Port Howe, Nova Scotia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 12 Aug 2007 04:15
|
45:14.375N 61:05.471W
Here we are on the southeastern shore of Nova
Scotia after completing our first official Atlantic Ocean sail yesterday
(Tuesday, 8/7). What started out as an uneventful motorsail through
the rest of the Canso Strait, turned into a somewhat eventful sail, then
motor, then sail, then motor southeast through the Chedabucto Bay and then
southwest in the ocean along the Nova Scotia coast. The wind was nice and
strong, but generally coming from where we wanted to go. Just as the wind
and waves were picking up, the fog settled in. None of this was
out-of-control scary, but did require our attention and caused us to duck into a
cove short of our goal for the day (we were heading for Whitehead, but scooted
into Port Howe instead). Along the way we reached the furthest point east
that we will see for a good long time (60:46' W) since we will be heading west
and south here on after.
Ducking in to Port Howe in the fog was somewhat
interesting. Imagine taking your house, putting it on wheels and driving
it knowingly straight toward a really big brick wall. Then, when you get
within 50 yards or so of that brick wall, make a 90 degree turn and drive your
house knowingly straight toward another brick wall. Keep doing that until
you make your way through the brick wall maze, and do it all in the pouring rain
with no wind shield wipers (but with a really good GPS and radar system).
That's what it was like taking our boat into Port Howe in the fog. We used
the GPS and the radar, and when the fog cleared enough for us to see land,
we tried not to look because most of the time we were pointed straight
toward an array of rocks with the surf crashing on them. Needless to say,
with Captain Don at the helm, we made it just fine.
And it was worth the effort. There is no one
here but us. Correction - there are a bunch of birds, at least one
extremely camera shy seal and a couple of jellyfish. The first picture
below is the sunset the first night we were here.
As it turned out, it was doubly worth the effort
getting in here because a nasty low pressure system arrived and passed us
by bringing extremely high winds (gusts to 40 knots) for the better part of
a day. We waited the weather out in Port Howe for an extra 2 nights and 2
days and finally left on Friday 8/10. The cove is extremely well protected
and was a perfect hide-out from the weather. The second picture below
shows our boat in our foggy safe haven (taken from our
dingy).
Anne
|
