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 wind. Tried to sail for a bit, but wind was too light to make much way, so we motored for a while until it filled in a bit more. Very beautiful coastline to sail along heading around the tip of the Gaspe. Pretty beautiful to just sit out and stare at the cliffs.

we came around the first of three points on the tip of the Gaspe, and found some reasonable wind to sail on. had a nice sail for a bit, but it died out again, so we motored along. saw more seals along this stretch as well. we came up to the third point which has percé rock. it is quite a sight to see. We motored on by it, and continued out into the large bay.

This section kind of caught us off guard. We hadn't given it much thought, but Chaleur Bay is considerably large and things got pretty uncomfortable through this section. We were under sail and doing ok to start, but the sea state just kept getting larger, and the wind kept getting weaker. This is never ideal, and by about 20% of the way across it was just no wind and giant seas. So it was motoring through it which is never comfortable, and the distance across it being 30nm, resulted in what seemed like an entire day, but was probably somewhere around 4 hours. This was pretty awful and we were all rather grumpy about it, especially with the prospect of another 24 hours of sailing ahead of us.

Thankfully conditions did improve considerably after we made it across. The sea state calmed down without the large fetch of that bay, and the wind picked up nicely. For the non-sailors it's important to note how much more comfortable the ride is under sail in any kind of sea state compared to motoring. When you are motoring the boat just rolls all over the place, it's loud, and generally miserable. Under sail the boat stays in position and also cuts through the waves in a much kindlier fashion. It's generally a lot more comfortable, and the sound is a beautiful wush of the waves and whistle of the wind, instead of the loud drum of the diesel.

Anyways, under sail it was all much more pleasant, the sun was setting, watching the northern gannet's plunge diving for fish, and we could finally get some food into us. Theone had made a nice stir fry to reheat, and that was a real treat at that point.

As we were sailing into the night, the wind shifted around and gave us a very nice close reach straight down to PEI. Winds were great and the auto pilot was easily keeping us on track. Beautiful clear night with the perseids meteor shower. Must have seen well over 100 shooting stars sitting out on watch.

Coming up from below at some point, I noticed this crazy large thing on the horizon. At first I thought it was some kind of large storm or something but then finally realized it was the northern lights! I've never really seen them before, but oh man, was I ever impressed. At first they were pretty low on the horizon but then they just kept building and getting larger. At the peak they pretty much covered 50% of the entire sky from the horizon all the way up to above our mast. It was unreal, and I spent a good 2 hours just laying in the cockpit watching the show. Watching all the shooting stars through them was also kind of magical. In this case pictures kind of do them too much justice, as they aren't nearly as bright as the night mode camera over exposure shows them. They are much dimmer in real life but the flickering and scale of them are probably impossible to capture in a photo.

So the overnight sail was just great, able to sail at full speed the entire night, and into the morning. Theone took over early morning and I was able to get a solid sleep through the morning hours as we sailed on.

Coming into PEI we ran into what seemed like 200 million or so lobster trap markers. It was a fair bit of work to keep an eye out for these as we tacked up through them and all the fishing boats. I'm not sure if we should have kept our track out further or if it was just fishing all the way across. I guess lobster season opened recently so that might explain the large amount of activity. It took us several hours to get through the thick of it, and finally round the point.

The wind report had looked like we'd have a nice beam reach all the way around the island, but that ended up turning into wind on the nose the entire way around as it seems to often do. So it was a lot of tacking back and forth and clawing out way up and around the coast.

We could see some weather developing and wind starting to build. It looked pretty nasty so as we reefed down we furled up the genoa and deployed our new gale sail. I've only used this a couple of times now, but I'm liking it a lot. It hanks on over the furled sail, and we hoist it with a spare jib halyard. It's only 60 sq/ft of sail, but in heavy winds it keeps a nice shape and because it's so small it's easy to manage. As the winds picked up we sailed on comfortably with the gale sail and the double reefed main.

Then the storm kind of came in upon us. At first nothing much more than rain, but then it got pretty squally with a giant flash of lightning to remind us that it was serious. We dropped the reefed main in the heat of it, which is always fun and interesting, but it all went pretty smoothly. Happy we had the gale sail rigged as the genoa would have been a beast to furl away. And as fast as it happened, it went away and we were left without any wind and big choppy seas again. So we motored on out and around the point and caught the wind again. Dropped the gale sail and put out full sail again for a nice (and finally!) off the wind sail straight down to Summerside.

We got into the marina around 8pm atlantic time, realizing we'd just sailed into a new time zone. Thankfully the restaurant at the club was open until 9, and so we got a much deserved beers and some delicious food. Happy to be back at the dock so we can rest and relax a bit. We've booked 3 nights here in Summerside.

Also of note in terms of pictures, my nice camera lens broke a few days ago. I'm using the cannon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens I brought along. I love this little lens, but it's not the easiest when taking landscape photos without any zoom. Hopefully I can find a camera store and pick up some type of zoom lens in the near future.