Crossing our wake and closing the loop

We have departed Port Jefferson, New York, where we anchored (map) just a short distance from where we anchored back in June, thus "closing" our Down East Loop. Cruisers who complete a circumnavigation of anything, including the circumnavigation (of the planet), call this "crossing one's wake." This post summarizes the trip.

We actually crossed our wake at the last stop, back in Sag Harbor, but considering our earlier stop there preceded a full week of visiting local friends, I did not want to include that week in the stats. Beside that, we had not planned to stop in Sag Harbor at all on this leg. As with so many of our stops along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and New England, we ended up stopping there because of the weather.

The actual track of our Down East Loop, as recorded by our chartplotter.

It has been an interesting 16 weeks. We've been through some of the most incredibly beautiful and scenic places to which we've ever ventured on the boat. At the same time, parts of the journey were also some of the most challenging boating we've done in our nearly decade aboard.

Our route took us along very familiar water, west along the north shore of Long Island, through and to New York City, and then north along the Hudson River. The Erie and Oswego Canals, on our second pass through, brought us to Lake Ontario and thence to the Thousand Islands, where we left the familiar behind and crossed over to Canada, clearing in at Gananoque.

The Montreal Wheel; we docked in sight of it.

The next 1,800 miles would be new territory for us, taking us along the easternmost portion of Ontario and into Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. We transited the entire St. Lawrence Seaway and along the coast of the Gaspé Peninsula. The Northumberland Strait brought us to Cape Breton Island and the Strait of Canso.

Once through the strait we proceeded along the Nova Scotia coast in the North Atlantic Ocean, around Cape Sable and ending our Canadian travels in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. We crossed the Bay of Fundy back to the US and the familiar waters of Maine.

The Canadians are serious about summer flowers. Outside the Frontenac, Quebec City.

From there back to here has been more of a "delivery trip" than cruising, as we've spent a lot of time here previously, and winter is soon upon us.  So anyone reading this for planning their own Down East Loop trip should bear in mind that there are lots of great stops along the Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island coasts that are not covered by our Down East Loop cruise, along with numerous ports along the north shore of Long Island Sound. I've documented all of those previously in this blog.

I will mention here that our visits out on the east end of Long Island, followed by a family visit in upstate New York, dictated part of our schedule, and had us leaving north out of Poughkeepsie on July 4th. That's really a late start for this trip, and I recommend anyone in the planning stage to figure to be at the start of the Erie Canal in Waterford, New York at the end of May or beginning of June. Starting a month late meant we did not have time for a side trip to Ottawa, and we limited our stays in Montreal, Quebec, and the Saguenay fjord more than we'd have liked.

Quebec City at night.

Highlights of the trip included the Thousand Islands, the Saguenay fjord (with whales!), and Lake Bras d'Or. I enjoyed many of the small towns and harbors, and I especially enjoyed Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax. The Nova Scotia coast was stunning, but we did not have the time or the weather we needed for more relaxed exploration.

Here's the recap, by the numbers:

Number of days	111
Statute Miles	2947
Nautical Miles	2561
Up lockings	20
Maximum elevation	420'
Down lockings	17
Tidal lockings	3
Stops/Nights on free wall	10/10
Stops/Nights at anchor	59/69
Stops/Nights at marina	10/31
Engine hours	430
Generator hours	95
US States	5
Canadian Provinces	5

This cruise brought Vector as far north as she's ever been, rounding the top of the Gaspé Peninsula, and as far east as she's ever been, in Lake Bras D'Or. Our previous "records" in those regards were en route to Lake Superior for northernmost, and Campobello Island, departing Eastport, Maine for easternmost. (For the curious, the Laguna Madre in Texas was our westernmost point, en route to South Padre Island, and South Point, Caicos Islands remains our southernmost reach.)

This whale just off our stern was one of the highlights of the trip.

As always, every anchorage, wall, and marina at which we stayed has a Google Maps link in the blog. Die-hards who don't mind wading through my detailed descriptions of repairs to the boat and the logistics of shopping trips and route planning can read through the descriptions of every stop. If you start at the link in the very first paragraph to our stop in Port Jeff in June, you can click "newer post" at the end of each post until you get back here to this summary and you'll have seen the whole trip.

If I had it to do over again, I would have started a month earlier, even if that meant stashing the boat someplace along the St. Lawrence and driving back to New York for our family and friend visits in June and July. And while we are unlikely to go through the effort of going around through the St. Lawrence again, we may very well return to Nova Scotia earlier in the season to do more coastal cruising there in better conditions. Almost certainly we will return to explore the Bay of Fundy, which we basically skipped this time around.

The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay presented some of the heaviest currents we've encountered. 

Crossing into Canada (and again back into the US), we were very focused on not having any fresh items (meat, fruit, vegetables, dairy) that we might have to discard at the border, or a dutiable amount of alcohol on board. What we should have done, however, was to stock up on non-perishable staples in the same way we routinely do going to the Bahamas. We had trouble finding, and spent way too much on, such things as toilet paper, nuts, trail mix, juice mix, and canned goods.

Border crossings were easier and less fraught than we expected. We cleared into Canada over the phone, and we cleared back into the US on a smartphone app. We never met with any border personnel in either country. And while adding Canadian charts to our collection was expensive ($250 for our main plotter and $30 in upcharges for our tablet apps) they were mostly accurate and detailed.

