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Leaving the St Peter’s Canal lock entrance

When we got up at 0630hrs on Friday 31 August we found that Graceand Pelerinhad already departed. The AIS showed that they were about an hour ahead of us but from our discussions the previous evening we knew that we had different plans.

St Peter’s Bay at dawn

Heading out into St Peter’s Bay was beautiful.  The orange morning light made the woods and town glow, and it was so still it almost seemed a shame to disturb the mirror-like water with our wake.

And clearly with no wind [Ed: not as forecast, very disappointing!] it was a motor.  With George steering Nicky took the opportunity to read her ebook in the cockpit; very civilised!

A couple of hours later, and about halfway across the Chedabucto Bay (a bit north of Cape Canso), we felt that there was just enough wind to sail and so we hoisted the mail and poled out the genoa. We did that deliberately because there were now small waves and we didn’t think that there was enough wind to keep the MPS flying.  As the waves passed and BV rocked we felt that the MPS would just keep collapsing. The poled-out genoa was gave us 5 knots, which was enough, and made for very stress free sailing so Nicky could keep reading her book.  At 1150, Canadia 2, called us on the VHF.  Chris was flying, and just outbound from Halifax airport to the rigs off Sable Island.  If we were in town the following evening, would we like to to dinner?  Would we?  Oh, yes!

By 1400hrs the wind had increased a little and we swapped the genoa for the MPS, which we kept up until dusk and which kept us tootling along towards Halifax nicely.  At dusk we were abeam the Liscomb River so we called Graceand Pelerinon the radio to wish them a pleasant night at anchor.  They had both elected to break up the sail with an overnight stop in the river whilst we had decided to keep sailing overnight whilst the wind was good.

That turned out to be a really good plan [Ed: though their chat about sundowners and dinner enjoying the sunset at anchor sounded rather pleasant!].  Instead, we broke the night up into four 3-hour watches so that we each got the same amount of sleep and, much to our delight, the wind stayed steady throughout the passage, so we were able to sail all the way.  I was on the dawn watch and sailed BV up to the entrance to the Northwest Arm of Halifax harbour.  A gentle motor took us the last few miles where we passed Hans and Clara (Linde) at anchor.  Judy had already very kindly offered us the use of her mooring again and so I picked that up solo.  The noise of me reversing BV to stop her woke up Nicky and she leapt on deck just in time to find that everything was done.  It had been a really good passage and we were in Halifax with the rest of Saturday to do the shopping that we wanted to do before everything shut down for the Labour Day holiday.

Our canter around the shops achieved most of what we wanted and by the time we got back, we saw that Graceand Pelerin had joined us, Linde and Kiviuq (who had arrived about an hour behind us) in the anchorage.  Sadly, Grace and Pelerin had not had enough wind to sail and so had motored the whole way from Liscomb.  Chris belled us up to talk dinner plans.  He, Doug and some friends were taking out Chris’ yacht for some evening sailing practice and on their return from that we arranged to meet up for drinks.  Sadly, Studio East’s tables were fully booked and so we decamped to another excellent restaurant nearby for a lovely meal with Chris, Doug, Lucia (Doug’s wife), Greg (the rocket scientist) and Erin (Greg’s partner).

In the morning we realised that with our plan to move onwards on Monday morning, and with Linde, Grace, Kiviuq and Pelerin all now at anchor close by, there was an opportunity for a party on board BV that was not to be missed. We were also delighted that Chris, Judy and David (Judy’s partner) could join the gang.

A sea osprey perched on our new masthead anemometer

I’m not quite sure how we managed to fit 13 people into the cockpit area along with enough food and drinks to sink a battleship but somehow it seemed to work.  Even a passing osprey took an interest and perched on top of our new masthead wind instruments to see what was going on.  They are big birds and so I had to say that I was quite relieved when it moved on without causing any damage to the anemometer.

How to fit 13 people in a cockpit made for 6!

The party turned out to be great fun which was not really surprising because we had excellent company.  Like all of these gatherings it was great to hear about everyone’s sailing plans and to compare notes on good places that we had already visited and might go to in the future.  In fact, that discussion prompted an agreement to meet up in the morning with David and Helen on Grace to discuss in more detail good stopping places in New England.  They had had a fabulous time cruising the area the previous summer and we were about to pass the same areas on our way south.

Sadly, well after dark,  the party had to break up but it had been a lovely gathering and a delight to get everyone together before we all went our separate ways.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada