Little Harbour to Ben Eoin

Keith cooked a wonderful breakfast and we made tracks so we would have some time in Sydney. What a great day for a sail. The winds were behind us so we set the spinnaker and broke speed records all the way to Ben Eoin Yacht Club.  

The Ben Eoin YC is an economic renewal  project, winning 4 million in grant money five years ago. It is run buy a board and is none profit. This year they collected $40,000 from sponsors for their learn to sail and junior programs, any money left over is spent on property upgrades and equipment. They rent there upper lounge for weddings and are working towards a restaurant to compliment the bar. Everything is open to the community residents.  

Jack, one of the club members drove us to the airport to pick up a rental car. We went into Sydney for diner and a movie before heading back to the airport to pick up Terry at midnight.

Johnstown - St Peters - Bourgeois

It was a beautiful morning and our lofty goal for the day was to visit St. Peters and buy ice. 

During the trip up St. Peters inlet we meet lots of boats heading into the Bras Dors. We arrived and were offered a rider to the store by the harbour master. The harbour mater "Eric" has been on that job for twenty six years. The marina is run by the Lions Club and is in great shape. After a two hour stop we locked through to the ocean side. The lock is run by Parks Canada and they are gearing their hours of operation down for the shoulder season. After a quick hike in Battery National Park we

motored in the rain to Bourgeois and made seafood chowder. This narrow bay has great protection against the elements  and is surrounded with a mix of colourful homes and cottages.

Maskells to little Harbour

                       Sunrise 

We left Maskells Harbour and headed for the Grand narrows bridge. This is a double draw bridge style which I haven't seen before.it is manned 16 hours a day and stays closed at night after 11pm.

The winds 15-25 winds on the nose most of the day, quite gusty, but not having far to go we sailed through it.

At Castle inlet we stopped  for a Newfie lunch, fried Balonny sandwich, then pushed on. We arrived at Little harbour on big Bras Dor Lake about 6:30 and had a swim. It has a small entrance and good protection for all  types of weather. 

Big ketch was parked inside and there was a restaurant and smokehouse but we cooked ourselves on board after a long happy hour.

                   Happy hour

Badec to Maskells Harbour

We went to the Yellow cello for breakfast and picked up a bottle of gin to help Krith with lairs dice then sailed to Maskells Harbous. Maskells harbour was nice, this was a fairly enclosed harbour with a layer of warmer water on top great for swimming.  We pulled the boat up to shore and went for a walk and skipped stones for an hour. Seven million starts out that night. While in Bedec we picked up the fixing for seafood chowder at Kissing Cod fish shop, we made that for dinner, mmmm good.

Seal island Bridge to Badec

The first stop we made after a morning swim was in Big Harbour, where Darrell cooked up blue berry pancakes. The harbour was well protected and had nice limestone cliffs, if you went right to the back it would be a safe place in a hurricane. We moved up a bit and went for another swim and fished for a while before motoring to Badec in winds guesting to 30 knots on the nose. 

Here we hooked on to moring ball and called a water taxi to take us to town. 

Badec has a population of about 1000 people and caters to tourists and the boating community. I was able to buy a boat part I needed at the marina and we headed out for appies and drinks before  a cod dinner aboard Summer Wine II and a few rounds of liars dice.

Puffin 360

Today we sailed with wind on the nose  and curcumnavigated Bird island seeing Puffins & Seals. Later as we entered the channel to the Bras Dor Lake we faced a 4.5 knots of tidal current. We thought we had timed it well but under estimated the amount of water the had to come through that channel. We hooked on to a moring ball just past the 119' high Seal Island Bridge. Another fine day in the martimes.

    

    

         

                                                                

    

Newfoundland to Nova Scotia passage

               Head lands at Ingonish 

Left at 3:00 pm and made a qiuick stop to fortify our cod supply but no luck. We saw many large Dolphins and one jumped straight up and clear on the water by five feet, quite a site.

For dinner we baked up a lasagna underway.

Sailed through the night on four hour shifts with a two hour break, so we had two crew on all the time. The winds were 8-16 on the nose again but due to the distance we motor sailed. The water warmed up somewhat after we crossed the Laurentian Channel (trench) and nobody was cold which was good. As we approached the entrance to the harbour the Katabatic winds increased to 23 knots coming off the mountains. 

We landed at South Ingonish Harbour about 7:30 and had a swim, beer, breakfast and a map, I think that is enough for a country song even without a truck. We cooked up a cod fish dinner and retired early.

There is a beutiful beach and world class golf coarse here. It is also home to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

                  New docks

              Stud Puffins on the loose