Jonesport 44:31.87N 67:33.44W
Lotus
Fri 17 Sep 2010 00:35
|
Our 40mile leg from mount Desert was shrouded in
fog, it was eerie sailing along with visability of less than 100 m, with our fog
horn blaring out every 2 minutes. Luckily for us as we approached Roque
Island our intended anchorage Bunker Cove appeared out of the gloom and revealed
itself to be a stunningly beautiful, sheltered and remote
anchorage.
 We had previously ordered a cruising guide to
Nova Scotia that had been delivered to the harbour master at
Jonesport. Jonesport was only 4miles away from our anchorage so
we decided that we would brave the morning fog and take the tender to town,
across a small section of open sea. This decision led to our greatest epic
so far; we were very boy scoutish and wanted to be fully prepared so armed
ourselves with a handheld GPS, plus spare batteries and spare, spare
batteries, our life jackets, our compass, a fog horn and VHF radio, not
forgetting some digestive biscuits ad a copy of Enid Blyton 'famous five go on a
sea adventure'. We set off and all was well as we sped into the fog
following our GPS course at 15knots.
 We were soon a couple of miles out to sea when
suddenly the proverbial, you know what, hit the fan, or in this case the
propeller; the engine screamed but we didn't go anywhere, the rubber bush which
bonds the propeller to the drive shaft had failed (why don't they just use the
old fashioned shear pin). Oh well, not the end of the world, the engine
would propel us along at just over tick over revs so we turned back and started
to follow our reciprocal course on the GPS, that is until the batteries
failed. Oh well, not the end of the world, we got out the spare batteries
and before the unit had even fixed our position , they failed. Oh well,
not the end of the world, we had spare, spare batteries, but when these failed
too we really were up shit creek with two paddles but no idea where we were
going. We started to try and follow a compass bearing back to where we
hoped the island our yacht and sanctuary lay, but if you've ever tried to do
this in what are essentially white out conditions, you'll know that it is
virtually impossible. We weren't quite going round and round in circles
but there were some odd shapes being travelled. We knew there were some
significant currents which ran perpendicular to our intended track so we were
worried that we would overshoot the island and end up out to sea (the Atlantic,
that is) with only our biscuits and children's novel for succour. Quite
quickly John decided that discretion and cowardice where the better part of
valour and made a Pan Pan call to inform the coast guard of our
predicament . During this time we had secured ourselves to a lobster
pot buoy, this was one of the details that we gave to the coast
guard. Unfortunately, this arm of Americas Emergency Services is
staffed by brain-dead morons who asked such inane questions that within minutes
we realised we were effectively on our own. We plucked up the courage,
cast off from the sanctuary of our lobster pot and chugged our way towards what
we thought might have been the looming outline of a small skerry.
Fortunately, it turned out to be boat shaped and Jay and his three crew took us
aboard their yacht and returned us most gratefully to Lotus. By
lunchtime the fog had cleared and we ventured once again into Jonesport, this
time aboard the yacht. Jay was just mooring his boat when we
came into the Jonesport harbour and pointed a free mooring that we could
use. There we stayed for four days whilst a new propeller was
despatched from 40miles away. We could possibly have swum to pick up this
propeller in the time it took to get to Jonesport.
Jay and the people of Jonesport were
incredibly friendly and helpful; Jay lent us his car one day so that we could
re-provision the boat; another couple having given us a lift back from the
Blueberry festival (more of that to come) invited us to dinner and provided a
splendid full roast Turkey dinner, even going to the effort of stealing
wine from their neighbours; a local lobster man pulled alongside us in
his boat and we were soon looking at a bucket full of 6 lobsters, John
had insisted that two was enough but this kind fisherman would hear nothing of
it. We stuffed ourselves on three of these giant prawns which we just
managed to cram into our largest pot, but felt we couldn't face anymore lobster
for a while so liberated the three remaining lobster back into the sea.
One of the days of our enforced sojourn had been
taken up hitching 35miles to the Machias Blueberry festival which we'd heard
would be well worthwhile. The people who told us this were obviously liars
as the whole thing resembled a massive church fete complete with craft
stalls of knitted tea cosies, home baking but relatively few blueberries.
 When the propeller eventually arrived we filled the
boat with diesel at the Fishermans fuel dock which was staffed by four of the
most inbred, hillbilly guys that we've ever met, they made the banjo player on
'Deliverance' look quite normal. So, we were glad to be on our
way and as we braved the Bay of Fundy with it's huge tides (at 34 feet the
biggest in the world), on our 150mile leg to Nova Scotia we were rewarded with
breaching Humpback whales and a fleeting (about 5seconds) glance of a Killer
Whale.
 Perhaps not the
best photo of a Humpback Whale but between the choppy seas, moving boat
and unpredictability of a leaping whale, I was happy just to get him in the
frame. |