Necessity is in Lunenburg in Nova Scotia

Necessity
Eva and Jan Fr. Mack
Tue 18 Jun 2013 10:34
Our position is 44:22:47N 64:18:24W
The trip here from Newburyport was an easy one, but still varied. First excellent sailing with calm seas and brilliant sunshine, then a period of choppy seas and very heavy rain. Coming in to Lunenburg we had fog to the extent that the watch keeping moved down below to the radar and AIS. Thanks good for those. Other boats that you can hear, but not see are scary.
Coming up the New England coast we have also been watching for whales, but with no luck. Off Nova Scotia we finally spotted one going "tail up" before it dived. We assume that it was a minky whale since they are the prevalent ones here. There should be many more
further up.
This of cause is Canada, meaning new customs and immigration. Leaving the US was again done by phone, and we expected Canada to be more of the same. We have actually done it before in British Columbia. Not this time. These customs officials obviously wanted to get out of the office (who can blame them?). So we waited for them to come all the way from Halifax 90 km away. It took a while, but when they came they were all smiles. Our passports, the centre (back to British spelling - this is Canada) of attention were of cause still valid. Our bear spray was still allowable (we are going to Labrador) and the amount of liquor was reasonable (they took our word for it). We could leave the boat to explore Lunenburg.
It doesn't take that long, but the town is interesting. Lunenburg has very long boat building traditions, and they still build schooners more or less on the beach. There is a huge one right next to Necessity, one of the "bank fishing schooners" from the 19th century being rebuilt. "Bluenose" apparently is a famous one being depicted on one of the Canadian coins. There are also a couple of small ones being built, in wood and with traditional lines. They are beautiful boats.
All in all we are glad we stopped in Lunenburg rather than going 50 more miles to Halifax. Halifax is, however, next on the list.
Jan Fr. 18.06.13

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com