Whale Watching in the Bay of Fundy

Leaving Eastport heading northeast

Fish weirs off Northwest Harbour and
Helena Island as we approached Lords Cove

Thursday 13 September was a big day for us.  We had checked into the USA at Eastport the previous day and spent the night on a buoy there but we couldn’t take the most direct route west from Eastport because BV’s air draft is too great for her to get under the 43’ high Roosevelt Memorial bridge that connects Maine to Campobello Island.  Well, to be absolutely correct, if we had timed our departure exactly perfectly at low water we should have just squeaked BV under the bridge but it wasn’t really worth the risk.  Instead we timed our departure so that we weren’t fighting the tides and planned to leave the way we had come in, via East Quoddy Head, and hoped that we might see whales along the way too.

Lords Cove, Deer Island

But to time the tides to be in our favour, we needed to leave Eastport no later than 0900 to carry the very last of the ebb out of Friar Roads and Head Harbour Passage but if we turned to head southwest outside Campobello Island at that point we’d be bucking the tide roaring up the Bay of Fundy for the next 4 hours – not a good state of affairs! So we decided to anchor in Lords Cove, Deer Island [Ed: yes, in Canada, but we weren’t going to go ashore] for the intervening period and so make East Quoddy Light just as the tide turned south and west in our favour.  Lords Cove is a beautiful spot and, had we had more time, we could quite happily have spent several days here.  We didn’t have that time but we enjoyed our extended coffee break in the bay, oohing and ahhing at the early ‘fall’ colours and enjoying watching the tide rise and cover all the interesting hard, lumpy, bits.

Mirages creating ‘upside down islands’

We had been told that the best time to see whales off East Quoddy Light is around high tide so at 1250, about an hour before high water, we raised the anchor and headed out to the eastern end of Campobello Island.  It was a beautiful day with little wind and mirages caused the distant islands to gain upside-down doubles.  As we motored towards the lighthouse we could see a couple of boats stationary in the water….

‘Thar she blows’!

… and then we saw the first indications of whales – the blow.  To be honest, at the time we thought we were looking at finback whales but the photos clearly show these as humpbacks.  It didn’t matter what species they were though: they were whales; big, breathing, diving, don’t drive your boat into them, real live whales.  Wow!

There were a couple of commercial whale watching boats and 2 small, privately owned motor boats as well as us enjoying the spectacle of the whales (2 we think, perhaps 3) gently trundling south on the tide, having a spot of lunch.  Nothing terribly exciting, just up and down, on the surface for a bit and then dived for a bit and, it seemed, not at all bothered by having spectators at their dining table.

Every now and then one of the whales would show its flukes when it dived.

It didn’t happen very often but I was lucky and managed to get a couple of reasonable pictures of the event.

After about 30 minutes we felt we should move on and give the animals some space so we trundled southwest along the coast and within 5 minutes had sight of another whale which was being watched by only one other vessel.  We joined them and were treated to a real close-up encounter with another feeding humpback.

Two dive sequences.  Top set – whale in surface recovery mode.  Lower set – whale diving for extended period

This humpback showed its flukes far more frequently than the first ones we had seen.  It would surface from a more extended dive, ‘porpoise’ on the surface for a while and then take a final deep breath and dive, showing its flukes, for another extended underwater period.

It was fabulous to watch but, of course, we had no idea when the animal would next surface or, indeed, where.

And then it surfaced almost right in front of us!!  Nicky squeaked, thinking that she was about to run into it but we weren’t moving fast (maybe a couple of knots) and the whale obviously knew better than to surface directly in front of us – it was a little to one side.  So it ran down our port side, whilst I rapidly snapped away and Nicky pointed out that we could clearly see one of its pectoral fins shining white just under the surface.  Perhaps just a little too close then….

And after a couple more breaths….

…it dived away again; and we thought that we’d probably had the best of its time and headed off too.  What a fabulous end to our time in Canada!