Vector in Halifax, next to HMCS Sackville.

We had to add an insurance rider to extend our navigation limits between Quebec City and Maine, which is outside of our normal limits. But really that, the charts, and slightly higher prices for provisions were the only added expenses beyond what we normally spend cruising.

The language barrier became an issue between Quebec City and PEI, and I had to draw on my rusty Parisienne French from four decades ago, plus copious use of Google Translate, to get by. We had to wave off one port because I could not get the harbormaster to speak slowly and simply enough to understand him. Coast Guard radio watchstanders and Seaway radio personnel are universally bilingual.

Rafted to a fishing vessel, preparing for Hurricane Fiona.

We had the new experience of staying in three commercial harbors, and of rafting up to a fishing vessel. And we rode out our first tropical storm outside of US waters (after more than a dozen in the US). We learned a great deal about Canada, and we were taken by the hospitality and care extended to us by the denizens of the more remote regions of the country, where depending on your neighbors can be a matter of life and death.

We're glad we made the trip, but we are equally glad to be back in more familiar and easier waters. That said, we are already missing the overall politeness of Canadian society now that we are back in New York.

We'll miss the beer. Every town had something local and most of it was excellent.

Truth and Reconciliation

We are under way across the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, headed back to the United States after a little more than two months in Canada. It's an overnight passage, arriving tomorrow morning in Rockland, Maine, and as I begin typing I am alone on watch, with six hours until I am relieved.

The view from the pilothouse. Sunset over calm seas.

Sunday after I posted here the seas picked up and the ride got a bit bumpier, at least until we started to get into the lee of Cape Forchu. Turning into the harbor things settled considerably, and by the time we got to the head of the harbor, more than three miles inland and protected by a small spit, it was nearly flat calm. We squeezed in to the tight anchorage and had the hook down by a quarter till three.

After being trapped on the boat for several days by Fiona, we were very happy to drop the tender and head ashore for dinner at Rudders restaurant and brewery, right on the waterfront adjacent to the dock. It was really all we had the energy for, but we would learn later it was the best place in town. We enjoyed dinner over a couple of fresh house drafts.

Cape Forchu Lighthouse. We saw tourists in the lantern.

We had consumed the very last of our beer (the wine ran out long ago) at West Head, and I was facing the prospect of dragging the e-bike out and riding a couple of miles to the liquor store  to replenish the supply, with Monday looking like a rainy, eat-aboard day. So when we learned that we could buy a growler of draft beer right there at the bar, I jumped at the chance, choosing the very nice brown ale. Even having to pay for the growler itself, four pints was very reasonable (for Canada), and it saved me a rainy trip.

After returning from dinner we watched the enormous CAT ferry arrive from Bar Harbor and discharge it's phalanx of cars. While we were sitting there in the pilothouse in front of the plotter, it suddenly occurred to us that the other two anchored boats had probably been here since before the storm and might be on very long scope. That could be a problem when the tide reversed later in the evening, and so we got back in the tender and went over to talk to them, Sure enough they each had over 200' of chain out. We weighed anchor and moved to the very south end of the anchorage (map), splitting the difference between the marina, a shoal, the moorings, and the lobster wharf.

The US Navy's HST-2, chartered to CAT and operating as the Yarmouth-Bar Harbor ferry.

We had a very comfortable night there, but even that spot proved to be short-lived. I was experiencing some pain in my chest on Sunday that escalated through the day and became excruciating overnight. We were both pretty sure it was just a pulled muscle from the shenanigans involved in getting off the boat in West Head, but after my little surprise a year ago, we did not want to take the chance that I'd again have to go to the hospital with the boat at anchor. That was very hard on Louise last time.

Making matters worse, we awoke Monday morning to no Internet; our Starlink terminal had apparently given up the ghost overnight. I spent the first couple of hours of the day trying to resuscitate the terminal, coffee in hand, to no avail. We knew where the hospital was, but learning anything else about health care or looking up symptoms really meant we'd need access. All of this coupled with the possibility we'd need to land a scooter ashore had me calling the marina mid-morning to see if they had room for us.

I have a soft spot for these old signs. This is an operating motel.

The full-service docks at the Killam's Wharf had no room, but they were able to put us on the dock at the Parker-Eakins wharf, where power and water were unavailable due to recent damage. The mostly unused dock had been taken over by seagulls, with the results you might imagine, but the price was right, just $20 per day, plus tax, the same as a mooring, until they get the amenities working again. We were tied up by 10:30 (map) and on the marina WiFi just minutes later.

Thus secure in the knowledge that, if anything went sideways, we could just call a cab, we settled in for a rainy day. I loaded up on NSAIDs and put a heating pad on my chest. But by mid-afternoon, the rain had cleared up, and I was feeling better, and so I strolled the town a bit, with an eye open for another dinner venue.

Sunset over Vector and Doctors Island.

I discovered in short order that it is a very small town, with few restaurants and even fewer open on a Monday. We ended up walking to the Grand Hotel, which might have been more grand at some point but was clearly frozen in the 60s, when the current brutalist structure replaced something more worthy of the Grand moniker. We ate in the sad little restaurant, which at least had one beer on draft and where the food was decent. Louise had a very local specialty called Rappie Pie, which I am not even going to try to explain.

