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M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG                                                                                               September 20, 2013 Baltimore: Our last newsletter ended with our possible departure on September 1 for the U.S. from Shelburne, Nova Scotia. The passage across the Gulf of Maine is potentially difficult both because of weather concerns, particularly at this time of year, and because it is 270 miles of open water that is exposed to the open ocean and its associated swells. The …

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    
                                                                                          September 20, 2013
Baltimore: Our last newsletter ended with o…

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    
                                                                                          September 20, 2013
Baltimore: Our last newsletter ended with o…

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    
                                                                                          September 20, 2013
Baltimore: Our last newsletter ended with o…

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG         July 20, 2013
Lots of new pictures have been added to www.tischtravels.com
Boothbay Harbor to Vinalhavn: We remained in Boothbay one more day owing to poor weather and heavy fog. Fortunately we discovered the Op…

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG         June 2013

Today, June 18, we are shrouded in fog. It’s a pea soup variety and I can’t see anything. Thank God for radar! It is 63 degrees; we are in the North Atlantic about 65 miles south of South Hampton, Long Island and about 100 miles southeast of our landfall at Nantucket. It will take us another 15 hours before we can drop anchor in Nantucket Harbor and by then Rebecca and I will have been at sea for seven days and covered about 1,200 miles. The Open Ocean Cruising Society awards a special burgee for such a voyage, but we didn’t apply for membership so we will have to be content with the anonymity of our achievement.   A long voyage like this has its pleasures. It is sort of like fun, but different. It begins with trepidation as one realizes all the things that could go wrong or bring discomfort if not disaster. As the days evaporate one by one, staying awake half the night becomes routine, and with it a sense of pride in the accomplishment of doing “it” ourselves. Since there is no TV or internet, the hum of the engine and watching the waves roll beneath ARGO seems to pass the time. Out here there is only the natural world and if the weather is good and nothing goes wrong with the machinery, it can be quit heavenly, particularly at night with the Milky Way overhead.  Sometimes a ship will pass on the horizon, and if so a cluster of activity erupts as we move to the radar to calculate the CPA (closest point of approach) and make any course alteration that that may require. But on this trip we have seen only a handful of ships and no yachts. Perhaps it is because we are so far offshore.

We left Stuart on Thursday June 13 at about 1300 in order to make high tide at the crossroads (a point where the Intercostal Waterway, the Indian River, and the outlet to the ocean meet). The water is so shallow there that we almost always drag across the sand on our way out. Once out in the Atlantic, we stayed within 25 miles of the coast until a strong weather front passed. By then we were pretty much stuck with following the coast line up to Maryland, and then we cut the corner and headed for Nantucket, about 400 miles across the ocean south of Long Island and New England. The weather diversion from a more direct route cost us an extra day or two, but it paid off in moderate, following seas on our starboard quarter.  

I was three hours into my off watch sleep when we reached the outer buoy at Muskeget Channel that separates Martha’s Vineyard from Nantucket Island. After leaving watch at 0200 I was enjoying a comfortable snooze when suddenly I was being tossed about in an all too familiar manner. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to go to the pilothouse where I found out that ARGO was encountering steep six to eight foot waves thanks to a passing cold front that blew up to 40 knot winds against the incoming tide. We felt like we were in a mix-master. We rounded the western side of Nantucket Island and made for the harbor of Nantucket Town. Once inside the harbor we moored at a marina reputed to be the most expensive on the east coast (about $500/night for our size boat). Lucky for us we arrived three days before the summer season began and we were charged reasonable rates.

We stayed in Nantucket three days. One day was devoted to walking up and down the streets of the little town and taking in the sights: there are the Captain’s homes built during the whaling days of the early nineteenth century; there is the Quaker Meeting House with its Spartan, plain countenance, which stands in stark relief to the Methodist Church located across the street that sports a genuine Tiffany window (the irony is that it looks over the Quaker Meeting House); and then there are the countless little Cape Cod style homes of various types such as the half cape (single offset door with no fancy stoop and three front-side windows), the full cape (door in the middle with two windows on each side), the cape the with good front (replacing the grey cedar shakes with painted clap boards) known as “putting on a good front”. All-in-all it is a lovely, picturesque place. Although we had both been to Nantucket years ago, I wanted to stop and visit again because I recently read (and recommend) In the Heart of the Sea by Nathanial Philbrick, the story of the whaling ship Essex and how a great sperm whale had turned on the Essex after being harpooned, collided with it resulting in the loss of the ship. The crew was shipwrecked and set adrift thousands of miles from land. The story tells the history and methodology of whaling, and how some of the crew survived utilizing cannibalism as a means to avoid starvation. I was surprised to learn that cannibalism wasn’t all that unusual under these circumstances in the past. Herman Melville was a contemporary of the Essex crew living at that time in Nantucket and based Moby Dick on this true story.

One afternoon we took a motor tour of the island that revealed its truly lovely, bucolic beauty: cranberry bogs, beaches, little villages and trophies of the wealthy and well-to-do. Many homes sell in the millions, while the most expensive recent sale fetched $48,000,000 for a six acre plot and some nice buildings. Nantucket has a permanent population of about 5,000, but during the summer the population swells to 50,000, with each visitor likely to bringing his or her own car! Traffic, whether by foot or by car, becomes impossible. We were glad to have visited during the off season.

