Mile 1670-1848: South-Western Shore of Nova Scotia

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Southwestern Shore of Nova Scotia Current Location: Shelburne Harbour Yacht Club Date: August 5 to 21 Mile:  1670-1848 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Sambro, St Margarets Bay - Schooner Cove, St Margarets Bay - South-West Cove, Chester, Mahone Bay Town, Lunenburg, LaHave, Mouton Island, Shelburne,

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The next leg our our journey takes us down the Southwestern shore of Nova Scotia.  Between Halifax and Yarmouth, the shoreline continues to be both rugged and beautiful, but there are more large bays and inlets in this stretch of shoreline which provides more ports and places to explore. 

The destinations along this stretch are some of the more well know and iconic places in Nova Scotia:  Peggy's Cove, Mahone Bay, Chester, Lunenburg, LaHave, Shelburne and Yarmouth. 

This leg ends with our navigation around Cape Sable, across the Bay of Fundy and ending up in Maine USA.

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Sambro Harbour

Sambro Lighthouse

First stop out of Halifax was in Sambro Harbour.  As we left the weather was pleasant and sunny, but then became breezy as we rounded Sambro Point.  The name Sambro, at least to mariners, may bring to mind the Sambro Island Light.  First built in 1758, and which now ranks as the oldest lighthouse in north america.  Apparently there are still rusty canons lying on shore from when they were fired regularly as fog signals.  We didn't head the extra 1.5 miles to see it up close, but given it's height we were still able to see it well as we rounded the point.

Someone is enjoying
a nice sail!

We continues around Sambro point and turned back north to head into Sambro Harbour where we planned to find an anchorage for the night.  The harbour area was quite protected and we found further protection in behind Powers Island which is nestled deep in the harbour. 

Our anchorage was pretty good, and certainly protected, but lots of motor boat traffic made it a little choppy.  It turned out we were right on a main traffic route to small lake past some narrows that were just out of sight. 

Small locally built schooner

We (Bob) had dropped anchor not too far from a nearby mooring ball which was empty at the time we arrived.   A while later, a cute little Lunenburg style schooner returned to this mooring beside us.  It had a 1 lung motor and put-putted to their ball in the very light wind.

Sunny day?  No better time for a sou'wester

The two guys on the were almost too stereotypical to be true.   The captain was a large fellow wearing what looked like a half-slicker and was also wearing a black sou'wester.  He mostly remained in the cockpit while his sailing buddy ran around picking up the ball and sorting other things our on the boat.   Note that the weather what day didn't really necessitate any foul weather gear, but it certainly made a great sight.

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St Margarets Bay (Schooner Cove)

Brightly painted houses of Peggy's Cove

We cut close to the point

Next morning we pulled up anchor and headed out of the bay to and down the coast to St. Margarets Bay.

This would take us by the famous Peggy's Cove.  I've been there before, almost 30 years ago, and it was an overcrowded tourist stop then, and it's even more so now.  We were able to take a very close pass by on the inside of "Halibut Rock", barely a hundred feet from the shore.

Nothing like some peaceful quiet time
looking at the ocean .... not!

We could see 100's of people standing around taking in the little lighthouse on the barren but smooth rock point.   The little town of Peggy's Cove is just around the corner.  Tempted as we were to motor into the rock sided harbour, we thought better of it as the charts had no detail inside the harbour and the local fishing boats generally draw less than we do.

From there we continued another 10-12 miles deep into St. Margarets Bay into an area that didn't have the common fishing harbour look to it.  We could have been in the Muskoka Lakes from the look and style of the houses.  Well appointed houses, many with 30-45' sailboats moored at expensive looking wharfs and floating docks.   Obviously a playground for the wealthy around here.

Upscale homes

We poked ever deeper into a place called Schooner Cover.   The protecting at this anchorage was complete.   Aside from a road just beyond side behind the trees at the head of the cove, it was very peaceful and we were treated to a nice sunset.

