Mile 2015: Crossing the Gulf of Maine (Bay of Fundy)

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Crossing Gulf of Maine (Bay Fundy) Current Location: Northwest Harbour ME Date: August 22-23 Mile:  2015 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Albums: Crossing

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We decided that we would depart from Shelburne instead of Yarmouth for our crossing. Yarmouth would certainly have been closer, but the passage from Shelburne to Yarmouth has it's own complications and avoiding an adverse tidal current going into Yarmouth is also critical. Our weather window was also tight and doing it in two hops would have made that too tight.

The forecasts were all looking good for departing the next morning at 11:30 am. Departing at this time should leave us at slack low tide as we cross Cape Sable and the current-induced rips and overfalls should be non-existent. The breadth of Cape Sable--sometimes referred to the Cape Horn of Nova Scotia-- is actually about 25nm, so you are in that area for a good 4 hours. As I've noted before, we have a number of good resources, and there are others online that we also refer to that talk about making this particular passage. Some talk about going to Yarmouth, others directly from Shelburne, and there is just enough ambiguity in all the resources to leave a little uncertainty. We expect to have little wind and thus the sea state should be just residual swells. The only factor, which we've learned is very hard to predict, is fog and the limited visibility that it brings.

We both fueled up for this crossing and it would use most of the primary tank if we have to motor all the way. Both Finnish Line and Ramble On carry 2 five-gallon jerry cans of extra. This would we get us through in even the worst possible conditions.

We departed on time, and in pleasant conditions. The weather was 22+C and the water was in the high teens as well. That changed fairly quickly as we left the deep bay where Shelburne is located. The water temperature dropped to 10C or less as we again see the effects of the Labrador current. The air temperatures also dropped and we were quickly putting on pants, sweaters, gloves and a toque. Being up all night sailing (or motoring) can easily sap your heat, so dressing up is critical.

The winds were light to moderate but right on the nose. Because we needed to make sure we were crossing the point at the right time, we motored. Leaving at mid-day, means we were able to enjoy much of the scenery of the coast that we really saw very little of on this side of Nova Scotia.

Dolphins!

During this stretch we saw some White-beaked dolphins and some common dolphins. White-beaked dolphins are unique in their activity at the surface. The result is rooster tails of water. A few we saw jump full clear of the water too! It's sometimes hard to tell from a distance which species we are looking at but our handy guide book describes unique behaviour that helps us identify them.

"J" Marking Brazil Rock

Our plan was to head out to a well known and marked shoal called "Brazil Rock" and go south of the cardinal buoy that marks this shoal. The shoal is not a hazard to boats our size, but using this mark as a starting point for the Cape Sable passage sets us up for a straight line crossing. The plan was to then continue west until we reach a mark called "N" and at that point we would either make a more direct route through Mud and Seal Islands if the visibility was good, or if the visibility was poor, continue on to a point south of Blonde Rock and avoid these islands in order to avoid any tide rips and overfalls (though our tide timing should have avoided this anyway).

Lots of Dolphins

Flashback to my comment earlier that fog is hard to predict. Not long after we turned to make the crossing through the islands the fog started to fill in. And darkness was falling too. We're used to the fog--along this coast the fog is always a confounding factor--but now we had darkness too! It was very interesting how that changed things. Sometimes you could see the hazy outlines of fishing boats (who sometimes have massive amounts of floodlights to help the workers see what their doing), other times not. There is a different expectation of starting to see the running lights of other boats a little in advance of seeing the boats. Sort of like driving country roads at night ... you see the headlights coming around a corner before you see the car.

A couple of time during the the next hours, small flotillas (read armada) of fishing boats departed Clarks Harbour, or somewhere else nearby, and headed our way. In general, these fishing boats don't have their AIS on, but these guys mostly did. Perhaps it is because their fishing grounds extend out in the Bay of Fundy and the traffic that it brings.

At one point we overheard one of them on the VHF observing their radar and wondering if there was a boat towing another through the islands. That pair of boats was us! We weren't that close, but maybe it appeared that way on radar. Linda got on the radio to help clarify what they were seeing and requested they turn their boat lights on so we could see them. At the same time, Finnish Line did some loops just to confuse all those involved! (they dis-engaged their auto-pilot as a result the boat was spun by the current).

As is our usual safety procedure Finnish Line radioed whenever something suspicious appeared on their radar that didn't show up on AIS or was of some potential concern to either of us. We spent the night tracking lots of small fishing boats, and a couple of much larger ones.

The fog did clear the further we got past Seal Island. Aside from fishing boats, and a few sailboats also making the crossing the only other major traffic we saw was a well lit cruise ship ("Adventure of the Sea"). We saw it visually and because it was so brightly lit, we thought it was closer and wondered why we didn't see it on AIS, but after zooming out significantly we verified that it was visible on AIS and was actually quite a ways off. It was lit up light a Christmas tree with coloured lights all over it's superstructures and along its decks.

Most of the rest of the crossing was uneventful. We put up sail once the fog cleared and the wind direction became favourable. We sailed for the last 5-6 hours, but motor sailed most of the night until that point.

Sunrise!