Tuesday was a lovely day, sunny but brisk, and I was feeling even better, so after lunch I set up the e-bike, gingerly walked it down the guano-covered dock, and rode into town, On the muscle-pain theory I had called around in the morning and scored a massage appointment at a spa that had a cancellation, but I first rode up to the big-box end of town to do some final provisioning at the Walmart Super-Centre and pick up some beer at the liquor store that was more to Louise's liking than the brown we had in the growler.

The Milton Clock Tower and a replica of the old train station, now a Tim Horton's.

In the evening we walked a few blocks to one of the restaurants that had been closed Monday, only to find it shuttered for repairs. We ended up right back at Rudders, which is so popular that we had to sit at the bar both times or else wait a long time for a table. At least they had a varied menu, and we were fond of the beer.

Over dinner we discussed the passage weather and future plans. When we first came around the cape to Yarmouth, our intent had been to continue around the peninsula and across the Bay of Fundy to St Johns, New Brunswick for our final stop in Canada. But the reality had set in that we'd be leaving Nova Scotia today at the earliest, a month after arriving in Canso, just 370 nautical miles ago. That's a full month to make ten days of progress.

5.5 ton anchor from the ferry MV Bluenose, which broke a fluke caught in rocks off Cape Forchu. An indicator of how strong the seas are here.

The detour to St Johns would similarly take another full week if not more, putting us halfway into October. And this late in the season, the weather windows get shorter and farther between. We had to concede that we needed to use the next window to go west to Maine, getting as far as the window would allow.

With a couple of days before we could leave, on Wednesday I took the little self-guided walking tour of town, using a map I got at the visitor center earlier in the week. It mostly covered various private homes that date back to the 19th century and are representative of various periods. Not usually my kind of tour, but I was struck by how well-preserved the entire town was, considering the age of the structures and the harshness of the environment here. The townfolk are very proud of their history and take good care of it.

One example of the many well-preserved houses I passed.

Mindful of our experience the previous evening, on my walk I swung by the well-rated pizza place I had picked out for dinner, which was reported closed Monday and Tuesday, only to find it, too, shuttered for good. So at dinner time we ended up walking a full mile to the other Italian place at the end of town, Marco's. I had made a reservation, which turned out to be essential.

Today is Truth and Reconciliation Day, a national holiday, and the marina office is closed. So yesterday, among the other preparations for our departure, I settled up, and returned the key to the laundry facilities. Louise used up the rest of our Canadian cash doing three loads. She prefers our own machines on board, but with no water available at the dock that was not really an option. We're leaving the country with just three loonies left.

The other half of the Bluenose exhibit.

Having exhausted all the other options in town, we went back to Rudders last night for a final dinner. I also had them refill the growler, making our final beer purchase in Canada the best deal yet. We once again ate at the bar. There are almost no tourists here -- the ferry passengers don't stop, but just keep driving after leaving Customs -- so these are locals filling the place every night.

The timing of our passage is such that we could not leave until mid-day today, so in the morning we walked over to Sips cafe for a breakfast sandwich, then moved Vector to a newly vacant spot on the main dock to take on water before leaving. I also got the last of the recycling off the boat; they accept it everywhere in Canada, and it will be much harder to recycle back in the US.

I found the tower on this 1862 home particularly interesting.

The timing meant leaving on the flood, and we putted out of the harbor against a knot of current. After rounding Cape Forchu we found ourselves in the heavy tidal currents of the Bay of Fundy, and I fiddled with heading mode on the autopilot all day to account for set and drift. Just letting the autopilot compensate is inefficient in a reversing current like this.

That meant drifting north a good bit in the heavy flood, and then I had to go even a bit further north to leave the infamous Lurcher Shoal to port. This shoal, rising to a depth of just six feet from a seafloor forty times that depth, claimed many ships before the Canadians stationed a lightship here.

Dinner under way on our weathered Weber Q electric.

We had Internet courtesy of my cell phone all the way out to 26 nautical miles from shore, which we mostly used to track the progress of Hurricane Ian right up to dinner time. It's been absolutely heartbreaking to watch the devastation in Florida, where some friends lost their boat and many more friends have a long road ahead, and we fear tomorrow morning's news will reveal yet more destruction in the Carolinas.

It was calm enough out here at dinner time that I was able to grill up some brats, which went very well with a small glass of the brown ale. We have not seen another soul on the water since leaving Yarmouth, but as we were eating dinner we passed the CAT ferry on its way back from Bar Harbor.

Sunset at sea.

As I wrap up typing we are back in US waters, having crossed the border about two hours ago. That means we're also back in the Eastern Time Zone, but for now the ship's clocks are still on Atlantic Daylight Time so as not to mess with the watch schedule. We will set the clocks back one hour when I come back on watch at 0900 ADT. I'll upload this post sometime thereafter, and my next post here will be under way southbound along the Maine coast.

Update: We have our Internet back, courtesy of our AT&T hot spot, just as I am ending my watch. I expected to have to wait till morning; I'm glad I can post it now because I'll be pretty busy when I come back on watch, navigating into port.

Bye, Fiona

We are underway westbound along the southern tip of Nova Scotia, bound for Yarmouth. We are happy to be done with Fiona, our 13th named tropical cyclone aboard Vector. Our four nights in West Head Harbour cost us just $40 in US cash, since I was out of Canadian, and that was really for our 30-amp power hookup.