The Bay of Fundy off Campobello, NS, Canada

Roosevelt Cottage Campobello Island Canada & USA

Roosevelt Campobello International Park pontoon at low tide, with BV anchored off

We had been recommended to visit the Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island by our friends Murray and Cate Bassingthwaite (Coolchange).  They suggested that we arrive early and get tickets for ‘Tea with Eleanor’ but, happily, at the International Park, ‘early’ is not very early so at about 0930 on Wednesday 12 September we arrived ashore, very glad for the use of the pontoon, which meant that we didn’t have to drag the dinghy miles up the beach to keep it clear of the rising tide.  ‘Early’ isn’t too early here as the International Park is in New Brunswick in Canada and works on Atlantic Time, whereas a large proportion of the Park’s visitors are American tourists from across the bridge (The FDR Memorial Bridge) in Lubec, Maine, which works on Eastern Time, an hour behind Atlantic Time.

The Roosevelt Cottage

The Roosevelt Campobello International Parkpreserves the house and surrounding landscape of the summer retreat of President Franklin D Roosevelt, his wife, Eleanor, and their family.  FDR first came to Campobello as an infant.  At the time the island was being promoted as a holiday location for wealthy businessmen from Washington, New York and other cities further south; the cool, clean air, bracing water and beautiful scenery were a world apart from the heat, humidity and industrial atmospheres of the commercial centres. FDR’s parents stayed in one of the 3 large hotels that had been built on the island but so loved the place that they bought their own cottage and returned every summer.  So, FDR spent much of his formative childhood on Campobello, spending time swimming, sailing, canoeing and exploring.  The cottage which became his and Eleanor’s was previously owned by friends of his parents.  When the lady died, she left provision in her will that it could be sold cheaply to FDR’s mother, on the understanding that it was kept in trust for FDR.  Thus, he became the owner of the building now known as ‘The Roosevelt Cottage’ shortly after his marriage to Eleanor.  Here they spent some very happy summers with their children, perhaps with FDR reliving some of his childhood through his children’s exploits.

However, the happiness did not last unalloyed.  During a visit in 1921, FDR contracted polio and after that he only returned to the island a couple of times.  In addition, his political career, first as a senator, then as President was taking off which limited the time he could spend away from the corridors of power.  He died, relatively young, in 1945 but Eleanor, who loved the island’s cool summer weather continued to visit the island up until her death in 1962.  After her death the property was deeded to the governments of the U.S. and Canada and in 1964, they created the 2,800-acre International Park, to commemorate FDR’s memory and the special relationship between the USA and Canada.

Wells-Shober Cottage – ‘Tea with Eleanor’

After a brief wander around some of the park our first stop was the Wells-Shober Cottage for ‘Tea with Eleanor’.

‘Tea with Eleanor’.  Eleanor’s picture hangs over the fireplace

Inside, in a dining room with a low sloping ceiling (to remind the original owners of being on board a sailing vessel apparently) we drank Eleanor’s favourite blend of Orange Pekoe tea, ate delicious home cooked ginger cookies and listened to a couple of the park guides tell the story of Eleanor Roosevelt in their own words.  It was fascinating.  Neither Nicky nor I had previously known anything about Eleanor Roosevelt and suddenly we were being told of a lady who spent much of her time whilst FDR was President working on behalf of the unemployed, advocating expanded roles for women in the workplace, and fighting for the civil rights of African-Americans and Asian-Americans as well as the rights of World War II refugees.  She wrote a daily newspaper column, hosted a weekly radio show and wrote a monthly magazine article.  And she travelled.  Widely. She travelled all across the USA to fight civil injustice and, during the Second World War she travelled all across the Pacific theatre meeting injured servicemen and then writing to their families (whilst still keeping up her daily newspaper column). After her husband’s death, Eleanor remained active in politics even up to the end of her life, 17 years later.  She pressed the United States to join and support the UN and was made its first delegate.  She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later she chaired JFK’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.  By the time of her death in 1962, she was, and still is, regarded as one of the most esteemed women in the world.

Roosevelt Cottage

After that impressive biopic, probably a more impressive biopic than FDR’s (and that’s saying something) it was almost a retrograde step to leave and to go to visit the cottage that she and FDR had so enjoyed.

