backstay bolts sorted out but the backstay bolt had to wait for the next morning.

Linde(L) and Grace of Longstone (R)

During the evening, as well as learning a little about Alan and Marylou’s 6 year ‘retirement project’ to build Kiviuq, we also heard that they had sailed along the south coast of Newfoundland at about the same time as a Dutch yacht Lindeand a British yacht Grace of Longstone.  Hans and Clara had arrived in the anchorage on board Lindelate in the afternoon and Helen and David arrived and anchored Graceas we were hosting Marylou and David. When I ran them back to Kiviuqwe stopped by Grace to say hello.  Unsurprisingly, it turned out that we were all in St Peter’s waiting for the northerly wind to move us on to Halifax.

Resewing the top seams on the sail cover where the thread had been weakened by sunlight

Amongst other things, Wednesday was sewing day.  The sunlight had weakened the stitching on the sail cover and I wanted to sew some small anti-chaff patches onto the bimini where the running backstays sometimes touch. Digging the sewing machine out from the back of the machinery space, setting everything up and attending to those tasks, as well as giving a couple of the saloon cushions some attention, somehow made the day disappear.

Drinks on board Kiviuq. (L to R) Colin (Pelerin), Dave (Grace), Nicky, Lou (Pelerin), Marylou (Kiviuq), Helen (Grace) and Alan (Kiviuq).  Hans and Clara (Linde) had left a little earlier

It wasn’t all chores though.  Pelerinhad also arrived in the anchorage (we’d said hello to them briefly in Maskell’s Bay) and now, with 4 OCC yachts in St Peter's, Alan and Marylou decided that was a good enough excuse to host a party on board Kiviuq.  So, that evening, as well as getting to see Kiviuq, we also got to properly meet Dave and Helen (Grace of Longstone), Colin and Lou (Pelerin) and Hans and Clara (Linde), [Ed: unfortunately, Hans and Clara left before the photo was taken].  A great time was had by all and, from what we heard from everyone, we are certainly aiming to take BV further north to Newfoundland next year.

Passing through the swing bridge and on towards the lock…

… and on the way dodging a swimmer in the canal!

Hans and Clara (Linde) had left the party early because they wanted a good night’s sleep as they planned to depart for Halifax on Thursday, sailing overnight to arrive on the Friday.  For the rest of us, Thursday’s weather forecast confirmed that Friday was likely to be the better sailing day.  In anticipation, Pelerin,Graceand BV went through the St Peter’s lock so that we would be ready on the other side to leave before the first lock opening

As we passed through we had expected to avoid some opposite way marine traffic, but not to have to dodge a friendly Canadian taking his afternoon swimming exercise.  I’m sure back home there would have been a boring regulation forbidding swimming or other fun activities in the canal!

Main Street

With all 3 yachts securely moored up on the other side of the lock, we had some time to kill so Nicky and I took a walk.  We followed a footpath which runs along the shore of St Peter’s Bay but cut off it early (it runs for about 3km along the bay) up into the town so that we could get an ice-cream.

Ice-creams melting, we wandered back to the canal and then along to the lock, reading the information boards as we went.  These explained how the early French settlers had arrived here in 1650, repaired an old Portuguese defensive fort (San Pedro) and to set up a trading post.  It was already a busy place having served for a thousand years as a portage and meeting place for the native Mi’kmaq and their ancestors and so Saint-Pierre became a trading and liaison location between the two cultures.  The Mi’kmaq had always carried their lightweight canoes over land along the line of the canal to get access to the Bras d’Or Lake from the Atlantic side. Immediately seeing the advantages of that short-cut, the European settlers built a haulover road so that oxen could drag their heavier-weight boats along the same short-cut.  Useful as that was, it was inefficient and so eventually, in 1869, the desire to get larger vessels into the lake here led to the cutting of the canal and the creation of the lock.