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St Margarets Bay (South-West Cove)

They are following us ... I know it

We left at 10:30am for leisurely motor to our next anchorage on the other side (West side) of St Margarets Bay.  Our passage across the bay was uneventful.   There was a Coast Guard ship anchored in the bay (we still suspect they are following us on our trip)

The anchorage is easy to miss as it's hidden behind Horse Island (we renamed it dead-tree island for it's entire tree population was dead) and another island (perhaps not a true island as there was a causeway wide enough for a car to cross) .  In fact, once we had anchored, another boater poked their way into the anchorage just because they saw us tucked in there and didn't realize it existed after have sailed this area all his life. 

Tight anchorage for sure!

Every tree is dead?

The anchorage was particularly small and narrow.   A small boat/yacht club had about 5 mooring balls here but they were all full so we made do with anchoring.  It was a tricky spot to anchor trying to avoid a few shoals and the shore in this narrow space (< 400 feet wide). 

Worst ... looking ... castle  .... ever

Built at the head of the little anchorage was the most abysmal example of Germanic castle architecture.  Hard to explain how awkward it looks.

Seals basked and fed all
afternoon and evening on the shoals

We spent the afternoon relaxing on the boats, and watching seals feeding over rocky/shallow areas.  As we had seen before, they sometime spend their time swimming on their backs with the eyes in the water, perhaps to see the fish below.  There were probably 3 of them that spent the whole afternoon and evening fishing or relaxing around this shoal.

The night was a little lumpy as the ocean swells diffracted around the point so they were perpendicular to the wind (and boats) and made for a somewhat awkward motion between the rafted boats.

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Chester

Not your traditional maritime house

Chester is well know in Canadian sailing circles, and perhaps beyond, as they host the famous "Chester Race Week".   Located in Mahone Bay, Chester is short 15 nm from our anchorage behind Horse Islands.   Chester is located centrally in the bay, and behind the Tancook Islands and also behind some smaller islands located just in front of the harbour.  This provides a good amount a shelter from the Atlantic swells and fetch from the south. 

However, our short sail was quite lumpy until we gained protection from the Tancook Islands where the wind also faded with the swells.

Chester Y.C. is a pretty small affair

Chester Yacht Club is a small affair and the member boats are all at mooring balls.   Thus, the dinghy dock was quite a congested affair.

We anchored in the "back harbour", which is just to the west of "The Peninsula".  The Peninsula is connected to the mainland via a short causeway that also includes a bridge where dinghies can get under! (the Dinghy Canal)  Handy for easy access to the club and the town (though at times the current under the bridge was quite strong).

Chester is very picturesque, but bears little resemblance to the many other sea side towns we have been in.   There is no fishing harbour here and the houses really show the wealth that this area has a reputation for.

There are only a few places to eat in town, and we first ended up at the Fo'c'sol which had been recommended to us at an earlier stop.  After dinner we reset anchor so as not to be quite as much in the anchorage entrance channel as we initially where. 

We went to bed to an evening shower that would hopefully remove some of the pesky salt buildup from the topsides.

The next day we stayed in Chester to enjoy some local theater and poke around the town a little more.  We made a trip to marine store which was  more like marine "closet".  The bare minimum of anything here!

We ended our day with dinner as the White Gate, which was excellent, and followed it up with our night at the local theater to see "God is Scottish Drag Queen".   It was really just a one made stand up routine where the guy was ... you guessed it ... God .... and a Scottish Drag Queen.   It was a funny show and he covered all sorts of otherwise taboo religious topics, but the Scottish Drag Queen part opened the door to just about any other topic.

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Mahone Bay Town

Emerging from a fog bank

The common theme for this stretch of coastline is Fog.  Leaving Chester was somewhere between pea soup and milky fog (I don't quite know which of those two is worse) until we got to Indian Point (on the final approaches to Mahone Bay Town).  The fog lifted at that point and we got to enjoy some of the scenery and we approached.

Mahone Bay Town is tucked into the SW corner of Mahone Bay and was only a short 10 nm hop.  The harbour is deep and very well protected.  No swells could make it in here past the handful of islands and into this deep harbour.   We stayed and the town dock which has nice enough showers and washrooms as well as pump-out facilities.