On the dock, we met a fellow boating couple – Ron and Marsha. Ron recommended that we visit Falmouth, as it was a picturesque spot, and the home of Peter Noonan who was THE man to buy diesel fuel from in these parts. So we went to Falmouth, enjoyed the hospitality of Ron and Marsha as they hosted us to diner at the Falmouth Yacht Club, filled up with fuel that was sold at the best price I have seen in years, and rented a car for a little sightseeing. First we drove a few miles over to Woods Hole, home of the famous oceanographic institute; cute, but not much there for the tourist. Next we drove up to Hyannis Port hoping to see the Kennedy Compound. Once again there wasn’t much to see as no access was permitted to the street leading to the residence, and Hyannis Port doesn’t have much else to recommend it. So, our trip about the area was pretty much of a bust, and we returned to Falmouth having decided to pull out the next day.

On Tuesday, June 25, we left Falmouth bound for Portland, Maine. To get to Portland one must travel either around or through Cape Cod. The preferred route takes us through the cape via the Cape Cod Canal. To get to it, we had to get from Nantucket Sound to Buzzards Bay, which requires a transit through either Woods Hole or Quick’s Hole. Peter Noonan and his assistant “Squid” advised us not to take the passage at Woods Hole as many boats including a USCG cutter foundered on the rocks there last year. So we took a slightly longer route and made our way into Buzzards Bay via Quick’s Hole, which isn’t a hole but a passage between two islands; there, we turned east toward the Cape Cod Channel. The channel is about ten miles long and allows transitors to avoid a 135 mile passage around the cape. The only problem with the channel is the current, which can be around 4 knots in either direction depending upon the tide cycle. For us, that represents about half our normal cruising speed, and as we went through the canal our speed dropped to as low as 2.3 knots (from what normally would have been at least 8 knots). We entered the canal around 1500 and made our exit around 1700 into Cape Cod Bay. It was a beautiful day: bright sun, blue sky, little wind, and calm conditions.

Once through the channel we decided to cruise all. I took a nap for 2 hours while Rebecca stood watch and cooked diner. After dinner Rebecca went to bed and I took the watch until 0200; at that time she took over and I went back to bed. That night we traveled slowly so as to make Portland around 0900. Our speed was 6.4 knots (7.4 mph) using 5.6 gal of fuel per hour. The sea was calm and very pleasant. The sky toward Boston was dark with occasional flashes of lightening, a harbinger of a coming storm. To the east, the moon was rising and it appeared as a beautiful red disk. The ocean was dark, but as Argo pushed the water around her bow stem the waves gently broke away revealing flashes of green light from the photo plankton. It was a wondrous evening indeed!

We entered Portland along Cape Elizabeth and entered Casco Bay in a light fog. The harbor is easy to approach, and it is guarded by the most elaborate and potentially effective forts (ca. 1860) that I have yet seen. In the day, cannons were positioned to rain fire on an approaching enemy from all sides including a fort built on an island in the middle of the harbor. Fortunately we passed by without taking fire! We moored at a marina just north of the peninsula on which Portland is located.

With the British investment in the construction of the Grand Trunk R.R., Portland became an important seaport. The Gulf Stream, which helps ferry ships from North America to Europe, lies just offshore and these two factors along with a beautiful natural harbor helped made Portland an important sea port in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Montreal shipped the riches of Canada by rail here to gain an ice free port to Europe. Portland’s economy began to slip after the Second World War, and now the city appears a little tattered and not very vigorous. Most of the historic downtown buildings are red brick with granite embellishments, many of which were built after the great fire of 1866. Even the sidewalks are redbrick. The newer buildings are all built out of similar brick, giving the city an appearance reminiscent of a land grant college.     Some of the streets remain cobblestone in the “old town”, and the merchants make an effort to discourage chain stores from infesting the area so as to preserve an historic genre. The waterfront is still comprised of mostly late nineteenth century wharf buildings, which are interesting but not especially attractive. We took a motor tour (conducted by Will Cogswell, whose uncle is James Cogswell, a professor of art whom we met at a friend’s home before we left. It is a small world indeed!) The rest of the town is built of wooden clapboard structures similar in many ways to those found in San Francisco. Some are clearly Victorian, while others are a sort of Italianate, while others are a “tent” structure popular after the Civil War.

Last evening we drove to Freeport, a nicely coiffured little town about 15 miles north of Portland. It is not only the home of the L.L.Bean, but also a brand name discount outlet mecca so popular with shoppers looking for a deal. L.L.Bean itself covers several city blocks in various buildings, so one needs to know what their looking for in order to enter the right building. Rebecca enjoyed the stopover and I found a few things also.

After Freeport we headed further north to Brunswick, a little town that is home to Bowdoin College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Among its graduates are Nathanial Hawthorn, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and President Franklin Pierce. The campus was quit lovely, although small and enclosed within a town that offered little distraction to their earnest supplicants.

