Mile 1520-1666: Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia

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Tor Bay to Halifax Current Location: Armdale Yacht Club Date: July 26 to August 1 Mile:  1520 - 1651 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Tor Bay Hartlings Island Shelter Cove Jeddor Harbour

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From our departure form the Bras d'Ore Lakes until we get to Halifax will require almost 200 nm of sailing with much of it along coastline that is rugged and has relatively few harbours for recreational boats.  In fact, we planned to anchor our each night until we reached Halifax.  Our final departure point from Nova Scotia will be Yarmouth or perhaps Clarks Harbour, and that will be almost 400 nm of sailing.

Large boulder inside Tor Bay

The conditions leaving St. Peter's were calm and favourable, but as we progressed through our 50 nm leg, the conditions became a little windier and the swells competed with the wind waves to create some very uncomfortable motion.   Once and a while we were punching our bow through waves.   Our first stop on this stretch would be Tor Bay.  A large bay well protected from the prevailing SW winds.

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Tor Bay

Berry Head light and breaking swells

As we approached Tor Bay we began to get a reprieve from the swells as we gained protection from Berry Head.   We arrived a little while after Bob and he had already pulled right up to the south shore of the bay, just inside the point, and dropped anchor. We proceeded to pull up beside and raft. 

Nasty shoal!

The anchorage was flat calm, but you could still hear the breaking swells from the point and the other side of the head.  The ocean rarely sleeps even when the winds die.

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Hartlings Island

Our next stopover on the eastern shore was another 50 nm away.  We have been scouring the charts and the ActiveCaptian resources along this shore to locate anchorages.   While there may be 1000's of places to hide out and drop an anchor but seeing a location marked with an anchorage or having a review confirming good holding gives you peace of mind.   The shores here are rocky, and unforgiving. 

Hard to see but ...
Tuna fin in lower right of picture

We were able to knock two more types of sea-life from our list this day.   At one point we passed a gently flopping dorsal fin at the surface very close to the boat.  It had the distinct ridged pattern that looked more like a tuna fin than anything else we could determine.  It remained at the surface and continued on behind us such that I gave Bob a call on the radio to give him a heads up.    After talking to him later, he said he hadn't actually seen it, but did feel a lurch or something on the boat that made him feel as if he might have hit it.

Later in the afternoon at two different times we saw sea turtles go past the boat.   They surface for just long enough for you to go and get your camera, but not long enough to get an actual picture of them.

Our destination was an anchorage tucked in behind Hartlings Island near Ecum Secum (competing for best place name we've found).

The anchorage was as described.   We were well protected from any ocean swell, and had limited fetch on all sides.   There was some tin boat traffic from local fishermen, and an abandoned cottage on the island, but otherwise it was just a seal or two to keep us company as well as a curious seagull that swam around just a few feet from the boats for quite a while perhaps hoping for a food scrap which we didn't provide.

In the morning, we awoke to varying thicknesses of fog, and as times we could barely see any of the land masses that surrounded us.  The fog often comes and goes, thins and thickens, sometimes you can see blue sky if you look up.   We decided to hold tight at this anchorage for another day to see if the fog would clear up for a morning departure the following day.

Morning fog behind Hartlings Island

By the time we awoke the next morning, we were still fog bound.  We decided to delay our departure a little to see if it was going to clear up a little.   Environment Canada does include references to fog on their marine forecasts but, as is their marine forecast in general, it's very terse and not always enlightening.

Eventually, while still hazy, we could see a comfortable mile or so in all directions, so we made the call to lift anchor and get ourselves underway.

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Shelter Cover


Today provided a taste of what was to come along our journey along the south side of Nova Scotia. No sooner that had we gone a few miles, the fog filled back in and filled in thick.   It varied little all day except when, at times, you could see 200' ahead, but most of the time barely more than 100'.


Our destination for the night was an appropriately named place called Shelter Cove. Our route would take us through a minefield of shoals, rocks and tiny islands.

