My OperaNice place, when you can see it (July)
Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:28:06 AM
So, after the necessary farewells, and not knowing when we might return this way next, we drifted gently out of Penbscot Bay and pointed Fair Grace to what felt like North but is actually closer to East. We slipped past Mount Desert Island and Schoodic Point into the more remote “Downeast” part of Maine.
We were feeling a little shy at this point as, after leaving Belfast we were technically illegally in US waters. Well, it's a longish story, but essentially we should have renewed our cruising permit which only lasts for 12 months. We did try. Having phoned the Customs and Border Protection office in Bangor who assured us they could renew it, we drove our borrowed Land Rover up to the airport where the officials were somewhat embarrassed to admit that they didn't actually know how to renew it without FG having left the country. They told us to call them before we left, which we did, and then told us we must declare ourselves outbound to Canada.... We didn't have much option at that point, but decided to carry on up the coast in any case.
There was a slightly nervous moment when a large coastguard cutter came tearing down to coast towards us the following day, but it flew straight past, apparently on the hunt for a dead whale(quite why we never discovered) Other than that, we spent most of the next week in thick fog, but in a completely enclosed, heavily wooded anchorage on Great Wass Island.
The weather forecast for our crossing of the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia was frustratingly changeable, with favourable weather windows disappearing as they approached. In the end we became so frustrated that we left our anchorage in thick fog and with a heavy swell running. Not the most tranquil of exits, especially as I had managed to reverse onto one of the prolific lobsterpot buoys only moments after getting the anchor up. After a bracing swim armed with a sharp knife we managed to get clear and retie the buoy to its pot. The exit from between the islands with barely visible surf breaking on rocks close on either side was a little un-nerving, but things settled down once we cleared the shallow water and the fog even lifted for a few hours.
After a very damp, cold night, the next morning revealed another change in the weather forecast and we decided to head for Yarmouth instead of the planned Shelburne. We were starting to get a bit more accustomed to sailing in fog by this time, but it's not really much fun at the best of times and downright creepy at others. We heard whales blowing around us, some really close, but saw none. Then later saw a ship headed down the bay towards us which then vanished into a bank of murk about a mile away.
The visibility was so poor approaching Yarmouth that we nearly crashed into the buoy marking the entrance before seeing it, but radar and GPS make this sort of entry possible for us now, even with a strong Fundy cross tide running.
Yarmouth is a friendly, if slightly socially challenged little town. Like all of the ports on this coast, it has a proud history of fishing and shipbuilding, but the demise of one and then the other of these has caused real hardship. We enjoyed our stay, but came to the conclusion that in addition to the economic hardships, the gene pool might be somewhat limited....
And the verdict on Canada so far? We'll let you know when we can actually see it.
We were feeling a little shy at this point as, after leaving Belfast we were technically illegally in US waters. Well, it's a longish story, but essentially we should have renewed our cruising permit which only lasts for 12 months. We did try. Having phoned the Customs and Border Protection office in Bangor who assured us they could renew it, we drove our borrowed Land Rover up to the airport where the officials were somewhat embarrassed to admit that they didn't actually know how to renew it without FG having left the country. They told us to call them before we left, which we did, and then told us we must declare ourselves outbound to Canada.... We didn't have much option at that point, but decided to carry on up the coast in any case.
There was a slightly nervous moment when a large coastguard cutter came tearing down to coast towards us the following day, but it flew straight past, apparently on the hunt for a dead whale(quite why we never discovered) Other than that, we spent most of the next week in thick fog, but in a completely enclosed, heavily wooded anchorage on Great Wass Island.
The weather forecast for our crossing of the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia was frustratingly changeable, with favourable weather windows disappearing as they approached. In the end we became so frustrated that we left our anchorage in thick fog and with a heavy swell running. Not the most tranquil of exits, especially as I had managed to reverse onto one of the prolific lobsterpot buoys only moments after getting the anchor up. After a bracing swim armed with a sharp knife we managed to get clear and retie the buoy to its pot. The exit from between the islands with barely visible surf breaking on rocks close on either side was a little un-nerving, but things settled down once we cleared the shallow water and the fog even lifted for a few hours.
After a very damp, cold night, the next morning revealed another change in the weather forecast and we decided to head for Yarmouth instead of the planned Shelburne. We were starting to get a bit more accustomed to sailing in fog by this time, but it's not really much fun at the best of times and downright creepy at others. We heard whales blowing around us, some really close, but saw none. Then later saw a ship headed down the bay towards us which then vanished into a bank of murk about a mile away.
The visibility was so poor approaching Yarmouth that we nearly crashed into the buoy marking the entrance before seeing it, but radar and GPS make this sort of entry possible for us now, even with a strong Fundy cross tide running.
Yarmouth is a friendly, if slightly socially challenged little town. Like all of the ports on this coast, it has a proud history of fishing and shipbuilding, but the demise of one and then the other of these has caused real hardship. We enjoyed our stay, but came to the conclusion that in addition to the economic hardships, the gene pool might be somewhat limited....
And the verdict on Canada so far? We'll let you know when we can actually see it.