We left Portland for Boothbay, which is about 35 miles north of here, at 0945. It was very foggy in the harbor and it was full of lobster pot buoys that we had to maneuver around. Once in to the main channel, it was very easy to become disoriented in the fog despite all our modern electronic equipment. Out of the harbor and on the ocean we found the conditions as predicted; large swells and foggy conditions. A few of the swells were in the 8-10 foot size range, but most were in the 6 foot range, and the visibility was minimal. The swells rolled in from our starboard quarter, occasionally moving us far over on our port side…nothing of any concern only surprise and wonder at the power and force of the sea. When we entered Boothbay we hoped that the warming of the land during the day would have dissipated the fog inside the harbor, but no such luck.   The harbor was completely socked in and it was full of mooring buoys, lobster pots, and boats at anchor. We could only see a hundred yards or so in front of us, so we picked our way around until we found our slip at the Tugboat Inn at the center of town; that required constant VHF contact with the dock hand that couldn’t see us, but helped us find their little spot on the edge of the wharf.

That evening Rebecca had arranged for us to attend a performance at the Carousel Dinner (it was really just sandwiches) Theater. Just before we left for the theater a fellow on a boat across the way who had watched intently as we moored Argo, offered us the use of his car; so off we went. After arriving at the theater we met the owner, Robb Bernard, who is a “retired” performer now teaching theater and performance at the only all-girls Quaker School in the country. I mentioned that we had recently been to the Quaker Meeting House in Nantucket and was now an expert in matters Quaker, so…I thought that displays or actions drawing attention to one’s-self (including tombstones) were verboten. Consequently I was surprised that he had an appointment there. He explained that the all-girls Quaker School now had only one Quaker attending, so things were somewhat more relaxed. At any rate, he owns the Carousel and produces these shows during the summer. He goes to NYC to recruit aspiring singers and dancers. They form a small troupe who perform as well as wait tables between acts. This year the program features the music of Nat King Cole during dinner, and Elton John after dinner. It was a lot of fun.

We plan to be in Bar Harbor for the 4^th of July, and then keep moving up the coast to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland by August.

We have put a few new pictures up on our website at www.tischtravels.com. Thanks for looking in on us.

We hope you are enjoying the summer wherever you are.

Captain Randy & 1st Mate and Chief Medical Officer and Galley Maid Rebecca

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG         June 2013
Today, June 18, we are shrouded in fog. It’s a pea soup variety and I can’t see anything. Thank God for radar! It is 63 degrees; we are in the North Atlantic about 65 miles south of South Hampton, …

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    

                                                     September 5, 2013

Newfoundland: We left Sydney Harbor at 0500 bound for LaPoile, a tiny fishing village on the south coast of Newfoundland 120 miles away. It is a 17 hour passage for us. Our route took us across Cabot Strait, one of the most challenging bodies of water on the planet. The Cabot Strait flows over the Laurentian Channel, a 1500 ft. deep trench gouged out of the continental shelf by the Wisconsin Glacier during the last ice age. It connects the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and further upstream the Great Lakes, with the Atlantic Ocean. A stiff current flows toward the sea producing its own waves, which can build significantly if the wind blows against them. This is the usual sea state during the summer when southeasterly winds prevail. Adding to the turmoil is the ocean swell, handmaiden of the wind. As the swells roll in they meet the current of the Cabot Strait and mix-master of wave action ensues.   It is the strangest thing to behold; you could be standing on the bridge looking at a roller to come from starboard, then a wave from port lifts the ship and at the bow both waves crest in mass of confusion. Despite all our careful planning to select what we hoped was a safe moment in time, we knew that every moment spent here is a moment in potential jeopardy.   Here you can feel and see the colossal forces that formed the planet. Here we know that for all the power that human beings have developed, and for all the profundity of our existence, we are only temporary inhabitants. However being within nature’s grip, no matter the danger, is exhilarating and makes one feel truly alive!

After we crossed over the Laurentian Trench and reached the Newfoundland Shelf the waves began to subside. As the sun set we could see the steep, granite cliffs of Newfoundland in the distance. After sunset we reached LaPoile Bay, a fjord with deep green water bounded by steep cliffs rising hundreds of feet above the sea surface. There aren’t any beaches or even rocks awash, no trees or plants clinging to life near the water’s edge, just walls of granite rising straight up out of the water. As we preceded a mile or so into the fjord, a small bay appeared to port. Here the mountains relented and allowed a little space on which humans could gain a purchase. This was the village of LaPoile.

Our first view was of a couple of incandescent lamps glowing in the cold fog over government dock. Here a couple of boats were tied up and on the lee side a small, black, well-worn steel ferry boat. The harbor here is very deep, so anchoring was not desirable although possible. We slowed the engine and allowed Argo to crawl toward the dock in the hopes of seeing someone. In a moment or two a muscular older man came onto the dock from the ferry’s pilot house. We yelled out for advice and he, now joined by a couple of other older men, motioned us to bring Argo back around the ferry. It was another spot requiring delicate maneuvering, but after moving Argo past a huge fender made of a bunch of shredded rubber tires with exposed steel threads and in between several fishing boats, we nestled her safely into her berth. Within a few minutes several old fellas were standing on the dock above us and looking Argo over (the tide was out and we were about 8 feet below the surface of the dock). They were all retired fisherman. They seemed to like Argo and marveled at her size and quality. One man, Captain Neal Adams, who was first on the dock to help us out, has sailed on Nordhavns and spends the winter in Stuart, Florida, and said he saw Argo on the dock there. What more evidence does one need that this is a small world?

