St. Peter’s – Cape Breton

There was no cell phone service or internet at Yankee Cove.  We took Thursday off, caught up on some rest, and addressed some boat items, including rearranging refrigerated items because the old one bailed for the third time.  No worries, it was the back-up unit Myron got for helping someone.  He has an interim solution to cut an opening between the two refrigerators and let one unit handle the load.  Mañana (not today), it is just not hot enough up here to worry about it for now.  As a matter of fact, it was cold enough to us that Myron lit a fire each morning and each night.  The water temperature was about 47F.  The fire keeps the inside of the boat nice and dry, especially when he puts coal in and the inside of the boat gets to about 80F!

On Friday we launched the dinghy and explored the waters surrounding Yankee Cove.  We took the hand held GPS with us just in case the fog closed in again.  It was such a relief to see blue sky.  The solar panels had to come out of their slumber and get back to work.  There was no fish farm to be found in our little bay.  During our exploration of the bay’s edge, we heard a workboat speeding through the fog and then appear near us.  With a quick wave from the driver without missing a beat, he weaved through a creek and disappeared again in the fog.   Of course we followed.  That little creek led into another bay, where we found the stored the nets and an operational fish farm.  Myron thought that bay was even more beautiful than Yankee Cove, but too risky to get the big boat into it.  As a side note, I do wish they would use red or yellow floats rather than black, as black floats are very hard to see in the fog.

Our 20 to 25 knots materialized Friday afternoon and then disappeared again by midnight.  Today was supposed to be 15 to 20 knots out of the northwest, but it was much less and then swung back to the southwest.  Something we have noticed in Canada is that we cannot find any bouys that give weather information (wind, swell height and period, temperatures).  When we are having trouble with forecasts in the states, the bouys are a big help in getting information real time, even while we are on the move (can pick them up over HAM radio).

Today’s trip was easy enough.  We had good visibility departing our anchorage – probably a good thing we could not see what we were getting into when we came in!  Lots and lots and lots of rocks.  We timed rounding Cape Canso to be about slack low tide, and that appeared to be a good decision.  We had light winds on our beam.  Before we knew it the water temperature was nearing 60F and we were entering the St. Peter’s canal to go into the Bras d’Or Lakes.  The folks at the lock were as easy going and nice as could be.  There is no schedule, so they told us to come right to the lock and they would grab our lines, they would have us through in no time.  We got a bunch of materials about places and events on the lakes, some pins, a sticker and a key float.  Then we got the run down on how they will drop us two feet and when they will open the bridge.  Easy peasy.  Locals were fishing in and near the lock, eavesdropping on our conversation.

We yelled thanks and goodbye as we passed through the swing bridge.  When I turned forward to look at the lake we were entering, my jaw dropped.  I mustered an “oh my gosh!” and Myron was making this throaty ‘cat ate the canary’ laughing sound.  “Oh yeah” he says, “it was worth it!”  We have only seen a ½ mile of the lakes and we love it!  Perfect evergreen trees rimmed in by blue water and a blue sky dotted with little white clouds.  We have shed our flowlies, fleeces and wool socks and are back in shorts and sandals.  The cockpit enclosure is opened back up.  I think the air temperature must be 20F more on the lakes than Yankee Cove.

We took a mooring to make it easy to do laundry, get groceries and get internet.  Now that we are here, we need to figure out where we are going on the lakes! 

Love to all,

Dena

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