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Pictures are in the Canadian Maritimes Photo Gallery. Do you like the gallery feature better than the old way or not? Send me your thoughts. Yes, I know September only has 30 days. It was easier to title the page this way than spell out October, 1. That would have spilled out of the box. 09/22/2003 (Mabou, N.S., Canada) I started the day with a walk/run in Victoria Park in Charlottetown and the day just kept getting better. After packing I headed northwest. I wandered about in PEI National Park. It's a thin strip of beach with beautiful dunes running along the north shore of the island. The sand is softer and finer than anywhere I've ever been. The water is crystal clear. Pristine. To get here I roamed through potato fields and gently rolling hills (about 300 foot changes in elevation.) Then came peaceful little bays and inlets. Invariably they have mussels being farmed and boats out running about. All in all this is an idyllic place. Then down to the ferry to cross the Northumberland Straight. A nice ride but not better than Cape May - Lewes (they view was pretty it's just not as well run). Then a long drive into the Nova Scotian Highlands. Windy road, climbing and falling along a rocky coast. Black and grey clouds party for glorious sunshine. I even saw a Bald Eagle (see the pics)! But that sunshine did not produce the same indescribable blue. The differences are much greater than just the sky color. Compared to PEI the hills are steeper and taller, the bays broader and full of windswept waves, the trees denser. This is a much more austere place. After dark I realized I'd better find a place for the night. I couldn't find the campground I wanted so I settled into a very nice little in, The Duncriegen Inn, in Mabou. This is a sleepy little place. I pulled in before 2000. But the inn keeper was just shutting down for the night. The restaurants in town were all closed. (Settled for a dreadful pre-made sandwich from the local grocery.) But out my back window there is a white clapboard church. It's completely illuminated and stands out from the velvety blackness in an beautiful scene. I also spent a long time writing up a really detailed record of the day, but it got wiped out when the PC locked up. Arrrgggghhhh!!! 09/23/2003 The first person to contact me with the name of the town I spent the night in will win T-shirt. I'll send you something from wherever I am when I get the correct answer. I'll upgrade it to a sweatshirt if you can learn the name of the takeout place where I got dinner. The contest is over. Dan Kearns wins big by deducing I was in Meat Cove, NS and ate dinner at Jug's Take Out in Capstick. Tom Kearns wins a t-shirt as honorable mention for getting Meat Cove just hours after Dan did. Cape Breton National Park ROCKS! This place is every bit as pretty as Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, or any other USNP. Great driving, great hiking. The road dips in and out of the shoreline. Every time it leaves of returns to the water it involves a 1,000' to 1,200' change in elevation. The bays are full of cold, black water with whitecaps from the wind. I can't imagine swimming here, nor making a living fishing in the winter. But people do both. As I was driving I saw signs for various hiking trails. The name "Skyline" certainly caught my attention. I'm glad it did. This 5 mile hike meanders along a ridge. It wanders through woods, bog, past streams, out onto a grassy bluff and then down the ridge to a small plateau that overlooks the Northumberland Straight. Walking through the bog I saw a moose, finally. He was 15 meters away. At first he was just dozing under a tree. The arrival of another half dozen hikers woke him. He rose, turned t o look at us. He grunted several times, something the Maine guide indicated was a mating call. Deciding we weren't interested, he lost interest and wandered off. Eagles flew overhead. I'll have to find a bird book to identify them. The signs said eagles, the others said eagles, but they could have been hawks. Or, the could have been juvenile Bald Eagles. (I certainly did not recognize them as Don Henley, Glen Frey, or Joe Walsh.) I walked down the path to the plateau over the water. Bright hot sun and cool wind battled on bare arms, legs, and face -- what a great feeling. The water looks just as black and cold from up above. I looked down to see a pod of at least 20 Pilot Whales frolicking in the Northumberland Straight. Damn good thing I had the binocs. I highly recommend the park as a destination. Especially if you want to camp because