LaPoile is perched on the slope of a mountain side near the bay. The town has no roads and the only path to the outside world is by ferry, which travels 35 miles to Port Aux Basque each day. Little clapboard houses about 1200 square feet in size dot the hillside, with concrete walks wide enough for two all-terrain vehicles to pass each other. Believe it or not, each of these vehicles has a license plate. The town is about 1/2 mile from end to end, with the walks like ribbons laced up and down the hillside. All the homes are meticulously cared for and nicely painted. Some have little gardens that have plastic elves, trolls, or geese to brighten them. The town has about 90 residents, down from several hundred a decade or so ago. Most are old. There are five children enrolled in the grade school, which covers grades 1 through 8 with one teacher. We were told by a middle-aged man we met, that when children reach the age of 15, they are permanently moved to a residential school in Port Aux Basque; after that they only see their families on holidays and during the summer. Then they go to college and leave forever. I felt sad to hear this. I thought he was going to cry when we asked him how he felt.

LaPoile is one of only a few towns remaining along the southern coast of Newfoundland. The fish are gone and there isn’t a future for the few children remaining. The population is getting old, but they can’t move because all their wealth is tied up in their homes or boats, which do not have any value.

Around noon we fired up the engines and pulled out for Grand Bruit, an abandon town about 13 miles east of LaPoile in another fjord. The town is distinctive for two reasons: it has a beautiful waterfall bisecting the town, and it is a ghost town. About twenty years ago the Canadian Government purchased all the homes and buildings in the town and resettled the residents in Burgeo, a town about 30 miles further east. After passing through the narrow opening to the fjord or bay, we tied up at the government dock in Grand Bruit. An old, seemingly lonely fisherman and his dog appeared and helped tie up Argo. He now lives in Burgeo, but he spent his life here raising his family and fishing for cod. He is allowed back to live in his old home and keep it as a cottage so long as he doesn’t make any improvements in it or maintain it in any way. In 1992 the village was purchased by the government, and each family was paid $95,000 for their property. During their lifetime, former owners are allowed to keep their former homes as cottages for a $5 registration fee per year. After tying up we got off Argo and walked around. The village had an eerie feeling. Houses were indeed closed, but some had their tables set as though waiting for their families to return. Signs of life existed, but they were from either twenty years ago, or from the “20 year homecoming reunion” that was held last year. Off on the south east side of the town near the cemetery we heard sounds of lumber being sawed. I asked the fisherman about the improvements being done, knowing that they are illegal. He told me a resident sold an ill-informed American the house before the village was abandoned. That poor family apparently bought the home for their retirement, only to find that everyone else had accepted the government’s offer and was moving out. The offer wasn’t extended to the Americans and they would be the only ones left there in a ghost town. Although it was a beautiful, sunny day, we felt uncomfortable and decided to head for Burgeo, 30 miles to the east.

Cruising east along the coast was beautiful. The sun was out and there were few clouds in the sky. The wind was only 10 knots, so the waves were pleasant and we had the chance to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of the Newfoundland coast. Newfoundland looks formidable from the sea. It rises hundreds of feet from the ocean’s surface like a giant plateau. The coast is treacherous, rock strewn and devoid of places to land in the event of an engine failure or other emergency.   It

is spectacular to see in all its magnificence; high cliffs sculpted by the sea, carpets of green mosses and lichens on top, with dwarf spruce and birch trees bent by the wind clinging to rocky crevices . Looking at the horizon one can see smooth rolling mountains covered with what looks like grass, but is really a sort of bog of moss and lichens and full of biting flies and mosquitos. It is not a place for human beings. It is a place for caribou, moose, mink, badger, black bears and other wild creatures-we didn’t see any of these except a small mink running along a dock.

After about four hours of cruising we arrived at Burgeo. This is a main town along the coast with 1,500 residents. It was a lot like LaPoile, but with roads. It is connected to the trans-Canada highway two hours north of here.   The southern coast of Newfoundland is about 275 long as the crow flies. The population of this area is probably no more than five or six thousand people. We were warned not to drive at night (of course there are no cars to rent, so no problem) as hitting a moose is a major hazard. Trucks have “cow catchers” on their front like locomotives do to avoid serious damage to them when hitting moose at night.

Coming into Burgeo was quit lovely. There are four or five miles of beautiful sand beaches along the sheltered coast. Apparently the water is warm enough for Newfoundlanders to swim.   As we passed the little town we found a bay that was recommended to us, Long Bay. This was a beautiful spot with forest and granite features all around. At the head of the bay was purple granite mountains know as Richard’s Head. It took me a few tries to understand a “Newfy” who was trying to tell me the name of the mountain. Newfies do not pronounce “H’s”, so Richard’s Head becomes “Riserd’s ead.   Once we got the hang of it, we could understand them. To get into the bay required passing through a very narrow and unmarked channel, but by using our fancy forward sonar we picked our way through the rocks and anchored for the night. I lit up the grill and Rebecca put on the Digby scallops. It was a wonderful day in paradise.

The next day it was windy and we decided to move to the town dock so that we could get off and walk about. After the tide rose in late afternoon we moved and tied up on government dock. We walked around the town, which was spread out over a peninsula. After returning to the dock we realized that we were the big attraction in Burgeo. Dozens of cars and trucks rolled by looking us over; many people stopped to ask questions and talk with us. One couple generously offered to take us on a car tour. We accepted and saw the whole town: fire department, hospital (2 doctors), school, closed fish processing plant (except for offal), and the harbor. One thing particularly interesting here and in other places was that just outside the town is a little RV camp. Many of the town’s people camp out here on weekends or even for weeks at a time during the summer to get away from it all. I can certainly understand that, but the camp is only 3 miles from town! For dinner that night I enjoyed a Deluxe Moose burger and fries.