I could not capture in photos the sheer number of fishing boats in this port. The majority are on the hard until lobster season in November. This is one small piece of the yard.

After my last post and in the proverbial calm before the storm, we walked around the port a bit. The only retail business is a seafood takeout place rumored to have excellent pies, but they were closed when we walked by. In hindsight I should have returned later in the day, before Fiona trapped us on the boat.

Other than the stroll, we spent a good deal of our two pre-storm days preparing the boat. We brought in the e-Bike and all the flybridge cushions, tied down the tender, removed the flybridge windscreens, taped up the lockers, and tied the covers down on the flybridge plotter and the BBQ.

The boats in the water also fish for other species. "For Fish Sake," I'm thinking ...

I made up a quick-disconnect for the 30-amp power setup using a pair of straight plugs. That would allow the two cords to pull apart cleanly in the middle rather than ripping one of the twist-to-lock ends off if the wind pushed us too far from the pier. The disconnect arrangement added another couple of feet as well, making the situation a bit less tenuous.

We also added another four lines, for a total of ten lines on ten different cleats. Eight of those lines went to Atlantic Triumph (for the curious boaters that was two each of forward and aft breasts as well as forward and aft springs), and two went to bollards on the pier (one each forward and aft breast). I neglected to take photos, but we had to be creative. One aft breast came across the starboard rail and across our aft deck to a port cleat; we tied a red ribbon to it for visibility since it was right in the way.

A different small slice of the yard. Still plenty of room.

Friday morning captain Steve, owner of Atlantic Triumph, arrived to add some lines, and we exchanged numbers. Like so many other folks here he offered to drive us anywhere or lend us a car. I learned that the five foot aluminum extension on the transom of his boat has to come off for lobster season due to a 50' length limit; he puts it on for halibut season.

Last photo Thursday evening, while I could still get ashore.

His arrival was timely, inasmuch as we had just tripped the shore breaker, and I was puzzling how to even get ashore to reset it. We had to carefully manage loads on the shore connection and we must have gone over just a tad; the wind was already blowing the boats so far from the dock there was no way ashore. Steve's answer is just to grab one of the lines off the dock bollard and put it over the hitch on his pickup truck, and use the truck to pull the boat to the dock. I ran over and reset the breaker while he was still there.

Once Steve departed we were again trapped on the boat, literally until the winds shifted early this morning. We had a comfortable dinner aboard Friday evening before the storm force winds arrived, and after dinner I ruminated about taking the Starlink terminal down for the storm. Ultimately I decided just to lower the mounting post to reduced the moment arm, so that we'd have our high-speed Internet for the duration. It ran through the whole event, even during the fairly heavy rain.

Friday morning at 10am and we are already seven feet from the pier. We stayed like this until this morning.

Also Friday afternoon we had a visit from local commercial diver Donnie Mahaney. I had called him on Jason's recommendation Thursday morning to see if he could come out and look at our fin and check for any other damage. He agreed to come out Friday mid-day, before the storm hit in earnest. Donnie came well-prepared, changing into his dry suit in the back of his panel truck.

It turned out that we have no fin damage at all; what had looked to me in a murky photo like fiberglass damage was in fact just white marine growth, which he scraped off. No damage to the prop or rudder, either, and all he found was an area on our beefy keel where we had basically just scraped off the barnacles. He also told us there was not enough growth on the hull to bother cleaning. Such a relief, and worth every penny of the $150 charge. That sounds like a lot for a ten minute dive, but not when you consider the cold-water equipment and willingness to do it. I had to hand him the cash in the water, since we could not reach the dock. He simply swam to and from the boat from a ladder on the pier.

Windscreens off, doors taped, deck chairs moved and tied. All set.

Gale force winds started around 9pm Friday, and escalated through the evening to around 40 knots or so. I stayed up till 1:30, periodically checking on the lines, but all was holding well and I turned in for the night. It was still blowing just over 40 when we awoke in the morning, where the highest our weather station had recorded was 42 knots. I don't think it went above that.

After-dinner rainbow Friday evening, the final calm before the storm.

The high winds persisted all day yesterday, not only trapping us on the boat, but also keeping us from getting anything done outside. I was finally able to relocate a few things and get the flybridge ready for travel after dinner. The windscreens are still off and the cushions are still below decks; we need a good rinse before we can put them back.

With the cushions off, I tape the locker doors on the settee to keep some of the water out.

We had a good rinse, of course, through the early hours of the storm, which dropped plenty of fresh rain. But the steady gale force winds out of the west yesterday crashed up against the breakwall and sent an atomized salt spray all over Vector all day long. I found the Starlink terminal, which is most of the way aft and on the upper deck, completely coated with 1/16" layer of caked salt. The flybridge and pilothouse are similarly covered. We don't have enough fresh water to wash it all (there was no spigot on the pier), but we should have some rain tomorrow.

The fenders, similarly salt-covered, swung in big arcs all day while the wind held the boats apart, doing a number on our paint. That needs to be replaced anyway, so no harm done, and we'll just tell people they are battle scars.

Video: Saturday morning, waves crashing over the breakwall some 10' or more above the water.

I was hoping I might be able to get off the boat yesterday for a little walk. Perhaps even go to the store about a half hour away and pick up beer, since we finished the last of our meager supply, or even pick up a pie at the take-out. But even after dinner as the winds laid down some, it was impossible. That gave us some concern we might be stuck right there in the harbor for another few days. Louise checked the forecast just before bed and determined there was a slim but non-zero chance we might have a one-day window today.