there are lots of great campgrounds in and around the park. Out of the park I kept driving north. And further north. And so far north that I ran out of asphalt. Then 8 kilometers north on dirt roads. In the end I came to a campground that was incredible. On the western edge of a broad bay there's a step spit of land. It's steep and almost naturally terraced. On the eastern side there are 2 dozen campsites. The lowest is perhaps 15 meters above the sea. They look out on the bay and the remarkable cliffs that form the northern end of the island. There's a creek running into the sea here. The sound of waves lapping at the shore is interspersed with the babble of the brook. It is stunning. (Sure the facilities are a tad under maintained, but for C$15 this is still the best value in camping I've found.) C$3 bought me 9 big pieces of firewood. As dusk fell I set up the firepit for later. It was 10 kilometers back to the only place open within 25 miles. It's a little family run take out joint. A converted trailer, a few picnic tables, and that's it. But they make a mighty tasty burger. Back at camp I lit the fire. It was windy when I arrived, but now it was blowing as steady 15 knots and gusting up to 25. I had wisely loaded up a bunch of shavings, bark, and other small stuff for kindling. Three sheets of newspaper and a match set the whole thing ablaze. (The wholesome and organic stuff that Common Ground used for their guide burns real good!) The wind was better than any bellows. It caused the fire to burn hot and fast. It took but 90 minutes to burn all the wood. When I went to bed I set a bunch of loose rock over the embers to keep them from blowing away. In the morning there was nothing but those rocks and an incredibly fine ash. While I was writing my day's entry it was cold. The thermometer should 57°F. The wind made it worse. My fingers were chilly and I wrote a very brief entry. So I crawled into the tent. Within minutes of doing so the wind picked up (now a steady 20-25 with big gusts) and veered to the south. In the next 10 minutes the temperature rose to 69°F. When I awoke at 0800 it would be 71°F. The wind was even stronger. 09/24/2003 (Bridgewater, NS, Canada) That wind made taking down the tent a bit of work. It came down, it's just not folded up very well. I would here on CBC Radio 1 (an absolutely fabulous station -- some of the most intelligent news and current events radio I've heard. Imagine Terri Gross' Fresh Air running all day long.) that the gusts on the north coast of Cape Breton Island were up to 80 KMH (over 48 MPH). I believe it. I drove 420 miles today, southwest towards Yarmouth. It started in the amazing Highlands where the morning sunshine turned to dark rain. Reed had mentioned that he has a powerful memory of coming out of fog to see St. Ann's open up in front of him. For me it was coming out of the rain. The skies cleared and this beautiful long thing harbour (leading to a broader bay) with steep (but not too tall) tree lined slopes running right down to the water just appeared. Magical. The rain reappeared a few miles later. It quite completely as I rolled through the center of the province along a long thin lake (Lake Ellie?). The south shore is so different from the north. Here it's all tiny inlets and bays, full of small islands. The hills are smaller and the starkness has given way to a bucolic feeling. I got lost in Halifax. It's a nice city to drive through but that's all I did. Someplace to come back to I guess. Tonight is my first night in a B&B. I've stayed in small inns before but never someone's home. But so far it's been great. This one is an old orphanage, which feels a bit appropriate for a vagabond (don't take that the wrong way Mom!) Brian, one of the owners, was kind enough to answer my questions about his outdoor wood burning furnace. It burns 4 foot logs and they're stacked up all over the place. By the end of the winter they will go through 40 to 50 cords of wood. It's about half the cost of using the oil furnace they have as a backup. That explains why I have seen so many yards completely full of 4 foot logs ever since I left southern Maine. Tomorrow it's off to Yarmouth to catch another ferry. This one is to Bar Harbor. Friday I'll be under sail on the way to Long Island. I can't wait to get back online to here what my brother-in-law has to say about Downeast now! 09/25/2003 (Written en route to Bar Harbor, ME on The Cat ferry.) I'm writing from somewhere in the Bay of Fundy or the Gulf of Maine, I'm not sure. The day started easy enough: a nice breakfast and then 100 miles of easy driving to