One of the more surprising things we saw in this town was big, shiny, expensive pickup trucks with chrome wheels. These are owned by men who have found jobs in the oil fields in the western provinces.   Newfoundland’s offshore fields are under development, but since they only have two platforms, the employment opportunities are out west.

The next three nights were spent at the beautiful fjords of White Bear Bay and Hare Bay which have no towns, and Grey River that has a little village. All of them were a little different and spectacular. At the risk of repeating myself, these bays are seven or eight miles deep, with shear granite cliffs rising hundreds if not a thousand feet or more straight up to the heavens. Many of the cliffs are faces of different mountains, so endlessly fascinating gigantic sculptures regaled the eye and imagination. At the end of the fjord are quiet grassy deltas formed by a river falling from the mountain pastures that pours into the bay. This is where we anchored. Here there is no noise, no sounds save for the shrill cry of a loon warning of a bald eagle looking for supper.   We saw little wild life, no fish rising at dusk, no seals or other marine life. It is a vast, seemingly empty wilderness.  

On two occasions we put our tender in the water and toured about. Surprisingly there are a few cottages built by locals for a getaway haven. We saw only three or four people during this entire passage. At Grey River Bay we came upon someone standing on their porch miles from anywhere. Here we met Ronald and Mary Ann Young. We steered over to say hello and they invited us to have tea with them. They were middle aged and they lived most of the time at the head of the bay in Grey River, a village of about 90 people like LaPoile. They had a little pine, clap board cabin of about 500 square feet. They come here to camp out during the summer. They told us that they had grown up together as children in Grey River, dreamed, and were later married. They have no children, only a cat. They admitted to not having any job skills, but make a living doing odd jobs, traveling to Nova Scotia or Ontario to pick fruit in season or care for the elderly in Grey River. Ron has macular degeneration.

Mary Ann heated the kettle on the hot plate on top of the microwave and when it was ready she proudly served us the cookies she had made: Rice Crispy-marsh mellow -Nutella delights. Delicious! They have worked very hard under adverse conditions to carve out their life. They felt very fortunate to have their cabin and its spectacular view.

One of the interesting factoids about these bay/fjords is the names given by Newfies to different places. Blow Me Down is commonly used to name a spot where the winds sweep over the mountains and down the cliffs at staggering speed. These are places we need to be very careful of when anchoring! There are also more humorous and ribald names, as well as practical names such as Halibut Island, or Fish Point.

Our next stop was the village of MacCallum. Like LaPoile it has no roads and can only be reached by ferry, which arrives at 1530 every after afternoon. It, too, is perched precariously on a slender slope overlooking a bay with small homes linked together by wooden boardwalks. Here live about 130 people. The town is dying because of the lack of fish, and what fish they catch bring prices too low to survive. One fisherman who moved back to MacCallum to quality for a potential government buyout of residents (at $250,000 per family subject to a

majority vote), told me that his cod quota was 10,000 lbs., but the fish broker would only give him 50 cents a lb. for his catch. He was told that people are not eating cod any more. There isn’t any demand. As we talked he told me that the feeder fish that are the principal food of the Atlantic salmon and the cod are gone; fished out. That is why there aren’t any fish up here anymore and they won’t come back because there is nothing for them to eat. They live on capelin and so do the Japanese among others. Japanese fish brokers are on every dock all over Canadian Maritimes with pockets full of money buying everything that swims and then flying their purchases back to Tokyo. After MacCallum we headed to Isle Saint Pierre, the last remaining possession of France in North America.

Isle Saint Pierre: Our passage to Isle Saint Pierre was a calculated risk. We knew that it could have been difficult as winds were expected to be in the 25 knot range and seas in the 2 meter range, but we got a lot more than we expected. The passage was 55 miles (8 hours) and for the first three hours we would be in open water subject to the full fetch of the sea, after that we would be sheltered by the Miquelon Islands.  After about two hours the winds and waves started to build. Things were very uncomfortable with 8 to 10 footers hitting on our starboard bow. Argo was tossed up and then fell own into the trough of the waves.   Green sea water flew over her. For four hours the wind howled at over 30 knots. Then we approached The Grande Miquelon Island and the shelter it provided.   Wave heights began to subside as we edged closer to the island. The winds blew harder and the sea was in a tumult. Winds blew over 40 knots for an hour and reached a peak of 58.2 knots. We had planned on the shelter the islands could provide, but not the ferocity of the wind. In due course we made the harbor and tied up at the town dock.   It was fun (because we knew the time limit we had to endure), but a little bumpy! There is a lot of satisfaction in completing a challenging voyage.

