Mile 1136-1238: Summerside, Charlottetown & Brudenell P.E.I.

---

Summerside, Charlottetown & Brudenell P.E.I. Current Locations: Summerside, Charlottetown & Rodd Brudenell River Resort   Date: July 5-13 Mile:  1136, 1182 & 1238 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Album

---

This is a combined post for three stops which covers our time on and around PEI. Internet has been poor and it's been hard to get connected.

Note:  AIS tracking has been and continues to be poor from Gaspe to here.  Coverage by marinetraffic.com is poor.

---

Summerside

Today we set out for the 4th province on our maritimes exploration. Summerside PEI is east north east from Shediac and free of any complications for crossing the Northumberland Strait. Although we put up our sails, it was motor sailing all the way. The water was flat calm, with only the slightest wisp of wind.

Keychain delivery service

Porpoises are common

The only real excitement today came in the form of another visit from the MSET team. Again, seemingly out of no-where, a big black zodiac appeared and was clearly powering toward us. The last time we saw these guys (same boat, different crew) was in the St. Lawrence after leaving the Saguenay. Again, they were very friendly. This time a little less formal with much fewer questions. After a short chit-chat they handed us a complimentary floating key-chain with their phone number on it and were asked to report anything suspicious that we might see. We haven't seen too much other than sealife and fishing boats, and none of it was particularly suspicious!

Bob trying to convince them he's
not a threat to national security

Once they were done with us, they peeled away at speed to pay a visit to Finnish Line, and deliver another keychain! Like most of the trip down from Gaspe, we have seen virtually no other boats and AIS shows we're equally lonely.

The entrance to Summerside was straight forward. Indian Spit is the only obstacle but it is terminated by a pretty, wooden lighthouse. It is not hard to miss. The entrance to the Summerside Yacht Club basin was tucked deep toward shore next to the large commercial wharf. Once inside the nicely protected basin, we were directed to our slip by the most helpful dock steward.


 I don't quite know the details of the arrangement, but the shoreside building here is the "Silver Fox Curling Club & Marina" which includes a public restaurant. The Yacht Club appears to have access to some of these facilities. There are showers, washrooms, and laundry that appear carved out for
Yacht Club use but not too much else.

which one looks more
weather beaten?

The yacht club was right downtown and within walking distance from Spinnakers Landing, a shore side collection of little shops, the train station turned brewery, farmers market, and Holmans who serve the best ice cream we have had (perhaps the best any of us have ever had).

First night, we went our for dinner at "Uncle Mike's". It was a short walk into town. The highlight (low light maybe) of the evening were a pair of local singers "Holly & MacClure" (I can't help think of "Troy MacClure"). These two played along with a pre-recorded music of all sorts of hits and oldies. Holly is a very respectable singer, but Mr. MacClure was an abomination. I hate to be a critic, but he just plain couldn't sing. I've totally forgotten what we ate for dinner, it was fine, but the lasting memory was "MacClure", tone deaf and massacring every song he tried.

Spinnakers Landing

A highlight of our visit to Summerside was a visit from my Picton/sailing friend, Tom Sutton. He and his wife have a place over near Bedeque, just 20 minutes from Summerside. Tom took us to the old train station, which has been transformed into a microbrewery and restaurant (Evermoore Brewing Company). I had a great time catching up on what Tom was up to and the food and beer were excellent.



In our exploration of the town, we found ourselves at Hollman's Icecream (twice!). As noted, the icecream was excellent. What made it even better was that it was located in the old Holman's Homestead. The property had gardens, a fire-pit with adirondack chairs, and a wonderfully restored building that include rooms/suites that could be rented.

On one of our outings we ended up at the "Fox museum" in the old Armory building. Inside an earnest young summer student told us all about the silver fox industry on PEI (hence the name of the curling club/marina). Silver foxes occur about 1 in a 1000 naturally, and at the turn of the century were highly prized. A few people mastered the breeding such that they could produce quantities of these pelts. At peak value, a single pelt could buy you a car and still have money left over.

