Time to Start North to Port Aux Basque

Well the boat is all checked out, all systems working. Time to start on the North heading our first stop will be seal island before going through the the Bra Dor narrows. A very nice lady called Laura exchanged a bottle of wine for a stop on her dock. She told us to look out for fox cubs that were living under the shed . After a short stop We decided to make a dash for the narrows on the tide. Turned out to be a mistake, we should have stayed and watched the fox cubs. As we went under the bridge the temperature dropped and a giant fog bank swallowed us up. We pushed on for half an hour of dodging lobster pots in a narrow channel in very poor visibility and headed back to Laurer’s dock and the cute fox cubs. It was a struggle against the tide but the risk reward ratio for pushing on, no longer added up. So nice tea back on the dock a few photos and up early to catch the early tide.
Next stop Ingonish. Which I have been into before and this time it would be foggy Narrow and Lobster pot strewn. But will give us an easy day and a comfortable night. Rob saw a whale roll over on the way in and I saw a small pod of dolphins on the way out in the morning. While I was there I got the old fold up bike out and cycle along the coast and stopped for coffee and blueberry pie in the very out of season tourist spot and entrance to the Cabot trail.

Our next 20 mile hop is to Dingwall which is very shallow and narrow, and again we seem to be arriving at low tide. The old lifting keel boat gives us so many options I cant see I would ever go back. As we arrive the sun begins to shine and the wind die back Dingwall suddenly looks very pretty, As the stress of a narrow shallow entrance with a large fishing boat taking up the channel subsides and we are creeping into the harbour I see out of the corner of my eye an old fellow waving and beckoning us over. As we get closer it’s clear he is offering us use of his dock, result. He takes our line and clearly knows all about our unusual aluminium boat. After a brief shat in the sun we have told him our big adventure plans and he tells us he did it back in the eighties. Had all the charts indoors if we wanted to see them and talk through a plan. Then he offered us use of his truck to go shopping. Rob went for a run and I decided to cycle to the convenience store just so we had had some exercise. Han our new 81 year old friend invited us in for chart viewing and use of the shower. Everyone always super helpful. He then told us his story. He had a 60 schooner he sailed up to Hudson Bay back in the day, he was captain of a small research ship that did lots of filming work with the BBC he was friend with David Attenborough. Doug Allen and Alistair Fothergill. All of which he had on photos round his house. Han was clearly the real deal when t can to boats and navigating and it was a joy to go through his adventures with him. We said goodbye early evening as we had a 6AM appointment with tide for our next hop across the Cabot straight. About 70 NM of open sea. And we had planned to be here for the westerly about to roll through. It wasn’t knots when we woke up but at least it was highish tide to get out. By the time we were out in the bay it would be more than 30 kts we had put in 2 reefs in the main and decide full Genoa on this downwind course. We were going like a train directly at the target. Dodging lobster pots doing eight nots was somehow more fun. But the air was very cold and rob and I decided to Don the orange survival suits we had bought for this very occasion 4 degree wind moving at nearly 30 knots is pretty cold how ever blue the sky is. The sailing conditions could not have been quicker, past St Paul’s island at full pace. Then I took the opportunity to take some sun sights with the sextant to hone the skill for when it matters. Was great fun and generally achieving an accuracy of around 4 miles. (Im sure i will improve). We are flying downwind at 7 plus knots as we aprouch the rocky left hand turn into the Port aux Basque channel which will be upwind in 27kts . A mile out we reset te boat for upwind Genoa in Jib out engine on. If we have a difficult time to rocks are not far downwind in these conditions. Morvenna manages to hold a steady upwind coarse through the channel and into the dock but as soon as the sails are down the engine struggles to keep us moving forward. A tricky parking manoeuvred in strong winds and we are all tied up.Read more