Town dinghy dock (we're docked at the end of the wharf)

Once we got settled and payed the dock attendant (an amusing affair as we watched the attendant feed receipt sized pieces of paper into a 8.5x11 printer with only occasional success)  we went to stroll the town.  Not particularly big, but a good handful of shops.  The homes along the main street around the bay were ornate beyond what most NS harbours would even hope for.   This was originally a shipbuilding town, and perhaps there was some affluence back in the day.   These houses were striking and many were very well maintained.

Upon arriving in the harbour we began hearing the piercing sound of an Osprey nearby.  Once we were tied up we noticed one sitting on the masthead of a boat at a mooring ball.   The owners were shaking their rig to get it to fly away, eventually with success.  We didn't think to much more about it except "poor boat owner".  The bird actually spent some time on a few different mastheads in the harbour.

Very ornate historic homes

Well ... as we returned from looking about the town and as we were walking towards the docks and boats, I watched an Osprey land on my masthead, and more specifically on my brand new electronic instruments.   At this point I  started running like a mad-man to the boat, and gesticulating and yelling at the stupid bird, but it didn't move.  I quickly went below and returned with an air-horn, and fired that upward toward the masthead to no effect.   Finally I just grabbed the shrouds and shook hard, and it finally got the hint.   Of course it just flew 40 feet away to Finnish Line's mast head.   Bob was still back at the marine office, so I hopped on his boat, and shook his rigging until it departed.

There were a pair of them landing on various masthead around the harbour all evening.   Aside from the possibility of wrecking my brand new $500 instruments, it was a very bizarre sight to see such a large bird sitting on the Windex of boats, and gently spinning in circles.    A survey of the 30 some odd sailboats in the harbour show'd many with missing or damages windex's or electronic instruments.

Debbie's brother Bill and his wife Leslie dropped by for a visit and brought Bill's daughter and granddaughter as well as Curtis (who we had met back in Halifax).  We enjoyed some growlers of Propeller provided by our guests and and other tasty snacks.

For dinner, we went to "Oh my Cod", and had some excellent fish, clams, etc.   Happened to be talking "Navionics" (charting software used on boats and also an app on smartphones) between the group of us and that caught the owners ear.   He asked were we were from and said Kingston, and then he said he was from Hamilton.   We said "we came by boat" and he said "so did I!"  Turns out he and his wife quit their jobs last year, and planned to sail to the Caribbean.   They got to Mahone Bay, and saw a restaurant for sale, and decided to stay.  This type of story is one we have heard and continued to hear all along this coastline.   It's beautiful around here and people fall in love with it.

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Lunenburg

The town is built on a hill overlooking the bay

In Lunenburg our only dock option was a wharf owned by Zwicker & Co. in the slightly remote part of harbour. It suited us perfectly as it was nice and quiet at night, yet only a short walk to downtown. The plus was being next to a working shipyard! Zwicker & Co offered good services, free showers and free laundry!, although a 10 minute walk from our wharf.   The main downtown wharf was undergoing some re-construction so our location may have been better in the long run.

The shipyard next door was where the latest "re-build" of the Bluenose II was relaunched after some initial "problems".

Our first day in Lunenburg was filled with the usual chores of laundry and heading to the marine store to sort out some minor boat needs.

With a busy harbour comes the wake from passing boats. We were stern-to most of them, which causes a slapping on the hull that resonates in the aft berth. Not a fantastic recipe for sleeping! However, Bob and I  perfected the "anti-slap" contraption for the transom! It's basically a pool noodle lashed just under the edge of the transom that acts as a wave dampener. It worked well!

Traditional boats everywhere

Lunenburg, with UNESCO heritage designation, is such a pretty town. The houses are all well maintained and still have their original wooden decorative features. Apparently, homes sided with vinyl have been grandfathered, but if if they want to re-clad, it must be with cedar. Each home seems to be unique in design and colour (the bright multi colour nature of the town is apparently a modern addition).

Lunenburg "bump"

The architecture here is quite unique.   The steep geography right along the shoreline of the harbour allows each street parallel to the water front to appear stacked about the next allowing many of the houses to be visible as you approach the harbour.