Yarmouth. I arrived at the terminal with plenty of time. Got the car loaded. Settled into a nice plush chair. I'm sure I'll enjoy a nice lunch. I won't play the slots. The trip will save me 600 miles behind the wheel. There have been whale sightings already. But this boat pisses me off! To pay with a credit card they convert the price back to Canadian dollars, fair enough since I'm in Canada. But they use a rate that is 10% unfavorable to me to do so! When I get a lousy rate from the credit car company at the back end my $150 ferry ride will probably cost almost $200. Hey, I don't mind greed, even excessive greed -- it serves an economic purpose. But let's be open, honest, and transparent when we're chasing the filthy lucre, ok? We've just passed through a big fog bank. The captain had the fog horn tootin up a storm. Then bang we're out of it. I promised to write about a few things in the last weeks so I'll will do so now. There's a new rant, a few small reviews, and a new rant. Enjoy them. 09/25/2003 (Bar Harbor, ME) The rest of the ferry trip was uneventful. Getting through customs looked like it might become an event though. The Agent asked me where I work and did not like the fact that I don't. He proceeded to look closely at my passport. Thos prompted questions like"why do you spend so much time in Central and South America?". He was clearly doubting my answers of diving and family visits until I mentioned the stamps for Saba and the Caymans. He asked why I was in Canada and I told him I was camping. Eventually he asked to look in the trunk. I think the tents, pillows, and other stuff convinced him I am on the up and up. Finally I was allowed to enter the US. In desperate need of clean clothes, a haircut, and a meal I set off to find them. It took a while but I found a Laundromat on the outskirts of Bar Harbor. A lot of quarters later I was stocked with clean clothes. The barbershop was now closed so I settled for a lobster dinner. Such sacrifice, no? A few minutes in an outrageously overpriced cyber cafe to let you know I'd be a while before posting and I left Bar Harbor. The Laundromat folks had provided direction to the airport so I headed out to wait for the arrival of my sailing mates. My gear was clean but in a zillion different places. So I parked in a remote corner of the airport parking lot and reorganized my bags and the car. I passed the time by reading and making a few calls. Around 2200 Bob and Trey arrived. Bob put the plane down, unloaded their gear and sent the plan back to Detroit with another pilot. The car is so full that there was no way to get them in let alone their gear. So they hoped in a waiting taxi and I followed. The boat, even in the dark, is a stunning beauty. She has a gorgeous blue hull and classic lines. And much to my delight, all three sails (she's a ketch) are roller furlers. Yeah, this means no nasty reefing problems. The three of us stood around and made idle chat -- the stuff of strangers first meeting for a while. The guys seem pretty nice. Trey doesn't have any sailing experience but is friendly and outgoing. Bob has spent a lot of time on his boat and seems very welcoming. Then it was off to bed. 09/26/2003 (Southwest Harbor, ME) We awoke to a cloudy, almost foggy morning. A breakfast at a nearby cafe started things off. Last night's assessment that these were two good guys held up under daylight review. A quick stop at the nearby grocery to pick up a few things and we walked back to the boat. She's even prettier in daylight. Beautiful varnish, great lines, roller furling sails. Just a wonderful sight to look at. As we started getting things squared away Bob's friend Todd showed up. He tipped us off to a weather forecast that indicated we should have left hours ago. So after a bit more talk with him we just unmoored and got going. Southwest Harbor is a beautiful little place. It's loaded with lots of great boats; power cruisers, sailing, working lobster boats all side by side and looking fine. The harbour has more lobster pots than all of Long Island Sound I think. We bobbed and weaved through them under power. A pretty sight. Anxious to avoid the weather and to make it to Provincetown, we motored most of the day. Outside the harbor we repeatedly ran into dense fog banks. In and out of fog, never seeing the sun we bounded along. We did hoist the sails for a bit but took them down after a short time. We did not set a formal watch schedule as one didn't seem necessary. We each took the helm at times and when we were tired handed it off. The night arrived and we continued the watchless process. We all managed to get time to steer and time to rest. I slipped down for a rest around 1230. A bit later I heard the engine wind way down. The fog have souped in and Bob wanted us slowed to be safe. A wise decision. 