Thoughts on the Canadian maritimes

This summer’s cruise was, for us, the perfect itinerary. With the
exception of some time in the Caribbean when Jenny and I first met back
almost 10 years ago, and a couple of years in Seattle, we had pretty
much been spending all of our time in the tropics.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea, we both love the warm weather,
generally low wind speeds, and slow pace of Latin American cruising.
But, one can get too much of a good thing. Some of the things that are
part of the adventure when setting off into new, less developed
countries become a little less thrilling after years of doing it.
Unreliable service providers of all stripes, chasing down parts, trying
to import parts, and a hundred little things that once really didn’t
faze us were becoming a little irritating. We never became totally
disenchanted with being based out of Mexico, but it was definitely time
to move on.

Also, we have a desire to get off
the beaten path, sail more challenging routes, and experience some of
the worlds wilder places.

Newfoundland delivered all that in spades, and our only regret is that
the season was so short there. In the 7 weeks that we spent up there, we
saw less than 10 other sailboats. There’s a reason for that- it’s often
cold, windy, foggy, and many places are very remote. Facilities for
pleasure boats are pretty hard to come by. We were either anchored or
tied to commercial wharves for our entire trip east of Halifax. The
local population there consists generally of people whose families make
their living from the sea, or they are not far removed from it in any case.

And the beauty of the place? Wow, just wow.

However, unlike the more reserved, dour folks inhabiting many of the
countries bordering the North Atlantic, the Newfies are some of the
friendliest, most generous folks we’ve ever encountered. On the rare
occasions that somebody came down to the dock to collect the tiny fee
that was supposed to be collected, they often seemed to be embarrassed
about asking. Many times, nobody came. In most cases, we paid about
fifteen bucks to tie up. Sometimes it was less than ten, and never was
it more than twenty. What a change from our standard American dock
experience. In Newport, for example, we were quoted over $300 per night
to lie alongside a dock, plus $20 for power, $5 more if you want cable
TV, etc, etc, the surly help was free of charge, thankfully.

I’m not picking on Newport in particular, but they do boast the
highest dock rates we’ve ever seen (and we’ve been to some really
spectacular marinas in various countries), so they get the nod for
comparison purposes.

Anyway, it was a great way to spend the summer, and we’re now
re-engaged with the concept of another season of tropical living. We got
some higher latitude sailing out of our systems, and got to see some places that not all too many have the opportunity to see.

All in all, it was a very good call.