The original canal was widened to its current size in 1917.  It’s more than wide enough for us but every now and then they do get some larger commercial vessels through, which must be a bit of a squeeze.  Had one of these larger vessels been booked to go through the canal we might not have been permitted to wait alongside the dock. But, as it was, there were no planned ship movements so there were no problems with a small fleet of yachts waiting alongside the dock overnight ready for an early morning departure towards Halifax.

St Peter’s, Bras d’Or Lake, NS, Canada

Johnstown Harbour Bras d’Or Lake NS Canada

Leaving Little Harbour

We had a quite civilised departure from Little Harbour, leaving at 1020 on Sunday 26 August.  The plan was to sail back to St Peter’s where we would wait for a favourable wind to start our transit back along to south coast of Nova Scotia to Halifax.

However, such plans are made for changing.  After just an hour under sail the wind died.  On the plus side our slow speed meant that we could look at the surprising number of jellyfish passing us by, but we didn’t really fancy motoring the 2 hours to St Peter’s.

The narrow entrance to Johnstown Harbour

Instead we diverted to another location used by the Royal Nova Scotian Yacht Squadron Rally, Johnstown Harbour. Like Little Harbour this also has a narrow entrance but, unlike Little Harbour which is essentially circular, Johnstown Harbour opens out into a wide area with a number of bays to choose from for a night stop.

We passed several very pleasant houses overlooking the bay and made our way all the way up to the furthest corner.

There we anchored, almost in solitude and out of sight of all the houses, with just the irritating wine of a jetski disturbing our sundowners.

Fortunately the intruding jetskier had a short attention span and soon stopped driving around in circles leaving us to enjoy the peace and quiet of another lovely Nova Scotian anchorage.

Johnstown Harbour, Bras d’Or Lake, NS, Canada

Little Harbour Bras d’Or Lake NS Canada

Leaving Baddeck

So, after a very pleasant couple of nights at Baddeck in the middle of the morning of Saturday 25 August we raised the anchor and headed off back towards St Peter’s Canal.

Alexander Graham Bell’s Home

There was little wind and we planned to stop for lunch en-route to our planned overnight anchorage, so the engine got a bit of a workout.  First on the list of ‘places to spot’ was the house overlooking Braddeck where Alexander Graham Bell had lived and worked at end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Maskell’s Bay, where the Cruising Club of America was formed

Our lunchstop was at Maskell’s Bay, which is where the Cruising Club of America was formed.  It’s an attractive spot with good holding in gunky mud and great shelter behind the point near the entrance.  We tucked in here not for the shelter but to give the other sailing yacht and 3 motor boats already in the bay plenty of space.  Just before we left 2 more motor boats and 3 more sailing yachts arrived.  The place was getting busy – clearly a weekend!  One of the new arrivals was an Ovni called Pelerin, sailed by Colin and Lou.  They’re members of the OCC (they were flying their burgee) so as we departed we motored over to say hello and ended up hearing a little about their adventures in Newfoundland, from where they had just returned.  We hope that we might end up in the same anchorage overnight at some point so that we can pick their brains about the sailing further north.

Approaching the Barra Strait Bridge

By this time there was a good sailing wind and we had a brisk beat south to the Barra Strait Bridge.  We approached from a wide angle and wondered if we had managed to creep up on the bridge-keeper but when Nicky called on the radio with ¾nm to go he replied that ‘our’ bridge lift was already in progress. Damn, he’d spotted us!

Once through the bridge we set off sailing again but the wind dropped after about an hour so we resorted to the iron topsail to make sure that we got to Little Harbour in reasonable time.

The entrance to Little Harbour

The entrance to the bay is narrow, though plenty deep enough, but then once inside it opens out into a huge space which could easily accommodate 100 yachts or more; Little Harbour is certainly not a little harbour.