Many of the houses are quite fancy in a uniquely Lunenburg way.   Scottish dormers at very common here.   The are comprised of 5 sides (3 of which have windows) instead of the typical 3 sided dormers.   Further, you take a Scottish dormer on the second floor slightly extended out over the front entrance and extended the lines down to ground level and you get the Lunenburg "bump".

Double "bump"

These "bumps" have a striking similarity to the houses on Ile d'Orleans with the projection/tower over the front entrance.  They didn't have the Scottish 5 sided style, but the "bump" concept is mirrored.

The tourism is booming here and there were plenty of good restaurants. The best ones were busy and hard to get into, but we had some very fine meals at Salt Shaker Deli, Beach Pea Kitchen and The Half Shell Oysters & Seafood. At the latter, we had seating on the patio overlooking the bay, and we were treated to a fantastic golden sunset as we dined.

Theresa E. Connor, similar to the Bluenose II

We did a tour of the Marine Museum along the waterfront.  It's quite expansive and fills a couple of large old warehouse building along the wharf.   As part of the museum, there are a number of boats moored that can be toured as well.  The Bluenose II is away on the Great Lakes, but they still have a similar wooden fishing schooner that is more or less preserved the way is was when they stopped using it.  There is also a large steel fishing trawler where local retired fishermen give tours.

On Tuesday, Linda and Debbie got themselves ready to catch a lunchtime concert at St. John's Anglican Church, one of Lunenburg's impressive old churches. Unfortunately, the concerts are held on Wednesdays. Oops! So, instead they grabbed a fantastic lunch at Laughing Whale Coffee "Shop on the Corner" and then went on a horse-drawn city tour. The young lady driving was excellent and the horses are well cared for. I think it was one of the highlights of Lunenburg for Linda.

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A bonus of our location was the proximity to the grocery store a few steps away (uphill). The afternoon before departure, we picked up a few items for the next few days and filled our water tanks. The next morning there was a bit of fog, but it cleared quickly and we set off to the most amazing bakery on the south shore!

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LaHave

The "Ovens"

It was a very short out and then back into the next harbour over.  Upon leaving Lunenburg, we passed the "Ovens", a unique cave formation on the west side of the bay.  While short, we did see a Minke whale in transit.  Finnish Line spotted dolphins too!.   It is always a highlight to see the sea life that we are so unfamiliar with in the Great Lakes.   This was LaHave.  We had found that for a modest fee we could moor at the bakery wharf/dock if we went in to shop!   That was something we couldn't turn down.

First we continued down the harbour to the  LaHave River Y.C to fill up on fuel.  Once complete, we headed back to the bakery and found our spot on the wharf.

"The Bakery" - local sailing school stopping for snacks?

The building that now housed the bakery used to be a marine outfitting operation back in the days of sail and the building is remarkably well preserved.   There is a bakery, a bookstore and a craft shop in the building.  The bakery is really a cafe that also has baked goods.   The Cafe still has the safe and office, completely preserved and old books and ledgers are still in the drawers to look at.  Before we departed we added some baked goods to our pantry.

Thick fog in the morning

We woke up to a peaceful morning but again fog so thick you couldn't see 100 feet. We went back into the Cafe for breakfast before heading out into the mist to head for an intermediate anchorage before we get to Shelburne.

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Mouton Island Anchorage

Sometimes this was all we saw of Finnish Line

We departed LaHave in fog, and spent most of the day in fog.  It cleared for a short while as we approached Port Mouton Island, but quickly filled in again and stuck with us until the next morning.

This meant navigating around behind Port Mouton Island by charts only (electronic).   Lots of shallows here and we took care to be sure we were following the charts carefully.

Apparently "Mouton" originated
from when a guy named Pierre Dugua (French explorer) lost a sheep overboard nearby in 1604.


We awoke to dew and fog and very wet boats!!!

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Shelburne

We departed our anchorage in fog, and again, had fog all the way to Shelburne until the final approaches (near land)  where the fog lifted sometimes.  Shelburne is quite deep down the Roseway River bay and as is often the case, the fog lifts once surrounded by that much land.  This was a nice break from a day otherwise without anything interesting to look at (though you are always keeping your eyes peeled for unexpected fishing boats).

