To Yarmouth NS Canada

So, the decision had to be either to take the easy option of forgetting whale watching and leave Shelburne towards Bar Harbour, about half way along the Maine coast in the USA, or to take on a challenge and try to get up into the Bay of Fundy.  Bear in mind that the Bay of Fundy has the largest tidal range in the world (~15m) and we were potentially going to have to flog into a brisk wind against tide situation (lumpy seas) and to have to tack backwards and forwards too (slow progress).  Perhaps because of the influence of the claret the previous evening, we had decided to take on the more challenging option, but with a bit of a cunning (cheating?) plan!

Shelburne fuel dock

Whatever our decision, we had come into Shelburne to top up the food supplies and also with diesel, so first thing on Saturday 8 September we upped anchor and moved onto the fuel dock.  When we were last here [Ed: in August – high season] the fuel dock opened at 0800hrs and so that is when we tied up.  However, it’s now September and out of season, so we discovered that the marina services start at 1000hrs.  We had sort of expected 0900hrs but 1000hrs was fine for us because we were first in the queue.

Shelburne Yacht Club from the fuel pontoon

It actually worked out very well for us because we had expected to get fuel and then have to move back out to anchor. The extra time meant that Nicky could zip up to the shops whilst I topped up the water tanks and continued to prod my iPad back into life using the club’s wifi.  All of that could now be achieved without having to inflate the dinghy; jolly convenient these off-season opening hours.

Bluenose II off on a tourist trip from Shelburne

Bluenose II set off on the first of her tourist trips and we hoped to be following her shortly.  Nicky arrived back laden down with goodies.  My iPad which, provided we hide it in the oven during thunderstorms, is our back-up navigation system in case of lightning strikes came back to life [Ed: Hurrah!] and the marina refuelling chap knocked on the hull to let us know that we could start refuelling 10 minutes early.  All super time-efficient.

However, our cunning plan meant some careful timings and we were actually now well ahead of the game.  BV was full of fuel, water and food and we were about to move back to the anchorage when Sylvie and Simon from Ottawa popped up to say hello.  They are about to buy a sailing yacht to explore the eastern seaboard of the USA and they had some questions about the game.  With no one else looking like they wanted to come onto the fuel dock we stayed put and had an interesting chat with Sylvie and Simon discussing amongst other things rigging, fridges, anchoring, power, keels, skeg hung rudders, insurance and mooring fees; it seems there’s quite a lot to this sailing lark because it felt like we had barely scratched the surface on the essentials. However, they’ll find their way and we look forward to seeing them both again sometime in a lovely anchorage somewhere.

Lighthouse marking the entrance to Shelburne on the delightfully named McNutt’s Island

Chatting to Sylvie and Simon actually meant that we slipped from the fuel dock at the perfect time, 2½ hours before low water Shelburne, about 5½ hours before low water St John, New Brunswick, on which the tidal atlas is based.  This meant that we had a small amount of tide against us to start with but that we should reach Cape Sable just as the tide changed in our favour for the run around the point and up the coast towards Yarmouth.  To make good progress we motor-sailed out past McNutt’s Island and a little way southwest but then the wind picked up a smidge more and we were able to make good speed towards the most southerly point of Nova Scotia under sail alone.

Our cunning plan all revolved around hitting the tide gate at Cape Sable and then carrying that tide northwest up the coast.  Clearly, we wanted to sail as much as we could but we knew full well that we would most likely have to cheat and hammer into both wind and an unpleasant ‘wind over tide sea’, with the help of the engine, to make the necessary progress to the northwest.

Like all good plans, there was a get-out option as well.  If, once we were past Cape Sable, the going was really unpleasant, we could escape early after a couple of hours by turning into one of the inlets to anchor and find shelter for the night.

The significant tidal flow in the Bay of Fundy is, for the first time in many years, making us think like we had to back in our home territory in the English Channel.  There, like here, the most efficient way to make progress is to jump on the tidal conveyer belt, use it to help you move swiftly on your way and then anchor up when the tide turns against you.  Six hours or so later, after a rest, and once the tide has turned back in your favour again, you can jump on the convey belt once more to continue your passage.

Cape Sable lighthouse

The big question, therefore, was how far north could we get on a tide?  We passed about 2 miles south of the Cape Sable lighthouse, due to the reefs and shallows, and then turned much closer to the wind and started our cheating phase of the plan.  We wanted to really press on north but if we had sailed we would have ended up pointing towards America. So, we stowed the genoa, sheeted the staysail and the mainsail in hard and motorsailed as close to the wind as we could without the sails flogging.

The tide started to run NNW at around 3-4 knots which, with the wind from that direction, kicked up a short and lumpy sea.  We stayed outside of the really shallow shallows, which were less than BV’s draught, but had to pick our way between some areas of unpleasant overfalls where the depth was only around 4 to 5 metres.

The sea was short and lumpy, water cascaded down the decks [Ed: and we only remembered to snug down the lazarette lids after shipping some water into the bilge] and BV switched between romping along and hobby horsing depending upon the wavelength.  Throughout though, our perfect timing passing Cape Sable meant that the tide was sweeping us in the right direction at an extra 3-4 knots. At best we made 10.5 knots over the ground but generally we made a good 7-8 knots in the right direction.

And so we hit another decision point. Did we go for bust, sail into the night and try to get as far as Yarmouth before the tide turned or did we turn right into one of the anchorages?

As night fell and we left most of the areas of overfalls behind us we felt that the decision to press on was the right one.  Progress slowed slightly because the tidal flow lessened but we also found that the sea was a bit smoother and so BV was able to cut through the waves more easily.

The sunset was quite dramatic and provided an excellent backdrop as we ate dinner: seared salmon steaks with spring onion mash and green beans, beautifully cooked by Nicky in the now not quite so lumpy sea.  Better still, a recalculation on the tidal flow given our progress confirmed that we should carry the tide all the way to Yarmouth.

The latter stages of the passage and entry into port were in the dark, and so we have no pictures, but we finally dropped anchor in the outer reaches of Yarmouth at 2215hrs, 10½ hours after leaving Shelburne. Our log showed that we had travelled 65.5nm through the water, averaging 6.2knots whilst the real passage distance was around 75 miles. With the help of the tide we had actually averaged 7.2knots.  Not bad at all considering that at times we were going at just 3.5knots through the water, bucking up and down in the short seas plus, at the end, there was a slow night approach into Yarmouth to anchor.  Most importantly though, we had catapulted ourselves forward and to the north so that on Sunday we would most likely be able to sail all day rather than having to motor into wind.  The cunning plan had worked!

Yarmouth, NS, Canada