Tarja (Bob's wife) joined us by car in Summerside. She will be joining us by car in the next few PEI destinations, and then again when we get to Nova Scotia and the Bras d'Or Lakes.

Acadian Museum

Thanks to Tarja having arrived by car, we were able to do some exploring of the island. One venture took us to the Acadian Museum located about 30 minutes away in Miscouche. Not a large museum, but very informative about the history and struggles of the Acadian people that still occupy Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI (as well as places further abroad).

---

Charlottetown

Never seems tall enough

Our next destination was Charlottetown, 46 miles further south-east from Summerside. We had a pleasant sail for much of the day. The wind was from behind, faded, and then built again as we headed into the harbour mouth. The town and the yacht club are located on the eastern-most of three rivers that form the entrance to the town.

Charlottetown YC is not enclosed by a stone breakwall as have most of the harbour we've been at, but their dock system includes floating concrete outer docks that function as attenuators for waves. The river is only about half a mile wide at this point so there is not too much opportunity for chop to build up. The club is nice and has a familiar feel to KYC. Lots of boats, evening racing (interestingly ... started and finished from the outer dock right where we were moored), active junior sailing program, and lots of members hanging around and enjoying the property. Also handy for us, the club is just minutes from downtown.

We've been noticing jellyfish since we were in Bouchtouche, and there are more of the strange creatures here that anywhere we've seen. Everywhere you look into the water there are 10-20 of these things, from very small to the size of a dinner plate. Some with short tentacles and some have tentacles a couple of feet long. I wonder how to clean one of these out of the strainer?



Dinner tonight was at "Lobster on the Wharf". We enjoyed a nice meal with the most entertaining waiter. Andrew had a full lobster dinner complete with tools and bib!

The following day we found a place to rent a car so we could tour this end of the island. This was a chance for all of us to explore what we could in a day's drive around the east and north of the island.


We visited "singing sand" beach located at Basin Head Provincial Park. Singing sand is a phenomenon where if the sand has a sufficiently high silica content and you scuff your feet on it, it makes a unique sort-of squeaking sound. My best description would be the sound your snowsuit, in grade school, makes when you legs rub together.






The beach and park were very nice. The location was an old fishing harbour with a maintained/restored cannery building where I suppose they canned freshly caught lobster. The park building included a very nice fishing museum.

Andrew taking in the view

East Point light

Next we headed to the East Point Lighthouse where we were able to climb a well preserved wooden octagonal lighthouse. The fog horn building, having been move from the eroding shoreline, was now a visitors center. While exploring the grounds, and looking off to the east, we notice 3-4 harbour seals just hanging out off the point, watching us watch them. They are curious but cautious.

Robinson's Island

In the rest of our exploration we took a walk at Robinson's Island trail (part of the National Park), found some excellent fish and chips at "Rick's", explored some other fishing harbours, and lighthouses, and found the place where Dirt Shirt's were made. 





Pretty simple process: place shirts in washing machine with red dirt, and press "go". Out comes red "Dirt Shirts".

"Green Gables"

One of the last attractions that we ended up at was the "Anne of Green Gables" house that inspired L.M. Montgomery to write her famous book. The house now has a brand new giant entrance pavilion. This is one of the most popular places on the island and due to the influx of cruise ship traffic (more on that below), this place gets overrun with visitors. Aside from the out of place looking pavilion, the rest of the grounds are picture perfect, and the house looks just like you would imagine. We arrived as they were closing, but we were allowed to wander the grounds anyway.

"Red sand between my toes ..."

Last stop, dinner at the "Dunes". This was a combination gallery, gardens and cafe. The setting was quite unique with very interesting art and craft work on display and for sale. Perhaps some of the slowest service we've had (but there is a competition for this title!), but the food was good and the location was unique.