Landforms only barely visible

The approach I use to navigate through this stuff is approximately as follows.  The Navionics app (we all have this installed on our devices) provides an "auto-routing" feature that generally does a pretty good job at finding a reasonable path between two points.  It has a preference to buoyed channels, but it is also happy to wind you though other more obsecure routes as long as there is deep enough water.  After examination of the Navionics route, I manually enter my approximation of this into my Garmin chartplotter.  I can then adjust waypoints for preference or for better clearance around obstructions.

Most of the time we couldn't
see Finnish Line at all

Actually following the route is a combination of letting the auto pilot follow the track,  reverting to auto-pilot override, and occasionally manual steering.   There is no question, letting the auto-pilot steer in this kind of fog does a way better job that a human.   It usually keeps you withing 5' of the "pink line" and makes pretty snappy turns to each new waypoint.   There are no reference points in this kind of fog.  Steering by compass would result in small deviations in course as you wander and correct. 

All of this requires double checking routes and waypoints, and cross referencing the chart plotter charts with the Navionics charts to be sure they are in reasonable agreement.   You still need to do your homework and double check everything, at every zoom level!!! (remember Vestus)

Today there would be no sailing.  There wasn't much wind, but

Typical navigation between
shoals and islands

our course meant that sails would have been a additional distraction and would further reduce the chance of seeing another vessel cross our path or a rock or island we hadn't anticipated.  We had eyes peeled for boats (fishing boats typically don't have AIS) and ears listening for buoys, waves breaking on rock and other warning signs.

Finnish Line to windward

One thing we are very aware of is that marks are often not where they are charted.  Not a big problem in good visibility, but now a bigger concern because these marks would appear out of the fog, sometimes right where you expected them, and other times not.   Give the prevalence of fog along this shore, many of the outer mark have either bells or whistles.   The bell buoys are straight forward enough.  A large, 1' diameter bell with swinging gongs on the four sides.   The whistle buoys sound more like bullfrogs.   There is some sort of an air chamber and one way valves that trap air as the buoys sways and bobs in the swells.   The air is then forced through an organ style pipe that has an oddly low frequency.   Very effective as the sound travels long distances.

We crept our way into Shelter Cover.   The entrance was only 300' feet wide, and the length of the cove was probably not more than 800' long.  We had a few of these narrow channels to navigate today, so away from the wind and swell, this was no longer a navigational challenge.  Now if we had relied on paper or electronic charts alone we probably would not have entered this cove.   The charts all reported just a few feet of depth to get in.   One of the very helpful additions to the electronic charting products you have now is crowd sourced reviews.  We have relied on ActiveCapitan reviews for many of our anchorages and decision making on this trip.   There was a recent posting that the depth into Shelter over was 20+ feet and that the charts were not accurate.   We did proceed very slowly into the cove, but we didn't see less that about 22 feet.

Once our eyes had grown accustom to our surroundings, we could see we were not alone in the cove.  There was another sailboat deeper in and a couple of hundred feet away, and we could only see it half of the time.

Always checking you out ...
but rarely caring

While we never did see much of the cove, we did have the company of a young seal that spent lots of time swimming and fishing near us.  At one point I saw him playing with a fish he had caught by tossing it up in the air.

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Jeddore Harbour (Myers Point)

Marks only become visible when
they're 100' away

Our last stop before getting to Halifax was Jeddore Harbour.  Charts suggested some anchorages deep in that should have been very protected.

Fresh off a few days of fog navigation, we didn't hesitate in departing in the fog from Shelter Cove.  We continued to exercise caution in route planning and navigation.  Again we were blessed with a day of complete fog that followed us until we were at the mouth of Jeddore Harbour were the shoreline, houses, and other features began to appear in a sunny haze.

This was the first real signing
of land for the whole day

We eventually ignored the recommended anchorage as it appears to be just at the edge of narrow channel and the harbour still had some fishing boat activity.  We continued further in, and followed a vary narrow channel (well buoyed) until we found ourselves much deeper in and there we found a well protected anchorage away from any potential traffic concerns.