Isle Saint Pierre is the last remaining French possession on North America, and it is French. Of course the people speak French, but everyone we talked with was happy in English. They sell all the French luxuries like perfume, wine, cheese and pastries. It was a welcomed culture shock after several months living in relative austerity. As we entered the harbor our friends Gus and Lyle Gialamas where standing in their hotel room looking out the window. They rushed down to the dock just as we arrived. I first met Gus on the dock in Dana Point when I was outfitting Odyssey. His boat was also named Odyssey. We have become very good friends. Gus and Lyle are the epitome of generosity. Gus is an orthopedic surgeon and Lyle is a nurse practitioner. Among other things Gus organized Project Rainbow, which for the last twenty years has brought teams of surgeons to remote and impoverished areas like Haiti to provide orthopedic care to the people. Today’s trip to Saint Pierre from Southern California was Lyle’s birthday gift to Gus. They love boats and are thinking about buying a Nordhavn, so this was a good chance for them to get acquainted with one. They planned to spend a week with us, so our itinerary, which is always weather dependent, was to stay in Saint Pierre for a day or two, then cross the Cabot Strait to Louisbourg for an overnight, then a night at anchor before tying up in Halifax. The total trip is about 370 miles.

Saint Pierre is a lovely spot. There about 6,000 people living there, and the town is spread across a sand and rock plain that rises several hundred feet to the top of two little mountains. We took a tour of the island, and found it most interesting. The town is large by the standards of Maritime Canada, and the buildings are reminiscent of France and the Basque region whose people settled the Miquelon Islands. It is a very colorful town, with all the buildings painted brightly in pastel colors. Across the bay is an historic village, rebuilt as it was in the time of Jacques Cartier, the Frenchman who claimed the Miquelon Islands for the French in 1536. Today residents make a living in tourism, agriculture and fishing, however agriculture is small in scale and the fishing industry is moribund. Cruise ships do stop by in the fall for a few hours on their trek around the Maritimes. We met several charming and very friendly people that we invited over for a cocktail on Argo. We enjoyed a lovely time with them and wished we had more time to spend here.  

Nova Scotia: Saint Pierre was the first stop on our way south. Next was Louisbourg of which I talked about in last month’s installment. This was an overnight passage across a dangerous body of water. The weather forecast was for favorable conditions until the approximate time of our arrival in Louisbourg. We stayed two nights in Louisbourg waiting for the predicted storm to pass. Gus and Lyle toured the 18^th century French fort there, but we needed to move down the coast so that Gus and Lyle could be in Halifax to catch their plane on Saturday morning. We left on the third morning and enjoyed a pleasant overnight passage south to Shelter Cove.

Late in the afternoon the next day we anchored in a little spot called Shelter Cove. That evening we enjoyed a lovely grilled steak dinner with nice French wine from Saint Pierre.   Yet another front moved in that night and blew loud, hard, and cold. The next morning it was raining and still very windy, but the wind blew from the east. We knew it would be ugly, but we decided that since it was only a 50 mile run (7 hours) to Halifax, it was worth the potential discomfort of a bumpy ride. We decided to take Antivert or Zofran and sweat it out; we got underway at 0900.   As it turned out the wind was around 30 knots on our stern and the waves, although they were big boys at 8 or 9 feet, pushed us along as smooth as silk. The wave moment was such that when one roller moved under the stern the other rolled off the bow in sync so as to leave us in a nearly flat state. It was great and we were making 8 to 10 knots at 1325 RPMS.   In this boat and those seas, that was a miracle or at least a phenomenon of the natural world! Our 7 hour cruise turned out to be about 6 hours and we moored in Halifax next to the museum warship Sackville at 1500!

I have described Halifax to you in a previous log, and as nothing has changed I shall not repeat myself other than to say I paid a visit to the little French Bakery to show Gus and Lyle the Caneles that I mentioned before. Some things never change, thank God! They were delicious.

At this moment we are in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. We have been here five days waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Maine, another piece of water that could be very uncomfortable. Tonight looks like the night that we will cast off and head back to the U. S. We are hoping to make New Bedford on August 7 and in time to see the Michigan/Notre Dame game on TV.

Thanks for checking in on us. I will post pictures of our travels as soon as I can get some bandwidth.

Wishing you and yours all the best.

Randy and Rebecca

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    
                                                       August 23, 2013
Cape Breton Island: We left Halifax after a lovely 12 day visit bound for St. Peters, a tiny v…

M/V ARGO CAPTAIN’S LOG    

                                                       August 23, 2013

Cape Breton Island: We left Halifax after a lovely 12 day visit bound for St. Peters, a tiny village 175 miles north of Halifax. Our trip north was very pleasant with 4 ft. ocean rollers on our starboard quarter, sunny, and lovely. Our trip took twenty hours, but when morning came we found ourselves in thick fog. We followed the buoys toward the lock that would raise us 5 feet or so into the Bras d’Or Lake (pronounced bra door). We could see about twenty feet or so, just enough to see a sailboat headed right for our port side. I swerved, he swerved and we prevented a “T” bone, but it was close.  

Nova Scotia is made up of a peninsula (the Bluenose Peninsula) that is attached to New Brunswick, and an island to the north, Cape Breton Island. The island has within it a very large lake that experiences tides, but to a lesser degree than the surrounding ocean. The lakeshore is sparsely populated, with a few villages dotting the shoreline every so often. The land here looks very much like Scotland, with moors, highlands, and lochs. The once hard edges of the mountains have been worn to gentle curves by bygone glaciers, and lochs are filled with water partially blocked from the ocean. After passing through the St. Peters lock at the southeastern end of the island, we came to the village of St. Peters and, to our surprise, our old boat Odyssey. We had a wonderful time with Don and Nancy who now own her, and enjoyed a world class vegan blueberry pancake breakfast a ’la Rebecca!

