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 out and quickly put up sails outside of the anchorage for a nice sail across Chedabucto Bay. The wind died as we crossed the shipping channel, and we motored into the narrow channels near Canso, and then rounded this corner of Nova Scotia. This will be our most easterly part of the entire trip as we now head back south-west down the Nova Scotia cost towards the mainland.
We decided on a little anchorage at Louse Harbour that we found on navioincs. This was a nice little hop where we had come from, and the entrance to the anchorage was nice and easy thanks to sonar charts. It's a tricky non-marked area without them. We weaved our way into the anchorage and set anchor well into the nicely protected bay.
There were a ton of seals at this anchorage and a group of them gathered on a few of the nearby rocks above water at low tide. This presented us some front row seating on watching the on goings of the seal pecking order as they seemed to jostle for sunning positions on the rocks.
After confirming ourbanchor was well set, and we weren't going to be swinging into any of the nearby rocks, we put the dingy in and went ashore. This whole area was a wildlife reserve and so we were able to go ashore and do some hiking. What looked like a grassy hill turned out to be a rather dense bramble and moss type flora. We eventually found some animal trails and were able to make our way around. It was really beautiful hiking up the hill and looking back at the anchorage.
We even stumbled upon some pitcher plants which I always love to see. The nature here, with seals, ocean shoreline, and hills is something to behold.
This was a very cool spot, and winds were not really in our favour the next day, so we decided to stay a second night. On our second day we paddled the dingy over to a brook I spotted on google maps, and we tied up and hiked up the brook to a small lake at the top of it. We were a little hopeful for some freshwater swimming, but the lake wasn't deep and the water was very dark, so we skipped that idea. The hike up the streambed was very cool though and well worth the time.
We went back to the boat for lunch, then proceeded back to the nearby beach and did some more hiking on the animal trails. This eventually led us to the top of the highest hill that was there, for some very beautiful views of both the anchorage and the ocean on the other side. We spent some time there taking it all in, and capturing a bunch of photos as well.
As we were up there a number of boats had come into the anchorage too. The first night we were alone, but on the second night 3 other boats came in. But it's a very large anchorage and lot of room. Had a great sleep the second night as well.