She was up before me and checked again, rousting me for an early start. The tide will become unfavorable this afternoon so we wanted to make tracks while we had some with us for at least part of the way. The winds shifted overnight and I was able to step onto the pier to take off our lines and unplug the power cord, and the harbormaster met me on the dock to collect the fee.

Last night's sunset, from the flybridge.

The plotter says we will arrive in Yarmouth at 2pm, but I don't believe it. We'll be pushing against the ebb for the last several miles, and the tides here are extreme. With luck, we'll be in quarters before dinner time. My next post here will be crossing the Bay of Fundy, whenever we get a weather window to do so, likely toward the end of the week.

Hurricane Fiona, our Waterloo

The original title of this post was Privateer, soon changed to Vector Homecoming. But that has been overtaken by events, as they say in some circles. I promise I will get to the privateers, and Vector's entirely-without-fanfare homecoming, but not before I delve into the title I finally settled on, and especially because many have asked us if we will be safe during Hurricane Fiona. (Short answer: yes.)

Anyone who's read more than a few posts here knows that I can be pretty darn wordy. Today will be worse, because I am going to start with a digression that I think is, nevertheless, important to the story line. It's from a time before Vector, or even Odyssey, the 40' bus we lived in for a decade before moving aboard Vector. A time when we would escape our everyday working lives by riding our big touring motorcycles on long trips for a weekend, or maybe a week.

Vector secured at West Head Harbour, Cape Sable Island, where we will ride out Fiona.

On one such trip we found ourselves in Las Vegas, Nevada, and, not being gamblers, we occupied ourselves with the other things sin city had to offer. That included a number of amusement rides, including roller coasters, of which we are both big fans. I'm acrophobic, a not uncommon phobia, but I'm usually able to tough it out on tall amusement rides like big coasters and Ferris wheels such as the one we recently enjoyed in Montreal. I somehow made it through a career in telecom that sometimes involved being on antenna masts or other tall structures, and I've even challenged myself with a 200' rappel into a cave.

And so it was that while in Las Vegas, after dinner on the top floor restaurant of the Stratosphere Tower, as it was known back then, which did not bother me in the least despite being some 1,100' above the street, we decided to ride the roller coaster on the roof. After all, I love roller coasters, and the view from dinner was perfectly lovely.

Privateer monument in Liverpool honoring the vessels and crews who captured American ships. The names of the privateer vessels are inscribed at the base.

We got in the carriage and pulled the safety bars down, just like a hundred other roller coasters. A whoosh of air as the brakes released, and we left the station. And at the first turn, looking out into a thousand feet of nothing between me and the streets of Las Vegas, my eyes slammed shut, my entire body clenched, and I exerted a death grip on the safety bar. I only hoped the ride would end before I died. My relief a few minutes later, as Louise, whose eyes were still open, assured me we were coming back into the station, was short-lived, as they simply let the train through for us to go around the whole thing a second time.

I am an engineer. I have great confidence that this roller coaster is safe. I can look at it from every angle and realize that even if something came loose and a car left the track, it could not launch itself over the edge of the roof. I know at an intrinsic level that I had a much higher chance of dying on the thousand-mile motorcycle ride to and from Las Vegas. But none of that mattered one iota, just as the safety record of air travel does not matter to someone with aerophobia. The amygdala has taken over, and rational thought is powerless to overcome it.

Even the playground here is privateer-themed.

This is an "amygdala hijack," and I bring it up because Louise suffers from this kind of involuntary response when the boat gets into certain kinds of motions under some sea conditions. When you ask your doctor what to do about an amygdala hijack, the first thing they will tell you is to avoid the triggers, if possible. If you are acrophobic, avoid heights. Aerophobic, take the train. Claustrophobic, don't go into small places.

For us, this means staying out of the sea conditions that impart the specific motions that trigger the response. When we encounter them while already at sea after forecasts prove to have been inaccurate, we'll take a bail-out option that we built into the plan, or change course or speed to alter the motion if possible. But sometimes you just have to close your eyes and grip the safety bar with white knuckles, your body flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, until the train gets back to the station.

Monument to a lost trawler and crew in the local cemetery.

I'm never getting back on that infernal rooftop roller coaster as long as I live. But Louise keeps going out to sea on Vector. Part of what makes that possible is that she does the weather routing -- we don't go out until she is comfortable that the sea state and wind forecasts support a passage that will not involve these kinds of motions. That's been a challenge all through Canada, where the forecasts have been neither as granular nor as accurate as what we've been using elsewhere, and particularly here on the Nova Scotia coast, where the conditions are perfect to create those triggering motions.

This has made for slow going all along the Nova Scotia coast, and to a lesser extent the Northumberland Strait before it. That's seldom a problem for us; we have no schedule to speak of (other than winter is coming), and we actually enjoy spending a little extra time in the small towns and even the remote anchorages in such a scenic place. We're happy to hole up someplace until conditions on the outside improve and we take the windows as they come.

The British regulars are still here among the loyalists -- all the fireplugs are dressed as redcoats.