Roosevelt Cottage – (L) Sitting room. (R) Dining room.  Note the huge paper megaphone with which Eleanor called the children back for meals etc in the from left of the picture.  Legend has it that using this, Eleanor’s voice could be heard in Eastport, a mile or so across the water from Campobello

But it was an interesting step back in time with the early 20^thcentury furniture, the ice-house outside and marble ice-boxes inside and the solid fuel stoves in the kitchen.

Roosevelt Cottage – (L) Butler’s pantry. (R) Kitchen

View from the balcony of the Roosevelt Cottage

And the views from the windows and the balconies are beautiful too.  It is easy to see why FDR and Eleanor referred to Campobello as ‘The Beloved Island’.

Roosevelt Campobello International Park pontoon at high tide

But time and tide wait for no man and we needed to catch slack water to go alongside the dock at Eastport, Maine, where we wanted to check into the USA.  So, reluctantly, we left Campobello and headed back to BV for the short journey to America.

Friar’s Bay, Campobello Island, Canada

Friars Bay Campobello NB Canada

Making good progress across the Bay of Fundy.  Southern Wolf Island is ahead and left

So, the alarm call on Monday 10 September was hideously early!  So early that I don’t have any pictures of our departure from Westport, but then it was pretty dark.  But we achieved the aim and had a gentle 1½ -2kts of tide helping us out of the northern entrance of the channel between Brier and Long Islands, rather than being squirted out madly in a rush of, as the charts warn, up to 6kt of tide.  With full sail set and a very pleasant 10-12kt easterly breeze, we had a great sail north towards and past Grand Manan Island and onwards to the southern tip of the Wolf Islands.  It was very cool again for most of the passage and the person on the helm needed to be well wrapped up with an oilskin jacket, fleecy hat, gloves and a scarf.  But by late morning it was quite warm enough for the person not on the helm to sit in the shelter of the sprayhood in trousers and a t-shirt; the sun’s warm but the moving air isn’t.

Southern Wolf Island

About halfway across we were lucky enough to see 2 puffins flying in formation, stiff wings flapping furiously as they headed out towards Nova Scotia and, presumably, the North Atlantic beyond.  Our books say that puffins leave Maine and New Bruswick in August and spend the winter on the ocean so these must have been 2 of the last ones to leave for the overwintering grounds.  Neither of us had ever seen puffins before that moment [Ed: amazing really since they breed on the cliff around Herm], so we have our fingers crossed that they have good fishing and survive the winter well so that we have the chance of seeing them in their breeding plumage next year.

Off Southern Wolf Island we furled the genoa, slowed down and had a good peer around.  Cate and Murray Basingthwaite (Coolchange) had told us that whales can often be seen in the area, sleeping on the surface.  We saw a couple of whale-watching boats and headed towards them but, as we did so, they headed off back to the mainland, presumably at the end of their tours.

A rather blurred, and very distant, photo of, we think, a fin whale.  The whale was too far away and not on the surface for long enough for me to get any more pictures

And then suddenly we saw a blow! We headed over towards where we had seen it but, by then, the whale had disappeared.  We did this a couple more time and eventually got close enough to see the whale surface and dive a few time, and I also managed to get just the one picture.  We never saw the whale’s flukes (which is, apparently, typical of fin whales and Minkes) but, equally, we didn’t see the blowhole at the same time as the dorsal fin (typical of Minkes), so we assume it was a fin whale.  It led us a merry dance for about half an hour and then just slipped away.  So we carried on, under mainsail alone towards East Quoddy Light at the eastern end of the Canadian island of Campobello.

South of East Quoddy Light and the entrance to Head Harbour

Making our way into Head Harbour

We thought that we might spend the night at Head Harbour, so off East Quoddy Light we lowered the mainsail and motored into the inlet on which the harbour’s situated.  It’s quite a long way up the inlet to the harbour but when we got there we found it to be full of fishing boats and lobster scows and, whilst apparently it is the done thing to raft onto a boat or a scow it didn’t look terribly inviting and they looked busy getting ready to go.  So we decided to head round to Friar’s Bay on the northwestern side of the island.