09/27/2003 (Gulf of Maine and Provincetown, MA) When Trey woke me (around 0600) to take the helm we were still enveloped in fog but it was lifting. We could crank up the RPMs and make a little more headway. I helmed while the guys slept. A peaceful foggy time to reflect, rather nice. As the day warmed the fog burned off and we had a beautiful day. The skies were that marine blue I love, the sun bright, the air warm and the breeze comfortable. A few times we saw dolphins nearby (Atlantic Black Sided Dolphins? I think that's the name of a species.) Other times we thought we saw pilot whales. Late in the day we looked up and saw two big fins in the water. Black and bigger than the dolphins I thought they were pilot whales. We were headed right at them. I dashed up to the bow to watch them (and see how close they would come to the boat -- let's not relive the Essex experience!) They weren't whales! They were sharks. At least 17 feet long (from the bow to at least port holes at the front of the cabin top), blackish grey up top, the edge of a whitish belly just showing. I'm sure they were Great Whites. Absolutely cool. I think Great Whites are generally solitary but an explanation for why this was pair showed up almost immediately. We past a set of floats in the water that appeared to be fishing nets -- about 200-300 yards long and just adrift. No boats in sight, none on the RADAR. I think it was a net that had broken away from a boat. It would have served as an all-you-can-eat buffet for the sharks until it was picked up. Now I know I have to go diving with these animals. They are amazing. A bit of sailing, more motoring and we found ourselves in Provincetown. A mooring ball was easy to find but there were no launch services available. So we had dinner on board. Then the cards came out. Trey and I played poker for a while. I was up enough to be happy when the night was done (we only played for $0.05, $0.10, $0.25 stakes) and retired. 09/28/2003 (Cuttyhunk, MA) We got an early start to make sure we could get to the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal at a favorable time. Trey made pancakes that were wonderful. We motored through the fog and arrived just when we should have. Through the canal under power we went. Even though the bridges were 70 feet above the mast, it looked close at times. When we hit Buzzards Bay and cleared the last of the important buoys we set the sails up. Bob graciously (or is it foolishly) deferred to me for all things sail trim. I got the Main and Genoa set up easily. The Mizzen was a pain so we rolled it back up. Once balanced and trimmed the boat was zipping along as fast as we had motored. The sun was out and everything was spectacular. Life doesn't get any better than this! We sailed all the way to the approaches for Cuttyhunk. A quick furling and we motored in. Another mooring, another launch-less harbor. Another winning night at the poker table. 09/29/2003 (Fisher's Island, NY) We set off today worried that the tide would make our trip to Fisher's Island difficult. If one is smart (lucky?) and can time things right, they can get a favorable tide from Cuttyhunk to Newport and then as the tide turns get a favorable ride westward towards NYC. WE thought we would get hung up with a horribly unfavorable tide that would set us badly. We were wrong. In spite of the tide, we zipped along easily. Motoring almost the entire way because the winds were light. But the sky was clear and the sun warm. It was another great day to be on the water. So well in fact that we considered heading farther into the Sound. But a review of the cruising guide showed no place with moorings that looked like a reasonable destination. So we pulled into Fisher's after a remarkably easy day. Again no launch. Again, a winning night of poker. It's been such a pleasant trip in large part because the company is so pleasant. Bob is extraordinarily easy to get along with. He doesn't ask anything of us other than we help keep the boat clean and afloat. He's polite and seems genuinely happy and glad to have us along. Trey is one of those guys who knows everybody in his town and the surrounding ones. He's always got an interesting story and they are told with an infectious enthusiasm. Especially the ones about his wife and two boys. Bob's an architect, Trey an entrepreneur. A short write up because it was a simple pleasing day.