That calculus changes dramatically when a hurricane is headed our way. And suddenly there is a very pressing schedule where none had been before. Fiona is currently forecast to bring 45 knot winds to this part of Nova Scotia, and while long-time readers know that we've weathered a dozen tropical storms in this boat and winds of 70mph, there are just some places you can not be during those kinds of winds. And so it is that I brought the boat around Cape Sable, known as the "Cape Horn of Nova Scotia," without Louise on board.

The forecasts supported this one window to get around the cape before seeking shelter from Fiona, which, at the time, was forecast to hit Nova Scotia as a Major Hurricane, with the cone of uncertainty extending as far west as Halifax. And while it looked very much like we would be able to do the passage together like any other, with Fiona bearing down, the possibility  of turning back if the going got too rough was just not an option. With at least one forecast showing steep seas, we opted to have her travel comfortably overland, a distance of less than seven miles, while I took the boat around the cape some 24 nautical miles to the exact same destination.

At Fort Point Lighthouse park they've built up the seawall, I assume due to flooding. The rocks go right around the tree.

At the beginning of this post I promised to catch up on the much more mundane goings-on before Fiona reared her ugly head. When last I posted here, we had just returned from dinner in Liverpool, hoping for a quiet and comfortable night. Unfortunately, no sooner had I hit the "publish" button on that post than the wind shifted to hold Vector sideways to the incoming swell, causing her to roll at her resonant period. That can be a recipe for a sleepless night, and so with only light winds forecast, I took our emergency/kedge/stern anchor out in the dinghy, set it, and then used the dinghy to push Vector back in line with the incoming swell while Louise took in the rode at the stern and secured it on deck.

In this orientation the swell imparts only a gently pitching motion, which is not resonant and thus self-amplifying, and is much more comfortable than the roll. This is the very first time we've deployed this setup, a fairly small 35-lb Manson Supreme shackled to 100' of 1/4" braided Dyneema® rode. It worked surprisingly well, considering this is a very small anchor for a boat of Vector's size, and the rode is a poor choice of fiber. This combination was selected because it is the most holding power that Louise can lift and heave over the rail by herself, and we deemed that a requirement for an emergency anchor that might have to be deployed while I was unable to leave the helm.

Cannon at Fort Point with Vector in its sights.

Wednesday turned out to be one of those days when the weather router declared outside conditions a no-go, and so we just stayed put in Liverpool. I took the dinghy ashore to explore the town a bit, which has a rich history. An influx of loyalists escaping the American Revolution swelled the town's population, and in the War of 1812, privateers from Liverpool captured numerous American ships.

When I was not exploring, I was beating my head against the wall trying to get one of the two plotter/sounders for the dinghy working. The current one quit a week or so ago, and the old one I had replaced on account of a broken connector, but kept as a spare, was also not working. We don't need the plotter, but we rely on the sounder for probing shallow anchorages or docks before bringing Vector in. Sadly, both seem to suffer the same problem, dead backup batteries, and I have no way to source the solder-in batteries here.

She looks rather alone in the Mersey. That's Brooklyn in the background, whose marina was far too small for us.

During the day the winds clocked around 180°, and we found ourselves hanging mostly from the stern anchor, so we let it go with a buoy attached and let the boat swing all the way around. I went out in the dinghy to try to recover it, but the dinghy was not powerful enough to pull it out -- that's how well it was set. We just left it with the buoy, planning to raise it later with Vector.

At dinner time we returned ashore together for dinner at the Privateer Inn, part of which is the former home of famed privateer Joseph Barss, captain of the Liverpool Packet, which captured 50 American ships before succumbing to a much larger vessel. Dinner was good and they had some nice drafts.

Louise reached into the fridge for a beer and came up with this sealed but empty can, right in the middle of a boxed 12-pack. Note the tiny hole at the bottom. Nine Locks offered to send a replacement but we have no place to receive it.

We came back to Vector to find her once again rolling with the swell, the wind having died down. With the other anchor already well set, we weighed the main anchor, drove the boat around to the other side of it and dropped the hook, then brought the second rode back aboard to the stern. A little fussy, but it worked and it was easier than pulling it up and setting it again.

I was all set to march up to the grocery store Thursday, 3/4 mile north, just past the Hank Snow museum honoring the home town country singer. But the morning check of the forecast said we had a shot outside for Shelburne, with an earlier option of Lockeport, so we weighed anchor to head outside. Once again we had to drop the stern anchor with a buoy, and after weighing the main we pulled the rode up, cleated it off, and I pulled it free with the boat. It came up with a huge ball of mud, well-buried. A great demonstration of how good these "super high holding power" anchors can be in the right bottom.

Another, slightly different regimental fireplug. The large connectors have been styled as backpacks, so the soldiers face away from the street.

The first few hours we had a good cruise, but seas began to build much greater than forecast in the afternoon, and  we started searching for an earlier bail-out than Lockeport, We ended up pulling into a small embayment with just the right kind of protection known as Little Port L'Hebert, which is not a port at all, little or other wise; even the few homes around the cove lack docks. We dropped the hook mid-cove (map), and had it to ourselves until after dinner, when a big cruising sailboat came in and dropped anchor a couple hundred feet away.

Friday we tried again to make Shelburne, but just a mile or so out of the cove we made an about-face and came back to wait another day. The sailboat left shortly afterward and never returned, but sailboats under sail have a very different motion than Vector, with more wind being better rather than worse. We had the cove to ourselves the second night.

Vector's birthplace. I only know it was in this group of unrelated buildings; I am guessing the white one with the large blue door.

