Monday, June 30, 2014

Carter's Beach, Port Mouton

We managed to tear ourselves away from Shelburne. Who knew our first port would be such a blast? We just thought we were going there to check in. Bradd and Maeve (Sampatico II, Beneteau 45) were delightfully helpful on local information. Other folks have been very helpful too, we cannot seem to get any exercise walking because people from the yacht club keep picking us up! Brad invited Myron to crew on his recently acquired race boat (oops, I do not know the make). Thursday night's race was on then off due to poor visibility, then on again. It did not appear to me that they got a good start. I watched as long as I could, until they were masked in the fog. The winds were light. It must have been a couple hours later that I finally I saw the Class A boats coming to the finish line. Brad's boat was in the lead. I snapped some photos of the finish from the yacht clubhouse. On Saturday, Myron was invited to crew again. This was a longer race, from Shelburne to Lockeport. I do not think the guys did as well on that one, but I am pretty sure they had a good time anyway.

I am not accustomed to these long daylight hours. It is light before 5 am and still somewhat light until around 10 pm. I feel tired, but I cannot blame it all on the daylight. We keep meeting new and interesting people. We talk on all sorts of subjects and suddenly it is midnight. We cruisers know we will probably never see each other again, especially the ones continuing east to Greenland and home, like Denmark. A Danish couple, Signe and Morten (on Komeet, a 38' double-ended, steel ketch) were at our boat last night until 11 pm. Singa brought dinner and I made a key lime pie. While they were here, the paid captain and crew of St Jean II (85 foot ketch), Bruno and Alex, young men from the Algarve (Portugal), also stopped by after their run. We said our 'see you laters' instead of goodbye, but I know the odds. It was a great evening. Since the evening was longer than we planned, we cut today's journey short and hope to head for La Have River tomorrow.

The sail began peaceful enough, the water so calm I could see most of the body of a great white shark lounging near the surface as we passed about 25 feet away. Spooky. Do NOT fall off the boat. Then the winds really picked up and we had quite a romp up the coast. The jib was poled out, we had to reef the main, and we did our direct downwind waddle through swells that rapidly rose to more than 3 feet. We put the pole down, put the sails on the starboard side and made a left turn to come in to Carter's Beach. We passed by Devastation Shoal and around Spectacle Rock which hides Massacre Island. Who comes up with these names?

Nearing land I could smell the trees. I am not sure why the smell of the trees here is so much better than anywhere else we have been with trees. It is truly different here and we love it. I highly recommend this anchorage. Now that the wind has subsided a little, I can hear the waves lapping on the beach. There are some campers on the beach and it looks like some folks are gearing up for a nice family gathering on Canada Day. We hope to help Simonne celebrate tomorrow in West LaHave.

Love to all,
Dena

Posted via Ham Radio.
{GMST}43|54.582|N|064|49.081|W|Anchored|{GEND}

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