Calm morning on the mooring ball, but just enough wind to sail off the ball. I always love leaving in the morning under the silence of sail, something beautiful about it...
Nice sail out of the narrow thorofare, and then drifted out into the larger bay. Winds were really light …
Woke up to a parade of fishing boats going out in the morning. This leaves a bit of wake in the anchorage in the morning, and so things were a bit rolly. But I was tired and after understanding what was going on was fast back asleep.
Just a little …
This is our biggest passages on the trip so far, and making the hop from Nova Scotia to Maine is a big one for us. We had been watching this weather window for the previous 5 days or so, and as the date neared the it seemed to be materializing …
We got the boat all back in order in the morning and into ready to sail shape. A few nights on the dock and the boat kind of changes into a tiny home and it takes a bit of work to stow everything away so it can survive being bashed …
We booked three nights at the dock in Shelburne Yacht Club to wait out the wind and rain. This was a nice bit of downtime for us again, and it was nice to relax and get a bit of work done, etc.
We went out for dinner at a nice …
Kind of a funny wind day today. We were expecting some good easterly winds with a storm that was coming in this weekend. We raised anchor super early just before sunrise, and headed out. Carter's beach is exceptionally beautiful and worth the stop.
We left super early because we wanted …
It looks like we are going to be getting some weather on Saturday, so we decided to leave early and try and make a big hop to get us towards Shelburne where we hope to hold over for the weather and plan our next steps either making the jump to …
We had a really wonderful day in Lunenburg. We were on a mooring ball, but it was a short row into the public dingy dock, and short walking to all the attractions.
You can read about more of the day on Aria's blog
I will mention the mooring balls were …
After some rest, we were hopeful for a good sailing day with some better winds. After weighing anchor we were under way and had the sails up making good way out of the anchorage. Unfortunately the wind wasn't quite as northerly as we had hoped, and so we were very …
We finally set out from Halifax, slightly hopeful for some good winds to make it to Lunenburg. Those winds didn't materialize though. We put up sails after coming out of the club, but they were light, and only getting lighter. So we put them away and motored out through the …
I was hopeful for some good winds today, but didn't want to get my hopes up too much because wind predictions are just that. But today the prediction came in exactly as predicted and we had beautiful winds all day long. We were hoping to make Halifax in one go …
We woke up to a nice calm anchorage at Tuffin Island, with a bit of fog, but it seemed to be clearing. We got ready to depart and the fog had cleared up, so we motored out of the anchorage and then put up sails on some nice light winds …
We woke up at our anchorage in Upper Mount Cove to quite a bit of fog. Thankfully it cleared up for the most part by the time we wanted to leave, and so didn't pose any problems for us.
The wind was dead calm so we motored out of the …
We weighed anchor from The Little Basin after our 2 night stay there, and headed out toward the Atlantic ocean at large. This anchorage was very well protected with nothing around it at all, and was exactly the remote anchorage we were craving for a bit of downtime. We headed …
This was the dreaded pump out day. Woke up slightly scared about the job that needed doing. Raised anchor and sailed out well offshore. Winds were at least nice a favourable, so that part was easy and we could set the autopilot and focus on doing the pump out.
We …
We really enjoyed our stay in Ballantynes cove. This was a great place to stop over on our way towards the east coast, and is nicely situated at the tip of land jutting into the northumberland straight. Very friendly place, and we were gifted a bottle of wine from someone …
We managed to get up early and weight anchor in time to follow the 7am ferry out of the channel in Caribou. Sadly there was no wind at all and so we ended up motoring the entire way. It was a rainy overcast day as well, so maybe just as …
We decided to stay 2 nights at anchor and so just took this day as a bit of a down day. Aria and I built a fold down desk for her cabin with some supplies we picked up in Charlottetown and a stick we picked up on the beach.
We …
After our busy day in Charlottetown, and after a large re-provisioning while we had a car, we set of from the yacht club in the morning after getting a top off of diesel. It was another one of those mornings that sounded ominous, but once you get out and get …
After not being able to rent a car in Summerside, and deciding to slow down a bit while we wait and see what Ernesto decides to do, we decided to hop over to Charlottettown. The winds were forecast to be pretty light, but we were pretty ok with a light …
We decided on another large passage. Weather looked good for it, and there aren't many places to stop during this stretch that are easily on the way. So we got prepped, and made another early start and left the dock first thing in the am.
Initially not much if any …
We left Rimouski very early in the morning with plans for a two day passage to Riviere-au-Renard. We decided to make a big hop to make up some time, and it happened the weather looked really good for sailing it.
We motored out of our slip and through the break-wall …
Spent the day in Rimouski relaxing a bit and getting ready for our next sail.