Finally Saturday we escaped Little Port L'Hebert and made our way to Shelburne in fairly heavy seas. Things calmed down when we rounded Sandy Point, and then there it was up on the hill: Vector's birthplace. She was mostly built right here on Sandy Point in Shelburne, and likely launched at one of the enormous ramps in either direction along the main road. I'm fairly certain this is her first homecoming since leaving Shelburne some 19 years ago.

It was another full hour before we were in Shelburne proper, where we landed at the fuel dock at the Shelburne Harbor Yacht Club. The fuel we took on back in Brewerton, NY was just about gone, down to our last 40 gallons. I had figured it to bring us all the way back to the US, but an unplanned detour into Lake Bras D'Or, several false starts and U-turns, and running at higher RPM in some of the rougher sections to help the stabilizers all took their toll on the fuel reserve. More importantly, with just 40 gallons left in the belly tank, we had less stability and more motion than normal. When full that tank holds two tons of fuel, at the very lowest part of the boat, and the absence of that weight was noticeable.

The marina was very concerned about how much fuel we wanted. If we had "filled up," we would have completely emptied their ~1,200-gallon tank.

And so it was that we took on 1,500 liters, or just under 400 gallons, of diesel fuel at CDN$1.98 per liter, or about US$5.60 per gallon, just about what we paid back in Brewerton. The extra 2,800 pounds in the belly tank has made a difference in the ride, and I can stop sweating stretching the fuel back to Maine. After fueling we dropped lines and headed to the anchorage just to the north, where we dropped the hook (map).

We splashed the tender and I headed ashore to explore the town. The town landing was right smack in the middle of the annual Whirligig and Weathervane Festival (I kid you not), with numerous creators of the namesake items along with food vendors and the usual festival-booth suspects. I did not buy any whirligigs, weathervanes, or food items.

I snapped this sign after the festival had closed for the day. No idea what the moose signifies.

In addition to strolling the diminutive downtown area, I hoofed it up to the more commercial "mall" area to pick up a few provisions at the grocery store and some more beer at the package store before returning. My final stop was the yacht club, to see if any members hovering at the bar might have some advice about rounding Cape Sable. No one at the bar even had a boat, leading me to conclude this is a drinking club with some yachts, and not really a yacht club with a bar. As a side note, I could have tied the dinghy up here instead of the town landing, but they wanted a $15 dinghy fee, even after we dropped $3k at the fuel dock.

I dropped the provisions back off at Vector and we returned ashore together for a pleasant dinner at the Emerald Light Cafe, one of only a few restaurants in town. Shelburne is a bit off the main highway and does not see the kind of tourist traffic that has kept some of the other ports thriving even after the maritime industries have tapered off. This is another town where the loyalist roots and influence are plainly visible.

Vector at anchor in Shelburne Harbor.

I could easily have spent another day in Shelburne, and with perfect information about being pinned down by weather, we might have just stayed a week. But the very next morning we again had a decent window to move along, with any hope of getting around the cape before possibly being pinned down by a tropical storm requiring us to move along. And so at 8am we weighed anchor and steamed the full hour south to the ocean.

We only managed two hours in the North Atlantic before seas became intolerable, even though the forecast suggested we might have made the cape, and well short of our hold-short stop of Port LaTour. Instead we bailed out to the first comfortable spot, a small cove between a pair of conjoined islands known as Cape Negro Island, where we tucked in as far as we could and dropped the hook next to a catamaran already holed up there (map).

The Dory Shop, part of the local maritime museum. With, of course, whirligigs.

We ended up chatting with the catamaran, Grit, on the radio. He was single-handing to Cape Cod, and he actually left the anchorage at 4:30pm for that passage, just as the wind shifted. We only stayed another hour ourselves, as the shift in the wind meant we'd be pummeled in this anchorage. We enjoyed it the short time we were there, watching the sheep roaming the shores. The island once hosted an entire community with houses, shops, and even a hotel, all gone now, with the only inhabitants a flock of sheep and an automated lighthouse.

We moved only a short distance across the bay to Ingomar Harbour, threading our way through a narrow entrance into an anchorage more protected from the now easterly winds (map). Three other boats came in around the same time and anchored nearby, and we all discussed making for the cape in the morning on a favorable forecast.

In case we forgot it gets very cold here.

When we awoke Monday morning the other boats were gone, including a trawler-style boat the same size as Vector but half her weight. They were headed for the cape with about a two-hour head start. We weighed anchor after coffee to follow in their wakes. Alas it was not to be; as soon as I made the turn to the west around the south end of Cape Negro Island we found ourselves in steep four footers, and while things might have flattened out if we pushed through them for a couple of miles, that was not in the cards.

There was no way to turn around, and so we spent a miserable twenty minutes running along the south end of the island before I could turn north along the west side. It was too uncomfortable to anchor in West Cove on the island, even though it was out of the wind, and we ended up circumnavigating the island all the way back to Ingomar Harbour (map), anchoring some two hours and ten nautical miles after we left.

Our circumnavigation of Cape Negro Island.

We figured we might be spending the night in that anchorage, or maybe even a week until Fiona passes, but we were highly motivated to get to a safer place, and so when the winds and seas finally laid down enough by 4pm, we again weighed anchor for another attempt. We no longer had the correct current conditions to make the cape, even if we were willing to do it in the dark, but we could get to the last harbor just east of it, the Barrington Passage, which is no longer a passage because it has been bisected by a causeway.