The Cape Breton Smokehouse

Nicky had read about Little Harbour in the pilot book and had been intrigued by mention of the Cape Breton Smokehouse, which is on the shore of the lake.  This was our reason for not wanting to arrive too late – restaurants close early here by British standards.  We found the Smokehouse quite easily; there is a jetty and then a grassy track to the building, though there are lots and lots of nasty biting insects between the jetty and the building.  The Smokehouse, owned and run by a German couple who fell in love with the area during their own sailing adventure, is a log cabin restaurant that specialises in their home-produced smoked salmon.  We had their smoked salmon as a starter and it was delicious, quite thick, succulent slices with a very gentle smoky flavour, and the main course, blackened salmon, was almost as good.  But the restaurant was empty apart from us and a party of 4 German-speakers who left part way through our meal.  And the ambiance was rather as if they hadn’t expected to be open that day – strange on a Saturday.  Perhaps it’s the end of the season, perhaps the restaurant’s always like that but it did feel a little odd.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed our meal and returned happily to BV; happily expect for wanting to kill the myriad, tiny, biting, buzzing insects that accompanied us back to her.  Clearly we had eaten well so they felt that they could too!

Little Harbour, Bras d’Or Lake, NS, Canada

The Alexander Graham Bell Museum at Baddeck

Until Bill and Lydia told us about the Alexander Graham Bell (AGB) museum in Baddeck both Nicky and I had fondly believed that AGB had been a through and through Scotsman, inventing the telephone in a garret somewhere in Edinburgh and continuing his life of invention fuelled by porridge, haggis and good Scottish malt whisky.  Then we found out that he had moved to the USA in his early twenties, and that his work on the telephone took place in the land of Mark Twain rather than Robbie Burns.  With his patent for the telephone making him financially secure, he married an American, becoming a naturalised US citizen and, in time, they took a summer home in Baddeck which became a base for much of his later work.  It was all a bit of a shock.  So we decided that we needed to visit the museum to set ourselves straight.

The museum is set on the outskirts of Baddeck, with a view over the Lakes, and the triangle theme in the gable-end window is a nod to AGB’s work on tetrahedral box structures – for kites, planes, hydrofoils…..

AGB was born to a family of elocutionists.  He didn’t star at school but became fascinated by the subject and with learning in general during a year spent living and working with his grandfather in London.  He spent 2-3 years teaching elocution and studying in both London and Scotland until 1870 when both his brothers died of tuberculosis and his father decided that the family should move somewhere healthier.  They moved to Ontario, from where AGB moved on to a number of instructional posts in schools for the deaf in the USA.  He settled in Boston, opening his own practice to teach deaf people to speak; one of his most famous students was Helen Keller and another was Mabel Hubbard, who later became his wife.  AGB’s poor health (he had to give up teaching) and his interest in speech and the transmission of sound led to his conducting a series of experiments on the transmission of sound on telegraph wires.  The experiments led to his being issued a patent and, 3 days later, proving the concept of the telephone on 10 Mar 1876.  However, it took the much of the rest of the year before he produced a useful working telephone and a further 3 years to develop one that was practical for long distances and into which one didn’t need to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.  Ultimately, the Bell Telephone Company made AGB a very rich man, though he gave the majority of his shares in the company to his wife on their marriage.

A replica of the Silver Dart, the first motor-powered aircraft to fly in Canada and the British Commonwealth (23 Feb 1909).  This replica also flew, on the 100^thanniversary of the flight of the original, but not with quite the same seating etc as on display in the museum, Canadian Aviation standards having improved somewhat in the intervening period!

But AGB was much more a scientist and inventor than an businessman and his scientific interests spread far and wide. The museum at Baddeck, understandably, concentrates his work on aeronautics and hydrofoils as these took place, and obviously so, in and around the lake close to Baddeck.  He was one of 5 founding members, and head of, the Aerial Experiment Association.  Together they developed box-wing kites then gliders and finally powered aircraft. The AEA’s Silver Dart made the first successful heavier than air flight in Canada and shortly thereafter the AEA was amicably wound up, with AGB wanting to move on to new experimental areas and other founding members wanting to continue working on developing aircraft.

