Ups and Downs - Day 4

Woke up to sunny sky and calm sea.  7:00 am raised anchor to last 20' when the power foot lift button stopped working.  Brought the rest of chain up manually.  Steady NE winds of 10-15 kts for most of the morning when they suddenly dropped off to 2-3 kts.  Motor sailed past Lockeport, maneuvering around many, many fishing boats.  Winds shift to SW 20 kts and seas very sloppy with spray over the bow.  Dropped sails and made a run for Cape Negro arriving at 5:00 pm.


Ups and Downs - Day 5

Set to leave Cape Negro when windless jams.  Put the snubber back on and put boat hard in reverse.  Allowed us to get chain ruining again but in the process blew the fuse to the windless.
Fog moved in quickly and used our radar for the first time.  Made Cape Sable Island around noon and with good winds continued on to Pubnico.  Local (Doug) heard us chatting on the radio and met us at the Gov't Wharf to help tie us up.  He then took Greg and Richard to the gas station to fill up the Gerry cans. That evening while sitting on Salvation a trawler came in behind us.  When we heard they had a load of haddock we joked that it would be okay if a fish fell into our boat.  About 1/2 hr later, gentleman shows up with a large bag of beautifully filleted haddock caught that morning.  We each got 2 meals out of it and it was the Best fish I've ever had!!

Day 6 - 7. The Big Crossing

This was the day I was dreading.  My first night crossing and after the horror stories I'd heard about 40' waves, I was a little nervous. Left the dock at 7:00 am on glass sea and it stayed that way well into the night.  Needless to say there was no sailing.  Around 2:00 am, we get a call from Richard that he had a problem so we held back to see what the situation was.  Found out he lost his transmission.  Would have to sail the rest of the way.  At about the same time, the wind picked up and stayed steady for him to sail 5 - 6 kts to about 3:00 pm, just outside of Rockland Harbour.

We got in and cleared customs without incident and will be here until Wednesday, by which time the new transmission should be installed on Salvation.  Couldn't have found a better place to lay over.  It's beautiful here.  They even raised a Canadian flag on the dock for us.  Harbourmaster Ed and Asst. Harbourmaster Nathan were very accommodating and helpful.