East Quoddy Light from the northeast

By this time, because we had spent time whale watching, sailed slowly from there to Head Harbour and also explored the harbour somewhat, the tide had turned and we found ourselves bucking 2-3 knots of outflowing tide as we motored along the northern side of Campobello. East Quoddy Light took quite some time to disappear in the rearview mirror!  But at one point we did pick up a very useful back-eddy, which had us whizzing along at 9-10kts over the ground.  Unfortunately, all too soon we lost that and were back to fighting our way along.  We considered stopping off somewhere at anchor until the tide turned or slackened but by the time we reached a suitable bay we were tucked far enough into the shore that the tide against us wasn’t so bad, so we just continued onwards.

Friars Bay on Campobello Island - Canada

To our port side is Eastport - USA

We eventually reached Friar’s Bay and dropped anchor in the southern corner, between the big jetty for the International Park and the enormous fish farm.  With the wind forecast to be around 20kts from the southwest the next day, this was definitely the most sheltered place to be.  So, on one side we had Campobello (Canada), on which is a little piece of both Canada and the USA (see below) and across the channel on the other side was Eastport in the USA.  And, a little further east, but also across the channel, we could see Deer Island (Canada).  The boundary between the 2 countries zigs and zags around the channel but is most clearly marked at this time of year by the lobster pots – none on the Canadian side; loads and loads on the American side!

The jetty/dock to get ashore to the International Park and President Roosevelt’s summer cottage

Campobello is famous as the island on which President Franklin D Roosevelt had his summer cottage.  His wife, Eleanor, survived FDR by about 20 years and after her death a large portion of the island as well as their summer cottage, was gifted to the Canadian and American Governments to become an International Park, celebrating the many years of friendship between the 2 nations.

Rain – and suntan lotion(?)

Reflections on a rainy day!

We had planned to go ashore on Tuesday 11 September to explore but when we woke up it was raining hard……..and it continued to rain all day.  We could have been big and brave and gone ashore anyway but it would have been pretty miserable.  So we decided to make the best of it and try to catch up the blog somewhat and leave FDR, Eleanor and North American friendships for the next day instead.

Friars Bay, Campobello, NB, Canada

Westport NS Canada

The first indications of dawn at our anchorage in the outer part of Yarmouth

It was a cold and early start from Yarmouth, NS on Sunday 9 September.  The alarm went off at 0545hrs and we had the engine on at 0620hrs, with the aim of catching (nearly) the first of the north-going tide to get to Westport on Brier Island.  With sunrise at 0645, as we left we could just make out the edges of the bay in which we had anchored in the dark the previous night and the dawn was beautiful too.

Just like sailing in the English Channel – working the tides and wearing lots of kit to stay warm!

By 0715hr we were well clear of Yarmouth and had full sail set, hard on the wind, heading in the general direction of Brier Island.  The wind, forecast to be from the northeast, was a little bit more northerly, so we couldn’t quite lay our destination and had to put in a couple of tacks.  Not only was it early but it was also jolly chilly. Autumn has definitely arrived and we needed warm hats, thick gloves and decent windproofs for stints on the helm. On the other hand, the person sitting in the shelter of the sprayhood, was toasty warm in the sunshine and out of the breeze.

Entering the channel between Brier Island, NS and Long Island, NS.  (Top) Arriving, just after getting the sails down.  (Bottom) Two views of the Peter Island light (left) from the southwest (right) from the north, almost through the main tidal race

Getting detailed tidal stream data of this area seems to be difficult.  In Halifax Nicky had bought the Canadian Hydrographic Service tidal atlas for Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy, within which the big picture tidal flows are clearly shown.  So, with the tide in the main body of the Bay of Fundy still flowing north and east, we had assumed that the tidal flow through the channel between Brier and Long Islands would be in a northerly direction when we arrived.  Not so.  We arrived off the southern entrance to the channel, about 45minutes after high water at Eastport.  By the time we had the sails down and were making our way in through to the east of Peter Island (the small island in the middle of the entrance) the tide was flooding out at 2 knots, and increasing.  It took us 20mins to fight our way from the position at which I took the bottom left hand picture above, to the position at which I took the bottom right hand picture above, a distance of about ¾nm, and the tidal had increased by about a knot in that time.  Coming from Guernsey, we’re used to strong tidal flows and big tide ranges and but the lack of detail in the tidal atlas for the Westport channel meant that we were on the back foot somewhat.  It all felt a bit amateurish given that we had wanted to arrive at, or around, slack water.