(Top) Replica of the HD-4 hydrofoil and
(bottom) the HD-4 in action on the lake at Baddeck

AGB first investigated hydrofoils as a possible aid to help aircraft take off from water.  Following his world tour (1910-11), AGB and his assistant developed a number of proof-of-concept prototype hydrofoil boats.  These led to the development of the HD-4 which, whilst successful in terms of acceleration, stability and steering, was not that fast. In 1913, AGB hired a yacht designed to make improvements but work was halted by the beginning of WW1.  Work on HD-4 began again after the end of the war and, after fitting 2 new 350HP engines in July 1919, on 9 Sep 1919 the HD-4 set a marine world speed record of 70.86mph.  Depending on the report you read, this record either stood for 1 year or 10 years....

After taking the world marine speed record, the HD-4 was abandoned on the beach at AGB’s house near Baddeck (top right).  Many years later (mid-1950s or 60s) the vessel was recovered and is now preserved and on show in the museum

The museum gave us a fascinating insight into AGB’s life and work and it quickly became clear to us that there was so much more to him than ‘just’ the telephone.  Indeed, he resigned from the Bell Telephone Company due to the ongoing stress of having to prove his right to the patent.  Happily for him, he always kept copious notes and all his correspondence on a subject he was studying so he was successful in proving his claim.  But the breadth of his interests; in hearing, sound transmission, aircraft, hydrofoils, sheep breeding (yes, sheep breeding!) and many, many other areas made us rather wonder how he had managed to find time for it all.  After a couple of hours of reading all about it, we certainly needed to have a stop and a rest!

So we repaired to BV and enjoyed a very calm evening, with a hazy sunset, and made plans for our journey south.

Baddeck, Bras d’Or Lake, NS, Canada

Baddeck Bras d’Or Lake NS Canada

We’d had a lovely stay In Denys’ Bay but by Wednesday 22 August we felt that we should move on to Baddeck at the north end of the Bras d’Or Lakes.  Getting out of the maze of waterways should have been as simple as following our chartplotter’s ‘snail trail’ of the route in.  Unfortunately I cut one corner just a little bit too fine and we went firmly, if squishily, aground on some of the Lakes’ finest ooze.  There’s virtually no tide in the Bras d’Or Lakes so things were a little fraught as putting the engine into reverse didn’t make much of an impact on how firmly BV was embedded in the mud.  Happily, the wind was partly in our favour, so we were able to unroll the genoa and use that to slew BV’s bow off towards deeper water.  That combined with a good blast of astern revs got us off the mud.  [Ed: there’s a moral in there somewhere about not getting distracted!]

Clear of the mud and en-route to the Barra Straits’ Bridge

After taking a slightly more circumspect approach to the rest of the waterways between Denys’ Basin and the main body of the lake, we arrived at open water and headed towards the Barra Straits’ Bridge.

Barra Straits’ Bridge.  Top left:  Jazz II approaching the bridge.  Top right:  the road bridge fully open.  Bottom left: the railway bridge, which is never normally closed

We arrived off the bridge at about the same time as another yacht, Jazz II, and so went through in convoy. Amazingly, like the St Peter’s Canal lock, the bridge opens on demand in the sailing season, so getting through was really easy.

With the bridge behind us and cheerful hellos and thank-yous exchanged with the bridge-keeper we set sail for the final 12nm to Baddeck.

There wasn’t vast amounts of wind but there was enough and there was another yacht to race…..

Entering Baddeck Harbour

Unfortunately, Jazz II stopped at Maskell’s Bay, only a couple of miles up from the bridge, so we had no company for most of the leg to Baddeck.  When we arrived at the town it was clear that most of the anchorage area was filled with moorings, but there was plenty of space to the north of the moorings, between them and the lighthouse, so we dropped anchor there, launched the dinghy and headed ashore.