There were a few times when things went a little weird. We were plugging along in the dark when suddenly the knotmeter slowed down and shortly after the GPS speed slowed down too. Linda and I boat start talking through the possibilities, engine? lobster pots? something around the prop, or other the keel or rudder? After much speculation about currents and other phenomenon, we determined that it must have been one of the very large "mats" of kelp and seaweed. In the middle of the night, especially in fog and reduced visibility, you can't see these in the slightest, but during the day we had seen many of these. Later, once in Maine, when we checked the strainer, it was full of stuff and some gelatinous translucent stuff (jelly fish?). It surprised me that the blockage did not result in the overheat alarm to go off on the engine.

Finnish Line in the sunrise

As the evening (morning actually) progressed we did have a spectacular moon rise. This orange glow (somewhat like a sunrise) appeared behind us, and quickly rose up and began providing us a little more light (the fog has lifted by this point). This was really a fantastic sight, such that I called Bob on the radio to tell his to look over his shoulder to take a look. These are some of the times when night sailing is really worth while. We were also treated to a perfectly clear sunrise. This was pretty spectacular as well as it was burning orange. Even better, I was able to catch a picture of Finnish Line sailing right through the sun's disk!

We were sailing at this point, and enjoying the peaceful motion of the boat and the gentle swells. As it got lighter and as we approached the Maine coast, Bob called on the radio to report the first Maine lobster pots. It begins!!! Maine has year round lobster fishing, and their coastline is notorious for being wall to wall floats and buoys. All the way into Northwest Harbour, the density increased with few reprieves, even in proper channels! We have heard much about this and wondered to ourselves whether they would be thicker that what we saw in Miramichi Bay (spoiler alert ... the answer is yes!)

Ocean Sunfish

We managed to catch some good pictures of Ocean Sunfish (Mola Mola) in the morning as we approach the coast. We actually saw lots of them, but the lighting was good to get a proper picture of one of them where you could see it in all its weird detail. They truly are weird creatures. We've seen many along the south shore of N.S. Mostly you just see one of their fins flopping along the surface, so to see a large one in full detail, up close, was a treat.

As we were on final approach to the Mount Desert Island area, the fog started to fill in again, and we decided to converge courses so Ramble On would again be in radar coverage range of Finnish Line. As we got close, the fog lifted again and we could finally see our destination. At first, faint mountains in the misty background, then full detail as the fog full cleared. There was lots of boat traffic as we approached and entered harbour. Traditional sailing boats, fishing boats, mega yachts, and everything else in between. All the way into harbour, and even in and among the mooring balls, lobster pots are everywhere!

As we got into the harbour, we called the harbour master for the location of slips. We wanted to pump out on arrival, but the fuel dock was occupied so we went to our slip. The service dock was 40' from our slip so when it became free, we just pulled the boat around with lines to pump out, and using lines, did the same to get back to our slip. Easy-peasy!

We checked in and paid our fees (yikes ... starting to get more expensive here) and then went for naps. Night sailing, even with shift sailing during the night rarely provides much good sleep, so we're all a bit bleary eyed.

We are now in the US! Aside from all the current complexities this country is going through, it is beautiful and the people are friendly and hospitable ... and often apologetic to us Canadians about how we (as a country) have been treated.

Now we will generally head south-west down the coast, passing through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and finally New York State.

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Navigation Notes:
We had all discussed, not only the tide issues involved in crossing Cape Sable, but how the tide would affect our crossing and how to navigate so that we would minimize our crossing time/distance. 

After we pass Cape Sable and head toward Maine, the tide would be on the "flood" and pushing us into the Bay of Fundy.   But because of our crossing time (maybe another 20 hours), we figured the tide would turn again and be pushing us back out some 12 hours later.   But as we were travelling toward the coast, that 12-hour time would be stretched by a few hours ( I think about 3 hours) so the amount of "in" tide we predicted turned out to be much more than the "out" tide.

We were pondering two basic choices: a) draw a GPS track straight to where we wanted to go, and let the auto-pilot do it's job.   It is smart enough to start crabbing along regardless of the direction of the current to keep you on track or b) make a determination of how the in and out currents would (or wouldn't balance) and  set the auto-pilot on a strict compass course and while our course over ground might look a little like a sine wave,  we should minimize the travel time.

Guestimate of tidal currents.

The problem was that we didn't have the Tide Atlas book for the bay, and that might have helped us make more accurate determinations.  We suspected that the inbound current at the beginning would be stronger in that area than they would be as we approached Maine, but we didn't know for sure.  I made a few guesses that maybe would should point about 10 deg further south than our intended destination.

In the end we just used the compass course to our destination and figured we'd correct in the final 1/4-1/3 of the crossing. 

Actual track vs. Rhumb Line
(tidal currents didn't push me back to the rhumb line)

Anyway, long story short, after analyzing my track I found that the inbound tidal current pushed us north off the rhumb line by about 6 nm (at about a third of the way across) and the outbound tidal current on the Maine side of the bay didn't push us back to the rhumb line much at all.   In the end, I just tweaked our course to get us where we needed to be.   My speculation is that the major tidal flow, both in and out, is much stronger near the tip of Nova Scotia and is much weaker on the Maine side of the bay.