Fish farms

Heading up the river we passed a number of places were there were fish hatcheries or some other aquaculture operation.  There were about 5 floating cage structures, anchored and separated by about 30' and at the end was a weird looking boat that seemed to be feeding each of the cage contraptions with big hoses.  Maybe something to do with feeding or water circulation?

Irving Shipyard busy at work

On the way in we passed one of the Irving shipyards.   There was a small camouflaged navy boat there being worked on as we passed by.

Temporary Clubhouse at SHYC

We had slips booked at the Shelburne Harbour Y.C. and we ended up on the outer face dock.   While exposed to harbour traffic, the location was still reasonably protected.   Upon checking in we were told that there were no facilities (washroom, showers, etc.) in the clubhouse as they had had a fire in the spring.  Their  summer clubhouse was a mobile trailer/office with a make shift patio with tents over-top.  They had a limited bar, but not much else.  Washroom were in porta-potties and showers where in a building a couple of hundred yards away in the "Sailing" building.  None of this was a major inconvenience.

An ongoing discussion at this point was planning our crossing to Maine.   Now we are a pretty cautious bunch and stick pretty close to the advice we find about how to time the tides and departures, and manage the currents.   This issue we have for this crossing is that there is a handful of good information, but it's not all consistent and sometimes seems to be in conflict. 

The major factor to keep in mind is that Cape Sable can have very nasty current effects.   The charts are littered with "overfalls", "tidal rips", and other such scary sounding things.   Local sailors noted that the overfalls can easily look like breaking waves on a shoal, but in fact may have 50' of depth below them.  So, to avoid these conditions we wanted to be there in slack tide.   And slack low tide has some further benefits (if you ignore the fact that you get sucked into the bay of Fundy by a non-trivial amount.

Cooper saw?

The other major factor was to find a weather window that minimized the chances of strong winds.  Aside from dealing with strong winds on their own, if you add winds and opposing currents you start to get sea states that become quite chaotic.

Over the next few days we continued to monitor weather and do as much research as possible to ensure we have a safe and enjoyable passage to Maine.  We also found time to explore the town and it's history.

Dory partially constructed

There is a Museum that carries on the tradition of building traditional dory's, the kind of which would have been on the decks of the Bluenose and all the other fishing schooners of the day.   They are both sturdy work boats, and have a number of unique features such as removable seats for stack-ability.  The shop makes about 2 per season, but they can be commissioned to build one for you if you like!

The town had a number of other historic houses and of particular note was the Ross Thomson House.  An interpreter/guide took us on the most informative tour of this interesting house.   The house combined a storefront on one side and the living quarters on the other.   The store would have sold things like molasses, tobacco, candles and coils of hemp rope.    It was built in 1787 and is almost perfectly preserved due to the fact that for the better part of the 1900's it was sealed up the way the last resident had left it.

It's Hurdy Gurdy time!

We actually returned to the museum house grounds the next day to listen to music in their garden.   A number of local musicians joined in.  It was partially to reproduce music as we might have heard in the 1700's, but also a venue for these musicians to sort of jam and play some of their own songs as well as a few song that we might have hear 100-200 years ago.

Ships Saw
(missing top wheel)

Workshop still powered by belts and pullys

We also passed a lumber mill that looked like the day it would have stopped running almost 100 years ago.   We peeked in a door that was ajar and saw a labyrinth of axles, pulley's and 1800's belt driven machinery and as if it was last used yesterday.  Outside the building under an overhang was an enormous "Ships Saw".  These are large band-saws that are unique to the shipbuilding trade.  They allow you to cut progressive bevels on the edge of ships hull planking.   With the saw was a small cart on rails to allow the large and very heavy timbers to be fed into the saw.   This aspect caught my attention because I have been watching a couple of Youtube channels about wooden boat building and these young folks are building boats the traditional way, and both have sourced old Ships Saws to make their projects possible (Acorn to Arabella, and Sampson Boat Co). 

The rest of our time we continued to poke around the town, made our way to Sobeys to stock up at our last chance to buy Canadian foods!   Tomorrow we depart mid morning to cross over to Maine and begin our next leg exploring US east coat down to New York City.  This is our last Canadian stop until we touch foot back in Kingston!