Halifax (Part 1) NS Canada

We spent Tuesday 7 August, visiting the chandlery, moving onto Judy’s mooring and then visiting the big shopping centre not too far from where BV was moored.  Chris kindly lent us his car for our shopping trip which made the restock of the beer locker altogether a much less arduous experience (it’s a 15min walk from the dinghy dock to the nearest Sobey’s and NSLC).  We had dinner that evening with Chris and Steph and Doug at the Armdale Yacht Club, which was great fun.  Also at the club was one of Chris and Steph’s neighbours, Greg, who designs experiments and experimental equipment for NASA’s Mars programmes (yes, a real rocket scientist!).  In his spare time, Greg is developing a company which will use food waste to feed fly larvae which, in turn, will be used to make protein-rich food for fish, poultry and, perhaps, other animals – oh, and he’s big into sailing too; an interesting chap to talk to.

The following day, we took Chris and his dad, Mike, out on BV, ostensibly for a sail but the forecast 15kt wind only considered thinking about filling in after they had both had to leave us for work meetings.  The outing started off very foggy and, as we reached the bottom end of the NW Arm Nicky fired up the radar, which showed a large cruise ship slowly making her way up the harbour towards the cruise ship terminal.  We could just make out some of the lower part of her stern – the rest of the ship was hidden in the fog.  Happily, only a few minutes later the fog started to lift and we soon found ourselves in a lovely day albeit glassy calm.

We motored up the harbour past the spruced up waterfront and then on past the naval dockyard (no pics just in case they objected).

Alderney Landing

Mike and Chris explained that it is possible to take a berth alongside at the waterfront during the day (free) and overnight (nominal charge) but we felt that it might be rather bouncy on the pontoons or alongside the quays as ferries, motorboats and police and customs launches went past. Further up, close opposite the naval yard, and as we were avoiding a naval ship making her way out of her berth, we passed the city of Dartmouth on our starboard side.  Nearly all of the towns here are named after places back in Europe.  Even the Channel Islands are represented as we saw when we passed the Alderney Landing!

Nicky and Mike

Bedford Basin in 1942 – full of ships waiting for one
of the convoys across the Atlantic to resupply the Allied war effort

Mike and Chris gave us the full guided tour.  We passed under the bridges and went into the Bedford Basin.  Here Halifax harbour opens out considerably making it one of the largest natural harbours in the world.  It was particularly important during both world wars as it was the northernmost ice-free harbour in the Americas and the closest to Europe

Chris enjoying the best seat on the yacht

By this stage we had pretty much exhausted all we could see in the time available.  Unfortunately, the weather was still not playing ball and sailing was definitely not an option.  So we headed back to the NW Arm and, with half an hour or so to spare, Mike and Chris practiced their picking up mooring buoy drills before they reluctantly requested that we drop them off so that they could get to their various meetings in good time.  It was a real shame that the weather had been so calm as we really wanted to get out sailing with them but we agreed that the next day we would try to go out sailing with Chris in their new to them boat, to make up for the lack of sailing today.

Halifax, NS, Canada