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!

Mile 1102: Shediac

---

Shediac N.B. Current Location: Shediac Yacht Club Date: July 2-5 Mile:  1102 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Album

---

Our leg from Bouctouche to Shediac was a short 20nm day. Before we departed, we pumped out. The club has pumpout facilities but no fuel, sort of opposite of what we've had for the last while. Before we left, John the marina manager, showed us our "boat pictures". He keeps pictures of every visiting boat and owners in carefully kept binders. I'm sure he can recount/remember every visiting boat and their story. If any KYC'er ever ends up here in the future, lookup Dragon III, Finnish Line and Ramble On!

Entering Pointe-du-Chene

Departing Bouctouch we had to reverse our winding entrance, but a little bit of familiarity helped relieve the stress as we puttered our way out following the many marks and ranges. Not much wind for this short leg, but warm and pleasant.

Pointe-du-Chene wharf

Shediac Bay is a moderately large, but quite shallow bay. It has two harbours, the first of which ( Pointe-du-Chene ) is the tourism harbour with shops, tour boats, a marina and the fuel dock where we would stop first. This was one of the tightest harbour entrances we have experienced.

Very tight harbour entrance

Harbour guard

 While the charts did have entrance marks indicated, the actual location of these marks was barely 2-3 boat lengths from the rock wall. I suspect silting has tightened up the entrance over the years. In either case, you drive straight at the rock wall, and then hang a hard left at the first green mark. At this point you are so close to the wall that you are peering over the rock pile to look for mast heads of any outgoing sailboat. After a couple of hundred yards the entrance appears at which point you need to do a hard almost 180 degree turn to enter.

We pulled into the fuel dock but found no-one was in attendance but there was a number you call. Within a few minutes of our call, a woman rolled up on her bicycle and we were filling up. Once we were fueled up and paid for we departed on a 1 nm hop to the next basin which was the Shediac Yacht Club. This is where we would be staying for a few days to await the arrival of our Chris "the other" and Andrew "the son".


We also saw the Coast guard cutter, "Corporal Tether", moored here and performing maneuvers at the dock. This was the boat that had just towed one of the dead right whales to Cape Breton for a necropsy to determine the cause of death. Today it seem's to be performing thruster practice as they were hovering about 40 feet from the wharf trying to maintain position.

Linda and I had researched restaurants in Shediac and decided on heading Le Petite Paris for our anniversary dinner. Turned out not to be quite the french restaurant we had expected, but it was nice none-the-less. The entertainment highlight of this dinner out was Terry the cab driver. For the short cab ride to the restaurant, he kept us giggling and laughing at the ribald stories of other passengers and the antics they get up to. It was entertaining enough that we called him for the ride back to the club.

Next day, Chris MacDonnald, Bob's crew until we get to the Bra d'Or Lakes, arrived after two days of driving up from Florida. He arrived for some of the nicest weather we've had so far. The weather does seem to be warming up and staying warm!

Moncton airport is only 20 minutes away from Shediac, and this is where Andrew was flying into. Chris was kind enough to drive Bob and I to the Airport to pick up Andrew. Andrew had taken the train from Kingston to Ottawa the night before, and then flown direct to Moncton today. A short and relatively painless flight. Once we got back to town, we located Linda and parked ourselves at "La Coast" for a nice seafood lunch

Boat BBQ pizza!
(bechamel with
bacon and scallops)

Later that day, we did a full provisioning for food, beer, wine, and some fresh seafood. Linda and I were planning another "boat pizza" night, and this time it was going to be seafood pizza (bechamel with
bacon and scallops for one, and shrimps simmered in garlicky wine sauce then baked with Italian cheese blend for the other)!

Back in Quebec City, the proprietor of "La Pizzaio" had given us some parchment paper for cooking BBQ pizzas. We had had a great conversation with him where he told us that they would cook pizzas while camping, using parchment paper to keep everything from sticking. He gave us about 10 sheets from his kitchen and some instructions on how to make it work. Tonight we put them to use and they worked perfectly!

During our provisioning we stopped into a Home Hardware for something that Bob needed. I was just wandering around and bumped into a display of 1 lb propane canisters. Not that exciting really, but before we left on the trip, I made some holders for these canisters for Bob and I that use 4" white PVC pipe and some end caps. These are then filled with canisters, and fastened to the pushpit. Turns out that the batch of canisters that Canadian Tire sells (Coleman) are a couple of mm's too large, and don't fit (they all have a weird manufacturing bulge in them), but the ones that Home Hardware sells (Bernzomatic) are built to different tolerances and fit perfectly! Now, I hope not to need these as they are for our propane heater (for cold nights without shore power) but if we do, we're now set!

side by side at Shediac Yacht Club

Shediac Yacht Club has a building with and reception desk, lounge area, washrooms, showers and laundry. They have a second building that has space to hold events, but there is no restaurant or bar. The grounds are nicely kept and everything was in good order.