The Great Bra d’Or Lake is very irregular in shape, with a large central body about 15 miles across, with many fingers, coves, and small fjords jutting out to form parallel bodies of water. On the northwest side, off on a little finger lies Baddeck, a town made famous by Alexander Graham Bell. Mr. Bell and his wife Mabel summered here for most of their adult life. Baddeck has a Bell Museum devoted almost entirely to his life after inventing the phone; as a matter of fact it is devoid of anything about the telephone. Mr. Bell experimented with all sorts of things including airplanes, various types of kites built of honeycombed fabric cells, and a hydrofoil that could apparently travel over water at very high speed. Aside from pursuing his post-telephone inventions, Mr. and Mrs. Bell were also known by the locals to be occasional nudists.

We arrived in Baddeck on a sunny afternoon and anchored in Indian Cove a few miles south of the town. Here we met up with our cruising friends on other Nordhavns, Milt and Judy Baker on Bluewater, Atlee Moe and Kristina Tyrre on SummerStar, and Bradley Rosenberg and Kathy Clark on ShearMadness. On our second night in town, we all got together for a dinner party on ShearMadness.

The next day Heidi Salter and Don Ferris, our friends from Ann Arbor, came for a visit. They rented a car in Halifax and drove to Baddeck, six hours away. After one day to reconnoiter the town and its limited shopping possibilities, we all piled in the car for a day of driving the Cabot Trail. The Cabot Trail is a World Heritage site, and circumnavigates the Cape Bretton Peninsula. It is a spectacular drive, first through beautiful mountainous spruce forests, the famous Margaree River Valley, home to some of the best salmon and trout fishing in the world, the highland area with fantastic sea and cliff vistas, then the French speaking area of Chiticamp with their famous hooked rugs, prominent St. Peters Catholic Church, and wonderful French Bakery. Then we drove to the tip of the peninsula with its spectacular view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then down the more restrained eastern side of the peninsula past Dingwall (a tiny little place with a beautiful narrow harbor) and Ingonish with a very big bay and world renowned resort and golf course. Finally we passed the Celtic College at St. Andrews and reached Baddeck. It was a wonderful day.

One day we drove to Louisbourg, a reconstructed 18 century French fort. The fort was left in ruins by the British when they defeated the French in 1766. In 1975 the Canadians funded an archeological study of the site and unearthed the foundations of a large number of buildings. Overtime they later searched for and found the original architectural plans in Paris, and then reconstructed the fortress as it existed three centuries ago. Students are hired during the tourist season to acts as inhabitants and dressed in period garb and perform street reenactments of period society. They have a period restaurant and the food is quite good.  

In its heyday Louisbourg was inhabited by over 3,000 people and a major seaport. Like the British, the French merchant sailing fleeting left Europe bound for its colonies in Africa in the late Winter, there to trade goods for slaves (which were presold to brokers in the western hemisphere). Off the African coast they would catch the trade winds near the Cape Verde Islands and cross the Atlantic. After offloading the slaves, the ships would be cleaned and refilled with goods from French Guyana, the Caribbean or American ports and they would catch the Gulf Stream and the South-easterlies and head north before the Hurricane season, there to trade with their Canadian colonies for cod. Codfish have low oil content and can be dried, salted, and stored in barrels and then reconstituted with water when desired. Over a period of 500 years, hundreds of millions of tons of cod were taken from the North Atlantic and sold all over Europe as a protein staple. The ships returned to Europe using the Gulf Stream and the North-westerly winds that blew later in the year. We were told by the tour guide that codfish weighing 400 lbs. were common, and that the fish drying tables covered hundreds of acres around Louisbourg. In its heyday the now empty harbor was crowded of ships.

During one of our evenings in Baddeck we attended the Ceilidh (pronounced gaily), or “visit” in Gallic. This area of Nova Scotia was inhabited by Scots and Irish and the current generation is trying very hard to maintain the culture, which includes Highland Scots fiddle music and step dancing. There is a local Gallic college, which includes instruction in the Gallic language as well as step dancing, fiddle, and folk music. Of course there is a “Highland Scots” whiskey distillery not far from here too.

With Heidi and Don’s departure we set off for Newfoundland, however we didn’t make it very far before a key piece of equipment failed. We returned to Baddeck and awaited our fate. As luck would have it, there was a technician just 50 miles north of Baddeck in the town of North Sydney. After almost two weeks of horsing around and sending our whole 48 lb. unit back to Seattle for repair (four trips through customs) we got it back in good working order, but we were $800 lighter due to the fine print in the warranty (such as Furuno doesn’t pay for shipping to their facility or the travel time of technicians).

In the meantime we had several really interesting and lovely experiences. Our Nordhavn friends on SummerStar and ShearMadness were still in Baddeck, so we had several nice dinners with them. We also met a most fascinating couple, Rob and Tish Hempstead. Rob (age 87) holds an Unlimited Masters License (any ship of any size on any ocean or sea) and still captains vessels on a consulting basis. Tish holds a First Mates License, and the two of them work together as a team (along with their cat Tubby, whom Rob characterizes as a typical American). Rob has over two million sea miles, and knows more about commanding a vessel than anyone I have ever met or could imagine meeting.   I sat for hours asking him questions, learning, and evaluating my own knowledge and ARGO’s equipment and sea worthiness. Rob and Tish came over for a tour of ARGO, and we toured their boat, Kittywake (a small sea bird).   Kittywake is a steel hulled small ship similar in many important ways to ARGO. Rob designed her, and she looks like a ship that he might have commanded during his long career, which among other things included a tour aboard the USS Missouri during WWII.  