On our second morning we were woken up my a somewhat mysterious sound coming from outside the boats. At first it sounded like a large motor boat was pulling up the dock and futzing about. But something sounded different. The continuous rumbling was interspersed with LOUD rumblings.

This was something different. Upon sticking our heads out of our respective cabins, we were confronted with a cruise ship dropping anchor a couple of hundred feet from the club docks! It had driven in forward and then using it's thrusters, done a 180 to face back out of the harbour, followed by the slow, and noisy dropping of their bow anchor.

Meanwhile, 4 of it's tenders had already been dropped into the water and were circling like vultures to wait for the anchor to be set, and ferry the first passengers to take them to shore. This was all happening so close to us that there was a continuous din of noise resonating up from the hull. The thrusters particularly sounded like they were coming from inside our boat--the noise was much louder in our cabin than when we stood on our deck. The cruise-ship's generators, or other systems, made such a noise, that being down below in out boats would drive you to distraction.

Cows Ice Cream!

Later in the day, a second ship arrived in the harbour and pulled up the the cruise ship wharf just a little further into the harbour. While all of this was happening, work from a few very large barges was underway in order to expand the harbour and ship wharfs to handle even more cruise ships!




During our final day in town we spent some time puttering around the town to see the sights. Confederation Hall was closed for renovation work (this is the birthplace of confederation) but we saw a small portion of the exhibit in the nearby arts centre. Would took a very short guided tour of city hall (turns out not to be much to see), looked around in the very impressive church, and took in other sights.



During our exploration, Andrew located some locally produced hot sauces.   Ghost peppers and Louisianan Reaper peppers .... SUPER hot!

Racing just off the club docks

Our last night at C.Y.C was a club race night. We wondered how they would run their race as the "Zaandam" was parked right across their starting line. Turns out the ship detached their stern line, pulled anchor and loaded all their tenders quite quickly and cleared the way for their 6:30pm race start time. Tonight was flying sail night (two nights ago was white sail night). We took this opportunity to have dinner at club in their upstairs restaurant. We enjoyed a great meal and were able to watch the evening racing.

floating shops in Charlottetown

Tomorrow we continue to head south east to our last stop on PEI.

---

Brudenell

We left for our last destination at 8am, but not before saying goodbye to Andrew as Tarja drove him to the Charlottetown airport.

No lack of iconic lighthouse pics

It was a long day getting around the south east top of PEI before turning most east to get to where we were going. We motored to start, but then found favourable wind so we managed to get in a good sail as well. We were faced with annoying swells as we rounded Cape Bear to head north toward Brudenell.

Robb Brudenell Resort

Our initial plan was to head to Montegue, but after some phone calls to reserve a slip we were told that everything was full due to "Montegue Summer Days", a local cultural festival. so we went to the next river over and found a slip at Brudenell's Resort.

Oyster beds

About 7 miles down the river, past Georgetown, past many large oyster beds, past a number of sandbars, and then the resort revealed itself after rounding a small island. Not a big marina, but one long spine running from the shore of the resort with fingers on both sides.




This is a golf resort and conference centre with many other amenities. There are two buildings containing rooms for resort/conference guests, as well as a small spa where Linda treated herself to a pedicure. Also part of the complex were executive style cabins, a riding stable, summer camp/day care and a beach, in addition to the 36 hole golf course! We have access to showers, washrooms and pool. There is a "19th Hole" bar/restaurant. We had a decent meal there one night.

Model-T's galore!

The resort was hosting a Model T car show called the "Red Dirt Tour". Reportedly there were somewhere near 200 Model T Fords and other vintage vehicles participating. Most are trailered here, but they will be driving around PEI with various scheduled stops around the island.





As part of the car show, they put on an excellent fireworks show. A number of times, it felt like it was over only to continue. The fireworks lasted at least 20 minutes and had some quite elaborate displays!

A very nice end to our exploration of PEI by land and water.   Tomorrow we head across the strait to Ballatyne's Cover for our first stop in Nova Scotia!