Baddeck is a surprisingly large town, primarily geared to tourists visiting the Bras d’Or Lakes. Nevertheless, we found a good-sized Co-Op (though the Sobeys in St Peter’s is better and has an adjacent liquor store), a hardware store, a laundrette and, best of all, a good ice-cream shop.  We spent the end of the afternoon in an enjoyable wander around the town, getting our bearings, enjoying the views across the lake and recce-ing the Alexander Graham Bell museum for a visit the next day.

Baddeck, Bras d’Or Lake, NS, Canada

Deny’s Basin Bras d’Or Lakes NS Canada

After a peaceful night and a leisurely breakfast, we up-anchored at 0945 on Tuesday 21 August and carefully made our way out from the Crammond Islands anchorage.  The other yacht that had shared our anchorage for the night left just ahead of us and on opposite tacks we both beat our way east out of West Bay. Clearly, we weren’t racing but Nicky did have me tweaking the sails just a little more than is usual and it was nice when, having ended up a considerable distance behind the other yacht after the first 2 tacks, we made up most of that ground on the next 2. Had they used their engine to clear the Crammond Islands?  One for the protest jury to discuss!

At the top of the West Arm we headed north towards the entrance to a maze of inlets.  The wind was light, only about 7 or 8knots, and off-wind, even on a reach, our progress was quite slow.  We started the engine off the entrance to the maze, just to give us the motive power to keep going.  The route into the far reaches of Denys’ Basin twisted and turned between islands and headlands, across shallow bars and along deeply scoured channels.

It was a fascinating ‘sail’ with utterly beautiful scenery.

Our anchorage in Denys’ Basin

Eventually we got about as far down Denys’ Basin as seemed sensible from our chart…..

The un-named island

….. and dropped anchor in 4m behind a small, un-named island.

Working on the dorade vents

Dorade vent box back in place, with the work on the stainless steel
protective bars to follow the next day. Note the rust streaks around
 the base of the bar to the left of the picture.  We had worried that this
 was due to rust on the bolt securing the fitting to the deck.  It turned
 out that it was ‘only’ due to the base of the fitting becoming tarnished due
to a failure of the sealant there but, long term, that could become more
than just a cosmetic problem if not resolved

It was a beautiful, sunny and, most importantly, dry day so we decided to make the most of the rest of the afternoon and remove, clean and rebed the dorade vents.  We had noted a leak, only obvious when we had water coming across the deck, that manifested itself in drips down the saloon’s forward bulkhead. From witness marks on the top side (the hidden side) of the saloon headlining, it seemed clear that the dorade vents had been leaking.  We needed to sort that out before we headed out into green water again – hence rebedding the vents.  These jobs always take longer than you want but we successfully removed everything, discovering an old wasps’ nest and a rusty peg in the process, cleaned all the old sealant off the various surfaces and rebuilt it all again with new sealant And, the following morning we removed and rebedded the stainless steel protective bars too.

After a good afternoon’s work we enjoyed a belated sundowners watching the geese returning to their night roosts from the marsh between our un-named island and the shore.  Inevitably, with marshland quite close, that evening’s mosquitoes were large and persistent.

Back to our anchorage

The following day, having worked on the bars over the dorade vents, we decided to try to get to the preferred anchorage in Denys’ Basin according to the book Cruising Cape Breton.  This anchorage is just off Eagle Point and, having so far only seen one bald eagle, and that from a distance, we hoped that by making the move we might see fewer geese and more eagles.  But it was not to be.  As we motored cautiously further up the basin, it was clear that our chart was more accurate than the chartlet in the CCB and we went aground.  The bottom’s all soft sticky mud and we didn’t go on at any great speed so we came off quite easily, but we did dig up a good cloud of silt in the process.  So, we returned to our previous anchorage for another night and it was, again, lovely but there were no bald eagles.

Deny’s Bay, Bras d’Or Lakes, NS, Canada