We made it to the head of the harbor just at the end of twilight and set the hook in the dark as far in as we dared (map). It was a tenuous set over a rocky bottom but it was good enough for the night. In the morning we splashed the tender to sound out the very narrow, very shallow channel leading in to the more protected anchorage next to the causeway. You may recall the sounder is out on the dinghy, and so this involved a "lead line," in our case a lead diving weight on a 25' nylon cord marked at intervals. I marked the soundings on the chart app on my phone.

These rocks are called The Salvages. Those are actually fairly large breakers to the left of the lighthouse, reflecting the seas we were in right here.

Armed with soundings and at the requisite tide level we made our way through the tight entrance at dead slow; at one point I got far enough off soundings that we hit a rock with the starboard fin. The underwater camera later revealed some damage to the fiberglass fairing but not much else so we will just live with it till the next haulout. After extricating ourselves we made it into the little anchorage with no further issues and dropped the hook (map), very precisely to allow swing room all the way around.

It was a very comfortable anchorage and we had a great set in a sand bottom. But there was no way we could put enough chain out here to ride out 50mph winds, which is what was being forecast yesterday morning. The forecast for this morning said we could safely make it around the cape, but there was no guarantee we'd be doing it in anything that was not going to send Louise into a panic, especially after a week of ever-building dread about this particular crossing, fueled by horrific accounts by pleasure boaters ill-prepared for the task, or lobstermen who go no matter the forecast.

Vector in the very calm anchorage at Barrington Passage. Likely the largest boat that has ever been in here.

I suggested I could take the boat around on my own and she could get a lift the seven miles down the road and meet me. But that same building anxiety meant she did not want me out there alone, either, and, admittedly, there are certain risks to single-handing. And thus it was that I spent the rest of the day making phone calls and trying to find a local fisherman willing to ride along.

And here is where I must add my voice to the chorus of cruisers who will tell you that the people here will go to the ends of the earth to help a stranger. By dinner time I had four different skippers willing to ride along, several offers of rides or cars, the Coast Guard telling us they would be keeping an eye on us, and lots of advice about sea conditions and route plotting. I selected one of the four offers, and thus reassured, we went ashore at the dinghy dock and walked across the causeway for dinner at JB's Steak and Seafood, groceries, beer, and dinghy fuel.

This whimsical lobster and very pointy Adirondack chair are in the waterside park in Barrington Passage.

By this time, everyone in town on both sides of the causeway, who had already been seeing our boat all day, had heard the story (everyone knows everyone here), and on our way back a carload of lobstermen stopped us to chat us up about the whole affair. It was all very surreal.

We weighed anchor this morning at 8am to have enough tide to get back out the squeaky channel and dropped a lunch hook in deeper water, where I deployed the camera to inspect the damage. I was too wrapped up in phone calls to do it yesterday. And at 10am we tendered back to the dock, where we met Jason, my crew for the morning. Jason handed Louise his car keys and the two of us returned to Vector, decked the tender, and weighed anchor.

Screen capture of a murky video showing leading-edge damage to the fin.

As it turned out, the milder forecast was correct (well, other than slightly higher winds), the passage was uneventful, and it would have been no problem at all for us to have done it together. Sort of like keeping it from raining by bringing your umbrella. Better to have taken the needless precaution than the other way around.

We had not been entirely sure where we were going to take the boat once we rounded the cape, with a few options in mind. But in the course of lining up help, and in no small part on the suggestion of the Coast Guard, we ended up here, at the West Head Harbour (map), where we are rafted up (or shouldered, or breasted up, depending on whom you ask) to an offshore lobster boat, the F/V Atlantic Triumph. Lobster season is closed and the boats are idle, and no one is going out now until the storm passes anyway. Most of the harbor is breasted two or three deep.

Our new friend Eric in the Canadian Coast Guard SAR boat doing donuts around Vector off Cape Sable. These are the conditions we had, very benign for the cape.

Louise stopped in to the harbormaster's office when she arrived and they figured out where to put us and she texted me directions. The Coasties, who had done a few passes around us offshore since it was practice day with the SAR boat, helped tie us up when we arrived. After offloading a week's worth of fresh groceries Louise gave Jason back his car. No one would accept anything for their help, but Louise gassed up the truck before she arrived at the harbor.

When Jason first met us on the dinghy dock at Barrington Passage, he was carrying a bag with about two pounds of fresh tuna. Not only do they not accept anything... they bring welcome gifts. I cranked up the grill and we had grilled tuna steaks for dinner.

The view from our aft deck for the next few days.

Getting off the boat is a challenge involving climbing over rails, crossing a fishing boat, then climbing a straight ladder that is often 2-3' from the boat. There's nothing to go to, anyway, and so we'll mostly be right here on board until Fiona passes. We have four lines to Atlantic Triumph and another two all the way to shore, and a 30-amp power hookup, so we are all set.

I will try to post storm updates, as appropriate, on Vector's Twitter account. My next post here will not be until we cast off lines and are under way to points west. Of course, I should be more careful what I promise: I ended my last post by saying I would post under way to Shelburne, and we had so many short sea days and challenging conditions that I never managed to type under way. This might have been two or three much shorter posts had I been able to do so.