Friday 17th June 2016     45:04.269 W  67:03.303 N

Distance sailed 63 miles

Mistake was beautiful and the sunset on the 15th was one of the most dramatic and colourful we have seen. Next morning we relaxed until noon enjoying the noise of seals talking to one another around us. They did not seem as big as our seals in Ireland with their faces looking so like small dogs. Shelduck’s passage to Cutler is just 21 miles was against the tide and upwind, though very light, so we motored and set the anchor at 16.15. Cutler is a small but busy fishing harbour with great holding. The landscape nearby looks a bit like something from a science-fiction movie. Dozens of radio tower masts make up a grid for communications with U.S. submarines operating over the North Atlantic and Arctic. Just one other yacht was at anchor for the night.

Early start at 04.00 today to catch the tide. Shelduck is now nearing the Bay of Fundy where tides rise and fall 30 feet and can, in places, reach 6 knots on the flood and 8 knots on the ebb. On the way we stopped at Eastport for half an hour. It is the only place in Passamaquoddy Bay with diesel pumps. They were not open and the town did not seem inviting so we decided to leave the U.S. and pressed on to St. Andrews and entered Canada where we picked up a town mooring at 14.05. Shortly afterwards Shelduck had a visit from Steve the Harbour Master who escorted us to a floating pontoon on the pier and I called Customs from there. They took our details over the phone but had no one available to come to Shelduck and stamp our passports so we arranged to check in again in St. John New Brunswick.

I had been in contact a week ago with the St. Andrews Yacht Club and members came down to see us and invited Anne and I to a lobster supper with the membership, on the house, where we were made very welcome. After supper we walked the town with its spacious lawns and comfortable houses, some dating from just after the American Revolution were rafted over from Castine, Maine when the loyalists who built them discovered that the international boundary left them on the wrong side.

Steve allowed Shelduck stay on the pontoon for the night because of our early start next day.