Nothing complicated, just good fun and good company. 09/30/2003 (Sewahanaka Corinthian Yacht Club, Oyster Bay, NY) A long day on the water, but that's good -- the whole point is to be on the water. We got an early start hoping to take advantage of a favorable tide. And, we did. We zipped along nicely. Mid-morning we set the sails. We were flying along, the boat heeled, the wind crisp and biting on our cheeks -- absolutely wonderful. Then at the Connecticut River, the wind died. So, we furled and motored. After lunch we thought we'd try again. But the wind had shifted unfavorably. A couple of keystone-kop-like tacks and we finally got settled on the wind. Beating towards the Long Island shore instead of paralleling the Connecticut side. I thought I could trim in the genny a bit to get some extra point. That helped. I trimmed it tight. That helped more. Then I wanted to try the main. I had my hands full trying to keep her on the wind, so I asked Trey to grind it in. He went at it enthusiastically. As I was thinking it might be time to stop I thought "well, he's still got it coming in, let him keep going". Then a grind or two and BANG!!! The block that holds the mainsheet to the deck suffered a catastrophic failure. The bolt that holds it down sheared in half (horizontally) and the block flew upwards. Luckily it did not hit Trey as it could have done some damage. Even more luckily it was the single block and not a compound block just behind it -- that would have been heavier and also more of a problem to clean up. But we got lucky. We arrived at Sewahanaka after dark. A long day to finish the journey. There was launch service but no food in the club (which was fine, we wouldn't have met the dress code.) So we ordered a pizza from Mario's and the launch driver brought it out to us. Cold but delicious. Another round of poker. Another winning night. Up $22 in 4 nights. If only it were possible to replicate the run I had in a casino... 10/01/2003 (Bangor, ME) Not much to say today. We cleaned up the boat, cleaned up ourselves and got going. Ok, there's a bit more to it than that. Cleaning up the boat was easy. Packing was easy. Cleaning up myself was wonderful. Even though it may not have been necessary, I made it a practice to take boat showers during the trip. In a boat shower you never just let the water run. It's water on, wet down; water off, lather up; water on, rinse off; repeat if needed. I have no idea if the tanks on Boundless were big enough to run a regular shower. Old habits die hard. I've showered this way on every boat since my first dive trip. In the clubhouse though it's adifferent story. The water runs free and hot. Boy, does that feel fantastic. Rub-a-dub-dub indeed! Bob had arranged for a car service to take us to LGA. It was an easy ride through back roads I've not been on. At LGA I was first out. A quick hand shake and goodbye and I was off. I had hoped to find wireless access in the airport. Surely it makes sense to put this by the gates for the DC and Boston shuttles, no? Well it wasn't to be. So I settled for writing up the details above. Eventually my flight to Boston boarded and took off. Once in Boston I had 4 hours to kill. So, I hoped a cab into the city. There's $6.00 in added fees for tunnels and other stuff for any cab leaving Logan. What a scam. Near South Station I found a Starbucks with Hotspot and posted the above. I would have used the time to write more, but got involved in a phone chat with a friend in need. I hate to hear when friends fall on hard times but I'm glad to be able to render some help however slight. After the Starbucks closed it was across the street to South Station. There I made an impulse purchase, acquiring a set of Bose noise canceling headphones. But it was a timely purchase, the next flight was on a turboprop. Then I caught the T to the airport. The Red line for one stop, the Orange Line for one stop, the Blue Line for 3 stops, and finally a shuttle bus. All for $1.00. A bit longer but far better value than a cab ride. The flight was uneventful, I read the whole way. The headphones work great. They canceled out the engine noise and gave me some nice peace. I had arranged for a cab earlier in the day. Alas he took "tonight at 10pm" and turned into "tomorrow at 8am". Amazing. But a phone call straightened things out. I picked up the car in Southwest Harbor and headed to Bangor. The only stop was for dinner -- Dunkin Donuts since it was the only thing open (well, that and the fact that Trey spent much of the trip talking about DD so I was well primed for them.)
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