The Club was pretty busy once people got off work. They head out for race nights and sail in the shallows just beyond the Pointe-du-Chene basin. A small flood of motor boats would also all depart at about the same time and then later, once it starts to get dark, then all return en masse to the harbour.  Once an a while, there would be stereo competitions that were somewhat jarring, but overall, we had a very enjoyable stay.

Lobster capital of the Woooorrrld!

Mile 1081: Bouctouche

---

Bouctouche Current Location: Bouctouche Marina - Sawmill Point Boat Basin Date: June 29 - July 1 Mile:  1081 Locate: Ramble On Locate: Finnish Line 2.0 Google Photo Album

---

Skinny water everywhere

maze of entrance marks

Getting into Bouctouche was another winding channel through a sandbar entrance.  This is the land of shifting sands and buoys that don't quite follow the charts.   You need to keep an eye out for the marks and the depths as neither are quite what or where they are suppose to be.

It was a short day's motor from Richibucto.    The skies were dull with no wind and a little mist.

Sand bars at the entrance

We were without crab/lobster pots to avoid so the auto pilot followed my track as I cleaned, polished and waxed boat.  Only a small section ... just the spot beside me where I sat behind the dodger.   That one spot looks great and is now putting the rest of the boat to shame.  It might be one of those projects where by the time I finish the last "small section", the first one will have needed doing long ago. I need to get Linda to do some too!!

private home
in the shape of a lighthouse?

Earlier in the day Bob called on radio and said he had no water going through his engine and it was starting to overheat.  He stopped and anchored to sort out the issue. In the end it was just some sea grass in his strainer. Now, maybe we were just getting paranoid, but not long after Bob sorted out his engine issue both Linda and I heard a funny noise from down below. I immediately looked back and we both "thought" there was more smoke than there should have been. We slowed down and I checked the engine temp with the temperature gun, but all systems seemed normal.   We proceeded with caution, but nothing obvious revealed itself nor did any further problems show themselves.

A familiar sight!

Upon entering the marina I caught a glimpse of a wine-glass shaped transom with very distinctive burgundy stripes.  There couldn't be another boat with a Hughes transom and those colours?!  Sure enough it was Dragon III! We have found where Tom/Sue are hiding!  They live in the Moncton area where Sue works, but this is where they keep their boat. Tom and Sue later made their way to us with some local brew.

Tasty

While sitting in the cockpit later, enjoying that local beer with Tom and Sue, we decided to duck tape my waterproof camera to a boat hook to video under the boat to be sure we didn't have any line of other lobster trapping machinery fouled in the propeller or rudder.    Both Bob and I were concerned after traversing the minefield of lobster pots, and especially since I may have run over a line at one point.

Bob's master cinematography resulted in a video of black, black a little bit more black and then some slightly tea coloured light spots (academy nomination is coming for sure!).  We were able to find, using single frame advance, a couple of frames that showed that the propeller, strut, and zincs were all intact and not fouled.  (video to be posted later ... not!)

Very nice, Irving funded, marina building

The next day both Bob and I did oil changes and engine checks and I did find some debris in the strainer and that my water pump belt was too loose. Luckily, it was one of those easy fixes.

resident Great Blue Heron
catching breakfast

John, the marina Manager, knows Cheryl Barr and her parents.  Cheryl wrote the guide book we have been using religiously on this trip.   John also knows everything about the area and possibly everyone here too. He is very helpful and knowledgeable, and pretty-much has a story about everything.

Harbour was full of "Moon Jellies"

Speaking of the marina, this place is one of the nicest places we've been. The docks were nice and the building nicely appointed, which John keeps immaculate. It was an old Irving oil warehouse that was relocated to this site (previously the site of an old Irving sawmill ... hence the Sawmill Point Boat Basin).  Located 1 km outside the town, means the marina has no casual traffic except for people who have boats there.  During our entire stay, there were very few people there at all, and we had the lovely inside, with fireplace, mostly to ourselves.

Christmas ornament?

Tom and Sue returned the next day in hopes of a sail. Sailing conditions were not favourable, so they kindly took us for provisions, and then on a driving tour of the area, including the Irving arboretum and along the shoreline to the Irving Eco Centre - La Dune de Bouctouche Beach entrance.

Anchor capital of N.B.!  Ten old ship anchors around the marina and arboretum.  These are from a collection of one of the Irving sons.   We asked John about the origin of these anchors was, but other being from an Irving collection, it seems no-one remembers where they came from.

Canada Day entertainment

Since this was where we were spending Canada Day, we took part of some of the mid-day celebrations in Bouctouche.   A local musician sang songs, while we waited for the day to be kicked off by a short speech from the Mayor, raising of the flag by local veterans and an appearance by the local constabulary in his red surge.

This was all topped off by free hotdogs!!!