Summer Cruise Part V – St. John’s – Halifax

After our week in St. John’s, we were pretty keen to get away from the dirt, noise, and being a tourist attraction, so even though yet another southerly blow was on the way, we tossed the lines with the intention of getting as far down the coast as we could before the weather slammed shut on us. We made it back to Fermeuse harbor again, and settled into the very protected little basin (which is also free) to let the gale pass on by. We wound up spending 3 days there, which was perfectly fine with us. A few of the local fishermen remembered us, and I would up spending a bunch of time with them swapping sea stories. A nice way to spend some time.

One of the things that I’ve found really gratifying about our cruise to Newfoundland was that basically everybody we met on the wharfs, with the exception of St. John’s, was a current or former professional seagoing person, or at least part of a seagoing family. I enjoyed the conversations immensely. It sort of felt like I was talking to people who really understood what we were up to, understood the realities of life at sea. We got very little of the standard ‘oh, how wonderfully relaxing it must be to sail the world, just going with the wind and not a care in the world’. They all knew better than to think that it was all mai tai’s and sunsets.

We also saw a mere 6 other pleasure boats there, which was quite nice. It’s a challenging place to sail, so I suppose there’s a reason why so few go there. We certainly appreciated essentially having every anchorage to ourselves. A far cry from the Caribbean or Mexico for sure.

After the latest gale passed by, we made tracks to get around Cape Race again, this time actually stopping in Trepassey. We spend just a night there at anchor, determined to make some miles while we had good weather. So, we left early with a destination of the little town of St. Lawrence. Newfoundland’s generous fog made an appearance, and we had the pleasure of making our arrival in essentially zero visibility. We tied up to the little public wharf, and before we even had the spring lines on (this was after dark and in the rain, mind you), 2 cars full of people drove down the dock to introduce themselves, welcome us to St Lawrence, and let us know where everything was. We were told that we had to go to the Miner’s museum during our time there. Now, neither one of us are really mining enthusiasts, but why not?
The miner’s museum turned out to be a nice surprise. The museum itself has a lot of interesting items, but the main draw for us is that they use it as an outlet for some very nice crafts and jewelery made by developmentally challenged members of the community, all made of the Fluorspar that’s around locally. Jenny also got invited back into the workshop and was encouraged to polish up a stone of her own. She enjoyed that a lot. Annette, who invited us there, and Roberta, the museum’s tour guide took good care of us and made sure we had an interesting afternoon.

St. Lawrence has quite a story. It was a fishing port utilized by the Basque, the French, and the English at various times, dating back all the way to the 1500’s. There is also a large Fluorspar deposit there, which began being mined in the 20th century. The local men welcomed the steady work, but unfortunately the conditions were terribly unhealthy, and most of the town’s men died young and gasping for breath thanks to the silicosis from the fluorspar dust. We were warned not to drink the water there, due to contamination. The town gets it’s drinking water from a purification facility. I believe that the tap water’s only good for washing, and they carry jugs back and forth for their drinking supply.

The town was also the site of the grounding and heroic rescue of the crews of 3 American warships in WWII. The locals got word of the accident and mounted a truly staggering effort to haul survivors over the cliffs and to town for care. Every house took in several sailors and nursed them back to health. A civil rights pioneer was also created in the process. A black mess hand was one of the fortunate ones, and the local women who had taken on the task of scrubbing the bunker oil off the bedraggled sailors kept working and working at him. He finally explained that he couldn’t get any cleaner, that his skin was naturally that color. The towns folk had never seen a black person. And, it meant absolutely nothing to them. The sailor said years later that it was the first time he had ever felt like he’d been treated like a full human being, and he then dedicated his life toward eliminating racism in a peaceful way. It’s quite a story.

A rare sunny day with a fair wind brought us around the Burin peninsula to the town of Grand Bank. It’s a tiny little man-made harbor with barely enough room to turn the boat around. That doesn’t stop some 150’+ fishing boats from offloading at the fish plant there, however. They simply either back in our out. The town wasn’t particularly remarkable in itself, but the locals were, as always, very friendly. One generous fellow even gave us a ride the 5 miles to a grocery store and then waited in his car for us to get done. He wouldn’t even take a cold drink as thanks. This is the norm in the province. How very nice.

After a single night in Grand Bank, we left for the ‘fjord coast’ again, this time with our sights set on a fjord called Hare Bay. There is a big discrepancy between various charts, and visibility was about 1/10 of a mile. The entrance is just a few hundred feet across, so a GPS error of .3 miles is a bit problematic in the fog. Radar’s a help, but finding a hole in 500′ high cliffs requires one to be pretty much on top of said hole before it really shows up well.

Anyway, we trusted the latest edition of the paper chart, ignored the plotter which showed us heading for certain doom, and started inching our way toward the hole. Finally at about 500 feet out, we could make out the entrance, and we were in. All pretty spectacular stuff. The fjord itself rivals anything in Norway. Simply spectacular. This wound up being our home for 3 days, not due to weather this time, but just because we really didn’t feel like leaving! The fog was gone, the water way up the fjord was fresh and 70 degrees, and the scenery, just to die for. And best of all, we had it all to ourselves, not a soul around in all this grandeur. Bliss.

The afternoon of day 2, however, brought two new neighbors, cruising sailboats each with a pack of kids. The horror!

Actually, they turned out to be very nice neighbors, and we became friendly with all. It was actually nice to have somebody around for a little while. Plus, in true Newfoundland fashion Gavin who was on a cat came over with presents: home-made rhubarb jam and scallops!

Finally, it was time to leave. We had planned to visit Ramea again, and then leave for the Bras d’or lakes. We had a fine beam reach going, and Jenny confessed quietly to me that she was having some mutinous thoughts. Mutiny? What could she be mutinying about? Did I have a boat listing and a condo someplace in my future? Gulp.

No, it was a bit more benign than that. She said that the season was getting on, and with all the Southwesterlies we’d been having, it would be foolish to squander a fair wind, so we should really make some miles. I agreed completely, so we set a course for Halifax, some 370 miles away.

The trip was pretty fast, and not terribly difficult, but the fog was intense. We had visibility of under a tenth of a mile for basically the whole way. Our arrival in Halifax was also a bit of a nail biter, with zero visibility and lots of shipping traffic. We finally made our way up to the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron’s docks, having chocked up our longest passage of the summer cruise to date, really grateful to be able to stop staring at the radar and into the white void as we’d been doing for what felt like a lifetime.