We spent a few days in Halifax and left on Wednesday the 23rd of July. The forecast looked fine and we had planned to go nonstop to Francois, Newfoundland. The best laid plans… As has been the norm around here, the forecast was less than reliable, so when our nice favorable breeze dropped off to nothing, and the dog was on his 36th hour of refusing to do his business on his mat, we decided that a night at the dock would be just fine. We would regret this choice just a little.
Louisbourg was a cute, very small town featuring an abundance of churches. We took a stroll in the morning, then were off again to Ramea.
The trip there started out flat calm, with us motoring along nicely. Finally a nice reach developed, which to our consternation turned into a headwind contrary to the forecast. We had about 10 hours of hard on the wind sailing. Yes, it’s all part of the deal, but usually when we’re coastal cruising, we figure that we can count on the forecast enough that we can avoid slamming to weather. That has not been the case this summer. We learned later that Newfoundland is experiencing it’s coldest summer since the 40’s, and that is why the weather’s so goofy. The bright side is that the cold has kept the fog from forming, so we’ll take the tradeoff.
Ramea turned out to be a wonderful stop. Approx. 15 seconds after our arrival a nice man named John came to greet us. We got a brief rundown of the history of the town, the weather and other important details (like, where to get WiFi!).
We learned that they used to have a population of about 1500 on the island, but after the fish plant closed down it diminished to 485. After an initial round of naps TJ and I went for a walk, climbed up to the water tower and explored the town. They do have a few businesses there – a small branch of Scotiabank, a place that sells cosmetics and lottery tickets, a liquor store, a general store.
We also found a restaurant/kajak rental and tours/ laundry/hostel place where we had Poutine (a heart attack waiting to happen) and chicken wings while it took me about 3 hours to get the laundry done. One washer, one dryer and nobody was in a particular hurry. I found that refreshing and hung out at the place for a total of about 4 hours, making friends with Kajak Bob, his wife and a very fun, super-high energy couple from North of Toronto who were vacationing in the area, Joy and Louis. TJ went back to the boat for nap number 2.