We took a cab over to the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père, which has the HMCS Onondaga submarine open for tours. This was a super cool thing to tour, and I'm glad we made …
Early cold morning, we left the dock at Tadussac. I'm not sure what happens at Tadussac wind wise, but there always seemed to be very strong winds coming off the land and through the marina. We were pretty nervous leaving the dock, I think we are both out of practice …
Today was a down day, so no movement of the boat, just another night here at the dock in Tadussac. We decided to stay another night to just rest and relax. When we came in yesterday they had put us in a big boat slip, and so it's been amusing …
We left Cap-à-l'Aigle around 6am in order to catch the out-flowing current. No wind to start but it picked up a bit later in the morning and so we were able to make good way downwind on just the genoa. We saw more minke whales and got a picture of …
Alright, so this is a big leg of the trip we had been planning for. The key to this passage was to play the tides and current to make a fairly large hop from Quebec City to Cap-a-l'Aigle. This is 70 nautical miles, and depending on when you leave you …
Today was to be a pretty relaxing day, and it started as so. We woke up, made good use of the very wonderful marina facilities at the Quebec City marina, got some ice cream and then pushed off the dock. We were able to go straight into the small lock …
Today was a down day as we booked two nights at the marina here. We finally did some more detailed planning on the next leg of the trip and figured out how to traverse this next part of the river.
As the tide comes in and our it creates some …
So we are starting to have to plan our trips based on tides and current a little bit now. We wanted to leave at 6am from our anchorage in order to get into quebec city without large currents against us. So we pulled up anchor early in the morning after …
Got up very early to get an early start to make it to an anchorage just outside of Portneuf. It was another zero wind day, so we pulled up anchor and then set out under motor across Lac Saint Pierre (which looks like a very large lake, but is more …
Left as early as we could, and headed out of Montreal downstream. No wind to start, but we had a light wind at our aft and put up sail and managed to sail a good part of the way. Lots of gybing back and forth in light winds, but with …
Woke up late after a nice sleep at the dock, and booked our tickets for the park. Got in when it opened and did our rounds of the park. For more details on that see Aria's blog.
We got back to the boat, and made use of the free wifi …
Onwards! We said our goodbye's and Au revoir's this morning, and did one last shopping run in Point-Claire for some iced coffee's, and a stop at the used clothing store for a sweater for Aria (I'm not sure why she needs a new sweater in this heat, but she assured …
Today is our first day of not sailing. Got some work done in the morning, and then we all travelled into the old port of Montreal. Weather was nice and cool, and a great day to tour around the old city. Old Montreal is a really special place, and I'm …
Left Vallyfield marina at 8am and motored out and down the channel to the lifting bridges before Beauharnois. Got there at 9am for the lifting time, but it seems like they were running a bit late and opened 10 or 15 minutes after 9. The next bridge opened at 10am …
Had a little rain overnight, and in the early morning, but cleared up to sunny before noon. Aria and Theone had a swim, and then we set out. Pulled up anchor and raised up full sails. Wind was on the nose, but beating into the wind with the current behind …
Another beautiful day weather wise, but without any wind... But mostly just transiting locks, so not so bad.
We didn't get the super early start we were hoping for because I enjoy sleep too much, but got up to the Iroquois locks and radioed in with them letting us know …
Easy slow day today after the long run yesterday. Did some swimming and cleaning in the morning, and left our anchorage at Brockville just before 1pm. Zero wind today, so motored down the channel to Iroquois Lock. Anchored around a small island just before the lock around 4pm. Did some …
The winds did not disapoint and we had a really wonderful downwind sail from Simcoe Island all the way to Brockville. Had some excitement when we unexpectently met the pocker run coming through the 1000 islands. Crazy timing in that we basically met the start of the run at the …
We are finally off! After missing all our deadlines, July 7th originally, with a backup plan of July 15th at the latest, we finally managed to get off the dock today, July 19th.
It's been a chaotic few weeks, completing the dingy build, getting all the last minute projects on …
Alright, last post on this PT-11 build. This past couple of weeks has been a real push to get this done for our trip. I didn't do the best job at documenting the last bits, but here is what I do have...
First we installed the foot braces, ore locks …
Paiting the outerhull starts with a lot of sanding and then de-dusting. Coated the hull with Epifanes #800 white 2 part poly-urethane. This ended up being a tricky process. The paint requires a good mask, and is a strange thing to work with. The first two coats went on really …
This side ports project ended up being a rather large undertaking....
The old ports were leaky and super crazed to the point where they were hard to see out of. I decided this winter I'd tackle replacing them.
My original plan was to simply remove the old ports and frame …
A few little jobs getting the alighnment clips fitted, and then the holes oversized and filled with epoxy.
Lots of sanding and de-dusting prep for coating the inner hull. Did a big garage cleanup to try and minimize dust, and then a lot of sanding, vacuuming, wiping down, and then …
Slower progress the past month... It's been a mad rush to get our big boat launched and so I haven't had nearly as much time to work on the dingy.
Got the outer hull all faired. I'm not sure how fair I ended up getting it, but hopefully good enough …
Finally got the boat launched. We are usually in the water early May, but the ports project took forever and so we were pretty late getting there this year.
A few photos here of our VC Offshore bottom paint. We went with a lanolin based coating for the prop. Pretty …
Lots more glass work, finished glassing hull bottom, transom, and gunwales.
Started epoxy coating the foot brances and oar locks.
Added fairing to smooth bottom glass into hull. This allows much thicker glass on the bottom of the hull to smoothly transition to only 6oz glass on the sides of …
Helped a friend deliver a Benetau 31 from Bath to Toronto. Really nice boat, and first sail of the year for 2024.
Almost 24 hours exactly from port to port, pretty light winds, but we were able to sail most of the night. Ended up having to replace an impeller …