Our morning in Jeddore started early – the commodore aboard a Nonsuch, ‘Magical’ blew his foghorn at 6:15am to rally the troops for the sail to Macleod’s Harbor – some 30 miles or so up the coast. I got up to find out what the racket was about and went back to bed.
We got up at about 7:30 and as I’m walking over to make the coffee, I glance out to see Magical and 3 other boats circling ‘Voyageur C’ who was pulling up his anchor. They’d all been circling sine 6:15 waiting on the whole group to be ready. Sure enough when at about 7:45 Voyageur C was ready, he led the procession of boats out of Jeddore towards the afternoon’s destination.
We weighed anchor about 90 minutes later and trailed the group. It’s a long ride back to the ocean, but as soon as we were there, the wind filled to a nice 10 – 15knot run so we were able to turn off the engine and enjoy a really nice sail eastward.
We caught the group (the largest of the other boats was 36ft compared to our 44 so it’s not surprising we caught them) after about 25 miles sailing with main and poled out genoa, but as we did, the wind shifted somewhat to being dead downwind slowing our progress as the genoa was now covered by the main – so we had to move the pole from port to starboard – an onerous affair – and once again got going.
We passed the line of boats – finding out as we did that the fleet was actually motor sailing! That’s cheating in this sort of wind! Anyway we jibed over at the entrance to Macleod’s and was probably an hour ahead by the time we dropped anchor. The shelter from the westerly wind was pretty limited but at least we had a good set with the anchor, so we were happy for the evening. When the group appeared, they did not feel the same way and so anchored in another spot a mile or so down the way… As we listened to the radio chatter, it became evident that after two hours of trying, one of the group had still not successfully anchored and was therefore invited to raft up (tie up) to another of the anchored boats… what a palaver!
We left early the next morning in fog, destination as far east as we could get. The forecast was not great so we had a plan B and plan C should we need to put in beforehand. In the end we opted for plan B as the waves were rolling us all over and after a period with 30+ knot winds from right behind us (awkward motion) it dropped off to less than 10 and left a massive swell, so it was altogether uncomfortable so we motored into Fisherman’s harbor where we launched the dinghy and went for a walk in search of a WiFi signal. 2 miles later, nothing gives so we went back to the boat. OCCer John Van S was just anchoring when we arrived and we invited them over for arrival beverages – which we enjoyed in Toodle-oo’s cockpit as the rest of the group arrived and provided excellent anchoring entertainment!
In the morning, the fleet left early once again and once again we left an hour plus behind them – destination once again, as far east as we could get. As it happens, we managed to get to the tip of Nova Scotia (before it becomes Cape Breton) and took the narrow channel (Andrew’s Passage) up towards Canso, having the fleet in sight as we did so. However, whereas they carried on to Canso, we opted to stay the night in Glasgow Harbor, just short of Canso and enjoyed weird noises of Seals yelling at each other – and had a magnificent fly-by by a Bald Eagle!
Our anchorage was very pretty – we were happy and settled in for the evening in Glasgow Harbor, just short of Canso.