O Canada!
- theblacksprayhood
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
"Everyone believes in ghosts..."
We were welcomed to Canada by a white fog that unrolled itself over a calm metallic sea. We floated past isolated lighthouses on barren crags, but that initial landscape was animated by the dark mobile shapes of the abundant waterlife. Sleek seals glided by with their dark heads contrasted against the white haze. Playful silhoutted dolphins moved in formation and we even saw a languid great whale broach the surface to breathe. This was Nova Scotia.
We cleared in to customs and immigration at the yacht club at Shelburne Harbour, which had a bar on the top floor of the building looking over the water where sailors gathered to exchange stories. Shelburne is a charming town with colourful buildings and at the farmers’ market we were happily introduced to the Nova Scotian love of chutneys, preserves, handicrafts and baking.
We proceeded eastward along the coast, stopping at a few remote anchorages along the way, such as Little Port L’Hebert and Port Medway. In general the landscape is much like Maine, with an abundance of pine trees, but while the rock formations in Maine seem more rounded, those in Nova Scotia are sharper and wilder. In the midst of these rocky outcrops is Carter’s Beach at Port Mouton, which looked for all the world as though we were back in the Caribbean, with its perfect white sand beach and sky blue water. The sun shone strongly and brightly, the sky was blue and cloudless.
A day or so later, as we approached the UNESCO world heritage site of Lunenburg, we were swamped by a fog so thick that we couldn’t see more than a few metres around us. The radar showed us there was no marine traffic at the adjacent Rose Bay, so we tucked in there to allow fog to dissipate.
We spent a good night there but in the morning awoke to find the whole place swarming with tiny flying insects. We hurriedly, but cautiously lifted the anchor - the water was teeming with giant red jellyfish - called Lion’s Mane Jellyfish.
We enjoyed our time strolling the streets of Lunenburg with its carefully preserved old buildings and ornate churches. It is vibrant with tourists in the summer months with excellent shopping and eating out. We enjoyed some great live folk music with some new friends we had met in Shelburne.
Our next stop was Gold River Marina in Mahone Bay, where we had arranged to get our keel bolts checked before our Atlantic crossing. We expected to stay just three hours in the slings while they checked the bolt tension for us and tightened them to the correct torque. Four weeks later, we were still there wondering anxiously if our window for crossing would close before we left and resigned to missing the rest of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, which we had planned to see.
We arrived on a weekend and pulled up the floorboards ready to expose all the keel bolts for the boatyard workers to access on Monday. We don’t take all the floorboards up very often as you have to remove all the screws and dismantle the table which sits around the compression post, which is the pole that sits under our mast and extends all the way through the boat to the keel below.
We couldn’t see the post itself as it is covered in a stainless steel sleeve, but as we had removed the floorboard, we saw that the fibreglass was cracked and what we could see of the plate at the base of the post was so corroded that it was crumbling in rusty fragments. This was clearly a big issue and might explain the problems we had with our rig last year. We waited with trepidation for Monday to come.
On Monday morning they came to have a look. It was decided we would need to be hauled out into the boatyard so that they could remove and inspect the pole and replace the rusted plate. But it was their busiest time of the year, so it would take at least two to three weeks, not because of the work itself but because they had other boats to work on. The good news was they could fix it. The bad news was they didn’t know how much it would cost yet.
It was the first time we’d ever seen Matusadona without her mast - to walk on that bare deck in the boatyard was to see the strange face of a man who has shaved off his beard or moustache.
Lucky on both counts that we had stopped to check things before crossing the ocean. The keel bolts were found to be loose, so they were tightened to the correct torque and we also got secondary nuts and stop washers. These would help stop the bolts from becoming loose again.
The compression post was taken away for examination and found to be corroded at its base. It was made from mild steel and with the water sloshing around in the bilges, water had got in. The stainless steel sleeve meant that the damage wasn’t readily visible. So we had to have a new one fabricated from stainless steel.
To add to our anxiety, the ancient boatlift which runs on railway tracks leading into the water was out of action for almost all the time we were there and a queue of boats was amassing waiting to be relaunched. Each day divers came to try to fix the railway tracks under the water. Sometimes a boat would get launched one day and then the lift would get stuck on its way back up again and they would work on it for a few more days to get another boat in.
The clock was ticking. We were now in week four and the work was not complete. Luckily by the time our work was finished, we managed to get launched quite soon afterwards and spent another couple of days in the water getting our rigging tuned and doing last minute preparations. We were ready to go - if only the weather was.
An approaching low in a couple of days which we could follow seemed like it might provide a good opportunity. In the meantime we had been invited by a fellow sailor we met in the boatyard to visit the island he lives on and we could stay on his mooring buoy. He was so enthusiastic, we had really been hoping that we could take him up on his offer.
Big Tancook Island sits in Mahone Bay and is home to 150 people (much reduced from the 2000 it used to be a century ago). It is served by a regular ferry which means that islanders are not as isolated as you might expect. It can even double up as an ambulance in case of emergency.
We were welcomed by Mark and his wife Sandra and they gave us a tour of the island in their converted Japanese fire truck that they had painted bright yellow. We first visited the community centre, where they talked about the history of the island which used to be famous for making sauerkraut in barrels and selling it all over Canada.
We next visited a little shop and community hangout called Wishing Stones - named after the dark basalt stones with the line of white quartz running through the centre of it that can be wished upon. Run by the daughter of a NASA scientist who has lived on the island since she was eight years old, Wishing Stones hosts an amazingly well stocked library complete with comfy armchairs, a makeshift cinema for movie nights and a museum of heritage pieces from the island. The shop is stuffed with handicrafts and locally made products.
Mark introduced us to more of their neighbours, including a woman who sailed around the world bringing up her three children on board in the days before technology made long distance sailing so accessible to amateurs like us. We also met a man who after only two years of living there with his wife is using hydroponics to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for the islanders.
The houses on the island by and large are more than one hundred years old and they have their history - everyone believes in ghosts and that their own houses are haunted. One house though, looks rather different to how it would have done when first built. It is home to world famous knitter Lucy Neatby. Colourful and fun, you could tell from a mile away that the house belongs to an artist.
From Big Tancook Island we sailed just a little way up the coast and anchored off the very well sheltered from all sides, Pig Island. When we woke up and checked the weather again, we saw that now was as good a time as any to start our crossing.
We experienced a lot of kindness in the boatyard - one couple took us shopping and gave us homemade chutneys, jam and bread. We were also able to borrow the cars from the boatyard workers to fill up our fuel and propane gas. The generosity and warm welcome from Mark and Sandra at Big Tancook Island and the general friendliness from everyone we met has meant that our initial greyscale impression caused by the fog has been vividly and indelibly coloured. We didn’t get to see everywhere we had planned in Nova Scotia, but we saw enough to see that the beauty of the landscape matches the friendliness and kindness of the people there and that will be our main memory of Canada.
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Video1 EP 085 - Nova Scotia, Canada
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The adventure continues. Who said cruising is sailboat repair in exotic locations. At least you were in a beautiful place with the resources to get it fixed. E are back in southern Grenada for another hurricane season and will most likely head west early next year. Safe travels Fred Dar and Shelby.
It sounds amazing. Mum & Dad ‘sailed’ to Quebec Canada stopping off at various places on the way. They loved it. A slightly different size of boat though! They were on the Queen Victoria, your trip sounds much more exciting and accessible, glad you got fixed up. Have a safe Atlantic crossing x x