Fog had lifted further in the harbour

Throughout the day, aside from what the charts were telling us, you could also use other senses.  You could often feel a temperature rise, or catch a whiff of bird shit as you passed to the lee of nearby islands that we knew were there but could not see.

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Halifax

Now, throughout these fog bound legs, Bob was keeping his eyes on his radar.  A couple of times he radioed to let me know about things I couldn't see.   Many boats have AIS, but fishing boats, at least the smaller ones, do not, and other recreational boats may or may not have it.  Radar sees everything else.

At one point Bob was tracking a boat on radar that was approaching his course or position, so he altered speed and course to avoid.  Bob communicated this to us via VHF so we'd understand what his otherwise erratic course was all about.  Even with all his efforts, the other vessel still had concerns and eventually called out on the radio to "Finnish Line" and after a little communication the fishing boat said "Can't you see me, I'm right behind you!"  Bob looked over his shoulder to his aft to find a fishing boat hauling traps! 

leaving the fog behind and
turning to head into Halifax

Shortly after that, from what sounded like the same person, came an additional call to a "sailing vessel" at some specific long/lat.  Linda and I scrambled to sort out our exact position and determined it wasn't us.  Just a FYI, Standard Horizon remote mics always display the long/lat on the had unit for easy access.  So, what is the moral of these incidents ... well, around these parts radar is  very common and so it should be and I guess that while we were happily avoiding shoals and islands while navigating blind, there were probably a good number of other non-AIS boats milling about in the fog that might have been withing spitting distance.

Freighter disappearing into the fog

As we approached Halifax and started our turn north the fog progressively lifted.   Halifax is a busy port, so this came as no small relief.

We watched a freighter depart the harbour heading south west.   After they dropped their pilot back on the pilot boat, they carried on and disappeared into the fog.  Interestingly, the last thing we saw of the freighter was the bridge superstructure which was taller than the fog bank.   What a view the bridge crew would have from such a vantage point.

Minke whale in
Halifax harbour

Still an active commercial port

As we got further into the harbour approaches, my eye caught sight of a rather sleek looking 100+ foot ketch.  Linda picked up the camera and took some photos.   Only later, while reviewing and doing some photo editing did we see that a whale had photo-bombed the picture.   It is probably a minke whale, but could be a fin whale as well as they have a similar profile on their dorsal fin.  Turns out a couple of minke whale had died in the Halifax harbour area in the last couple of months.  One wonders if this might be a remnant of that pod.

Old WWII fortification?

R.N.S.Y.S.  (we left them a deposit
when we left Halifax!)

The reason Halifax became historically central and such a pivotal place was due to it's deep and protected harbour.  For us pleasure craft, the protection is certainly nice, but it does mean that we had about 7 miles to go before we found ourselves at the Armdale Yacht Club where we would speed the next few nights.  The journey up the "arm" was not without interesting things to look at.   Old decaying WWII fortifications, opulent homes, R.N.S.Y.S, fleets of wooden bluenose sailboats (still very actively raced around here), sailing school fleets, rowers, and much more.

Home or resort/hotel,
often hard to distinguish

We found A.Y.C. a nice place to be, and thoroughly unique in it's own right.  Located on tiny Meleville Island (similarly named to the shoal off Kingston), and accessible via a man made causeway. 
The docks radiate out like spokes on a wheel from the island, all the way around.  The clubhouse was a former wardens house from when there was a prison on the island.  The prison building still exists and the club uses as locker storage, each member getting a "cell" to keep their stuff in.

Bluenose fleet racing in the narrow
channel.  Most of them wooden

The site has had a long list of other uses in the past from being a family estate, hospital, quarantine station, military prison, prisoner of war camp, recruit training station for the British Foreign Legion and ammunition depot.  The place has a similar feel to KYC, comfortable, and casual, and a unique location.

Halifax welcomed our first night there with a fantastic electrical storm.   Here we would enjoy a few days, see some sights, have Debbie re-join the crew, do some repairs, and relax a little before continuing our trek west to explore the rest of Nova Scotia.

First night in Halifax.   What a show!