When it looked like our NavNet3D might be coming back from the hospital, we decided to move north to the town of Sydney using our backup system so that we could get a one day start on our trip to Newfoundland (people up here pronounce it Newfoundland). We docked at the Dobson Yacht Club across the bay from the town center. We spent four days at their new dock, and met some of the friendliest and kindest people that we have had the pleasure of meeting. Lenny Burke lent us his car or drove us around personally so that we could see the area and refresh our food stores. He told us a lot about the area, and about his experience in the Canadian Navy. He too served aboard the USS Missouri during the Gulf War on a ship’s personnel exchange. As it turns out the Canadian sailors are allowed to drink alcohol aboard ship when off duty. They even have beer machines on their ships, so U.S. Navy sailors are keen to participate in crew exchanges when they become available. Lenny was a cook, so a USS Missouri cook was glad to do a week on his submarine.

Sydney typifies what has happened to the people in this part of Canada. For 500 years people made a good living by fishing for cod. Many other types of fish were also taken off the Georges Bank, the Flemish Cap and the waters off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Cod was caught with a jig: a hook (now a treble hook) tied to a weight and lowered to about 2 feet above the bottom. The fisherman moves the hook up and down (jigging) for a few minutes until a fish is caught. Cod will bight a hook without any bait on it. Who could ask for more? The perfect fish!

Things worked well for 500 years. Then the Scots invented the factory ship in 1952: these ships used nets to swallow anything in their path. They kept what they wanted, processed it into frozen fish filets, and dumped everything else overboard. Once the Scots starting using these ships, it wasn’t long before the Russians, Norwegians, Japanese and everyone else got in the game.   Each year the amount of the catch increased as more ships came on line; in 1972 the peak catch of 810,000 tons of fish was taken.   At this point people became concerned that this fabulous resource was going to be depleted, so the Canadian Government via the United Nations stepped in and asserted a 200 mile Economic Interest Zone. At that point all foreign ships left the Georges Bank. However, what should have been good news for the cod, turned perversely in the other direction. The Canadian Government studied the situation and decided to replace all the foreign fishing ships with Canadian ships, and allowed an 800,000 ton limit. Shipyards in Nova Scotia were humming and fishermen were happy. (That should have been a clue: When is a fisherman ever happy?)   After a few years the fish catch began to decline; first to 500,000 tons, then 110,000 tons, then not enough fish to warrant the expense of fishing. Then the Canadian Government acted and closed the fishery. For 500 years the Georges Bank fed the world. Today there is virtually no fishing industry here. Man in all his greed and stupidity has fished out the North Atlantic!

To further illustrate the point, I asked a 40 year old business man I met about the fishing industry in the area and whether or not the fish will come back. He said that no one thinks the fish will rebound. He told me that he grew up in LaPoile, NFLD, and suggested that we visit there as it is one of a few traditional villages on the south coast left where there are no cars and those that remain fish by hand as in the old days.   He told me that as a high school kid he and his friends would fish professionally for cod. He told me he made $92,000 one summer, and the man standing next to him said he made over $80,000. Is it any wonder that the fish have been devastated?

If that isn’t enough to make you sick, on top of that is the collapse of the steel and mining industries. A large steel mill employed hundreds of people in these parts for over a hundred years. The coal used to make the steel came from local mines, and they also employed hundreds of people. The mines are closed, the steel mill has been shut down and the buildings demolished. Only two things remain: a nicely painted foundry kettle on a short rail road siding with a plaque commemorating the site, and a polluted bay full of lobsters that no one will eat. Although the area was famous for its deep mined coal, one person told me that he was a seaman on the CSL line, and that his ship sails regularly to Detroit to pick up and bring coal to the Sydney power plant. So, there isn’t much economic activity here. The area is populated by older people here who either do not work, or work out west and return once a month to be with their family. There are very few young people here. They have all moved on.

Many of the people that we talked with told us that their kids went to college and after they graduated couldn’t find a job. They left, most for Alberta or Saskatchewan to work in the oil fields. They make good money ($90 – $100 K per year). Those with higher skills and a family in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland commute: for example, they work 12 hour days for one month followed by two weeks off and a paid ticket to and from their home. At work they live in camps that provide room, board and laundry.   Some people that we talked with do service work in the camps (room cleaning and manual labor) and leave here after Christmas and work the winter in the camps. They do not get tickets back and forth.  

We left for Newfoundland on August 16, cruised the southern coast and visited the tiny and last French possession in North America, Saint Pierre in Miquelon Island. We crossed the Cabot Strait and are now moored in Louisbourg. Tomorrow, weather permitting; we will head south toward Halifax.

We have wonderful pictures that we would like to share with you, but no bandwidth to post them. We will bring our pictures up to date as soon as we can.

Thanks for checking in on us. I will post another log about Newfoundland as soon as I can.

Wishing you and your all the best.

Randy and Rebecca