Westport Harbour just after high water – one floating pontoon filled with fishing boats (rafted up to 3 deep) and the search and rescue vessel, and the west side of the harbour dries

We got past the area of strongest tidal flow and made our way, still rather crabwise, across to Westport harbour. Our pilot book suggests that it is possible to tie up alongside a fishing boat in here but it looked rather full alongside the floating pontoon (the fishing vessels were rafted 2 and 3 deep) and the west side of the harbour dries.  We decided to have a look at anchoring close to the fishermen’s moorings just to the southwest of the harbour, close to the fish farm.  The pilot book talks of a contributor anchoring here in the past and finding good holding, out of the main tidal flow. That as maybe but now the moorings take up all the space where one could have anchored.  One, in particular, was just exactly in ‘our’ anchoring space, how inconsiderate!  With a 5.6m range (a little less than that in Guernsey) and thus an enforced starting depth of about 9m and an unknown tidal flow through the area, we really wanted to put out at least 40m of chain but there just wasn’t enough space.  So we decided to pick up one of the moorings and stay on board.  The pick-up buoys on the first mooring we looked at (the one that was just where we really wanted to drop our anchor) were so tangled around the riser that I couldn’t get a line on.  So, Nicky motored us across to a very smart, very large buoy which was extremely close to the fish farm but just far enough away to be OK.  It had a large ring on top through which I threaded 2 lines. Interestingly, in amongst the moorings the tidal flow was opposite to that in the main channel and, with the wind against the tide, BV sat right up on the buoy, rubbing against it.  We were in danger of the buoy scratching the paint to shreds, so I pulled the mooring lines tight so that BV sat with her bow on the buoy but with the paintwork protected from rubbing by the bow protector mat that we use when anchoring (to save her from dinks from a swinging anchor) and when mooring in this sort of situation.

Moored next to the fish farm

It was a beautiful afternoon and, since we were on someone-else’s mooring we stayed on board and just enjoyed the view, whilst we read, did some chores and started to try to catch up with the blog.  A fishing farm boat came out and spent several hours spraying pellets into all the fish farm enclosures, much to the delight of the local seagull population, and periodically Nicky peered through binoculars at the tidal flow in the channel to try to work out at what time slack water would occur – important for timing our departure the following morning.

Minke (?) whale close to our mooring

Part way through the afternoon we were treated to a visit by a Minke whale (we think!).  It didn’t come very close and it didn’t spend much time nearby but it was there long enough for me to get some pictures (we identified it afterwards from comparing the photos of its dive sequence with pictures in a book we have) and for us to have a good enough view.  Our first big whale close up.  Wow!

Low tide, evening light and a whole new view compared to when we arrived

Low tide was at 1735hrs and by that time Nicky had confirmed that the tidal flow was relatively slack from about 1½hrs before LW until about ½hr after LW.  Since we didn’t want to end up being squirted out of the northern end of the channel in an uncontrolled manner the next morning, that meant that we would need to be up and off before 0600hrs.  Ouch! The joys of working in a very tidal environment!  But the evening light was lovely and the scenery very different from when we had arrived (we’d gone down 5.6m, about 18ft, so there was a lot more land and seaweed on view) and our tidal eddy was now operating in the other direction (still in opposition to the main tidal flow and rather stronger on the flood than on the ebb).  It was a glorious evening to enjoy sundowners in the cockpit.  Tides, whales and great scenery, what more could you want?

Westport, NS, Canada

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