Gone sailing - tall ships in Nova Scotia, Canada

[jmf]

When will you be going through the Northumberland Straight? I'll be up there next week and you are going right by my cabin. I would like to see 50 tall ships go by.

justin

[MetroMPG]

Climbed the ratlines up the main mast this morning. That's a first for me. (Bit of a wimp when it comes to heights). It's 100 feet to the tip of the main topmast, so maybe 70 or 80 to the cross tree where I stopped.

Nice thing about schooners is you don't have to go aloft to sail 'em. Just to occasionally fix stuff.

Justin - where's your cabin? A good chunk of the international fleet is peeling off after Halifax and heading back to Europe, so there won't be as many ships in the Strait. On top of that, part of the fleet is heading down the south shore of NS.

Here are the dates:



from Port Information

[jmf]

My cabin is in Little Sands PEI. It's a couple miles east of the ferry we can see Pictou across the straight. I think I'll be up there july 25-31. Maybe we'll see you go by.

[MetroMPG]

Ironically, I've had less available wifi in the biggest city on Canada's east coast than I did in the four small fishing ports before we got here.

Leaving for Louisbourg tomorrow afternoon. Maybe we'll have better luck there.

Some random YouTube of the boats in Halifax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3In_3myOIA

[MetroMPG]

And if you want to peruse any pics of the Halifax event, I haven't taken any

Good thing there's Flickr (and better photographers!)

Flickr: Search

[MetroMPG]

Greetings from Sydney, Nova Scotia. Getting here was another fantastic day sailing the Cape Breton coast, right into the city harbour and onto the front page of the local paper:



And here's a YouTube slide/photo show of the parade of sail leaving Halifax on Monday. The Mist of Avalon first appears around the 4:15 mark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQmRhFccJM

[blueflame]

I envy you on this trip. I'm a fan of pacific proa's and have had a couple of keelers. Astonishes me how they never used to have an engine on any ship or boat.

Nothing like the meditative space one gets into on the wheel or tiller. Free safe clean energy is a beautiful thing.

Reading 'Astronomer Priest and Ancient Mariner' at the moment.

Happy Sailing!

[MetroMPG]

Thanks blueflame -

I was talking about "meditative sailing" last night with some of the others. The only downside to a big boat is it takes so much effort (relatively speaking in the grand scheme of things) to get the sails up and trimmed nicely, you really need to be on a loooooong tack to settle in to that state of mind.

And on the engine-less theme: a couple of ports back we saw a 30-ish footer keel boat on a mooring which was both engine-less and electrical system-less. The couple that owns it have been sailing around in the western hemisphere for a couple of years now.

[RH77]

Nice coverage by the paper! Did you get a chance to see the Fort?

By the way, what kind of engine does she have? Single-engine Diesel?

RH77

[MetroMPG]

Hi Rick - yes, toured Fortress Louisbourg. Too big to do in just a day. (Unless you're a marathon museum goer type, which I'm not.) Only a fraction of the original site has been restored, and I would have liked to hike around the remaining foundations to get a sense of how big it was back when it was one of the busiest seaports on the continent, right up there with Boston, N.Y. and others.

Coincidentally, we're now in Quebec City, which has a connection with the Louisbourg fortress: both fell to the English one year apart, defeated by the same general. After destroying Louisbourg (they knocked down every wall and building to discourage the French from returning/rebuilding), the English fleet would have sailed much of the same route that we just covered to Quebec from the east coast.

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Mist of Avalon has a Caterpillar 3306 - 33L straight 6 cylinder diesel.

It ran almost non-stop for the past 5 days of 24 hour motorsailing. It (and we) are taking a one day breather in Quebec City before aiming for the St Lawrence Seaway and the 1000 Islands. The trip will wrap up in 4 days or so.

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FYI, we had a writer from the Halifax Chronicle Herald on board for two legs of the Nova Scotia tall ships event. He just posted his first of three instalments about his adventure:

Sailing with Mist of Avalon is magical - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca