Portland, Maine to Halifax, Nova Scotia - Day 2
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Fri 27 Jul 2012 21:21
| The second day of the trip started off well and we had about 12-14 solid hours of steady downwind sailing, lovely and peaceful after having used the engine for a while. The big concern of the day was that we had serious fog! We have never sailed in 'proper' fog before, and whilst we had been warned about the fog in the general Maine and Canada area, we have seen hardly any except for 4 July, and we were safely tied up in the marina - not this time. The visibility was down to about 100m at best. We were sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia and at times were only about a mile off-shore but could see nothing at all. As we were coming up the entrance channel to the Halifax Harbour, we radioed in to 'Halifax Traffic" who will help you out by telling you what else is moving around in situations like this when the visibility is practically nil. The good news is that as well as this service, the fog issue is so common here that the channel buoys all have radar reflectors on them which show up on your radar screen, and they also make a noise, which again shows on the screen as it is activated, so you know exactly where the buoys are even though you can't see them. The green buoys make a low mournful noise, and the red ones have bells on. Entrance into the harbour took a little longer than we anticipated as we had to travel so slowly, but we made it in the end and the fog even lifted for about an hour as we got closer and tied up the boat. Soon after it came back down as thick as ever again. This time, it was so thick, the fog was seeping up through the gaps in the jetty! Later in the afternoon, once we had cleaned up the boat and ourselves we went ashore to get our bearings. We are moored right in the centre of town, which although very convenient, is not exactly private - we get so many people walking past, taking pictures, I am thinking of starting to charge!  Towards the left of this photo, there is a green channel marker - honest!! This was taken at about 9am, so it should definitely have been daylight! John well wrapped up against the cold, As you can see from this picture of me the visibility forward is not great! The fog seeping up through the jetty A huge container ship passed behind us, about 100m away - can you see it?? A grey seal enjoying a morning swim |