Another Day in Baddeck

July 23

Windy and raining this morning. There seems to be a lot of wind here in the lakes.

Staying in Baddeck another day. At least those horrible fishing boats left.

We are on the public wharf so it is quite busy with people walking up and down the wharf. There is a large sail boat on the end of wharf that does tours about five times a day. Bus loads of people come from cruise ships.

This morning we walked up to the Alexander Graham Bell museum. He of course invented the telephone, and many other things so we learned, such as a hydro foil boat and an airplane. He lived with his family in Baddeck. We all enjoyed the museum. Noah was fascinated by the airplane.

On the way back to the boat we found an awesome food truck - Stand up and Get Stuffed. Awesome Haddock wraps and Noah had grilled cheese with a hamburger inside. Best thing about Baddeck so far has been the food.

Our plan is to head tomorrow to St. Peter's canal and set off early Monday morning for Halifax, so we needed to do some provisioning.

The harbour is a nice place to kayak so I went out for another spin. Noah joined me near shore for his first kayak ride.
















Sterling pan fried some delicious haddock he got at the fish market for dinner. Family movie and sleep over night in Noah's cabin tonight. Lots of family fun! 

Oh no. Those horrible fishing boats showed back up at 830 pm and blasted awful music until 1030 pm. What a nightmare.  They must have played "If I Caught a Million Lobsters" about 12 times!

To Kelly's Cove and Back

July 22

Early this morning I went for a kayak ride around the Baddeck harbour. Then we all went for a nice walk along the waterfront board walk.

The plan for today is boat up the great bras d'or channel towards Kelly Cove to visit my friend Allan who just retired from DFO.
Noah and I had a good game of go fish on the way up.

The boating book says that Kelly cove is a nice place to anchor and there is a wharf to tie up at. The only exception is that in a southerly wind it is a challenging place to boat and dock. Well guess what. We had a southerly wind and a changing tide. What a nightmare. I swear that the wind was clocking in at 40 km. Well there was no place to dock on the wharf and the wind was fierce. We waved to Allan and gunned it out of there before the wind took us towards the shore.

Well back to Baddeck we go and with the wind it was going to take us 2.5 hours to get back. (Twice as long as going up).  We took a lot of water coming over the boat on the way back. I got soaked on the bow bringing in the fenders after our aborted docking.

Our nice slip at the marina was taken so we had to tie up on the public wharf. Allan drove down to Baddeck to visit. It was nice to catch up.

Baddeck has lost it's charm to fishing boats arrived to party and played horrible music until 10 pm. Not very fun.

Baddeck

July 21

It's a beautiful day and no wind in the forecast. A good day to cross the bras d'or lake to Baddeck.

We left St. Peter's around 9 am and we were in Baddeck before lunch. Baddeck is a super cute town. We strolled down Main Street and visited the shops. Then Noah did some beach combing on the waterfront. There was a tiny beach area and he was happy wading in the water, skipping rocks and collecting starfish in a bucket. It was a really hot day so Noah was happy to cool off.

We enjoyed our day in Baddeck.  We bought some fresh scallops at the fish market and cooked them for dinner. Yummy.

Blowing a Gale

July 20.

It's a bit breezy today. We headed out as far a Cape George Harbour where we anchored for lunch. It was very windy so we decided to head back to St Peter's.

The high winds had not been forecast. But they were pretty intense, gusting up to 30 knots. A good day to tie up at the dock.

Noah caught his first fish.  We did catch and release.  He was so proud.

We decided to check out the Bras d'or Inn for dinner and had an amazing meal. The scallops were delicious. Noah said they were so good he was going to explode.

St. Peter's

July 19

Today was a layover day in St Peter's. The crew started the morning swabbing the deck. A family event.

The Noah got out his bike and we explored the town. The marina is a nice facility but the town itself is very small and quiet. The biggest highlight was a huge park and running track. We did family races around the track. Noah is getting fast.

Souris to St. Peter's

After a long drive from Ottawa, we arrived in Souris late Saturday night.  Sunday we loaded up the boat and got ready for our trip.

We went for one last trip to Basin Head beach. We did some beach combing and collected more shells for our collection.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving PEI. We have really enjoyed playing on the Island.

July 18

Monday morning we left the dock at 8 am to cross the Northumberland Straight to Cape Breton.  One last view of the Souris lighthouse and we were off.

It was a great crossing. A pretty calm day and we were able to cruise at 18 knots. We saw several whales in the middle of the straight.

We arrived at Canso Causeway at 1145 and entered into the lock. It is a large lock and you don't tie on. We just stayed in the centre. There is also a swing bridge that was lifted for us to go under.

We then entered Lennox Passage. It is a well buoyed channel but the are lots of shoals so we needed to follow the buoys closely. Noah had his first navigation lesson. He helped mommy identify the buoys on the chart and then find them in the water and help daddy navigate to the port or starboard of the buoys.

We arrived at the Burnt island bridge to find it closed. There is no longer a bridge master to lift it. Time to check the book. It said a clearance of 19 foot ( we need 18) so we slowly inched our way in under the bridge. Plenty of clearance.

We made way for St. Peter's lock the entrance way to the Bras d'or lakes. The lock is run by Parks Canada and it's free. Woohoo. It is a quick lock with a water level change of about 3 feet.

Once through the lock it is a short distance to St Peter's Marina. We arrived at about 3 pm. A long day and a great journey.

The marina was busy. Lots of sailboats were there for the Race the Cape sailboat race that starts on Tuesday.

Summer 2016

Well we have decided to continue on and complete the Down East Circle tour rather than return back to Ottawa the same way we came.  We are going to spend summer 2016 enjoying the Bras d'or Lakes and the South Shore of Nova Scotia to set ourselves up to come back via the United States next summer.

Our home port for the early part of the summer was Souris Marina.  It is a lobster fishing community and a good facility for launching a boat and setting up for a trip.

 

We were able to travel to Souris for the May long weekend and the July 1st weekend.  Peggy, Gerard, Abby and Ella joined us for the Canada Day weekend and we headed to Montague for Montague Days.  What a time we had.  There was a community parade, bouncing castles, pony rides, wagon rides and outdoor concerts.  We had a blast.

Journey to Souris

On Labour Day weekend, Wallace and Linda joined us in PEI for the weekend to wind down the summer. We needed to move the boat to Souris on the North East side of the Island to the travel lift to get her hauled out for the winter. Sterling, Wallace and Linda did the trip around the Island. They had a good journey overall and it took them about 6 hours. The beginning of the trip was a little stressful as they had to dodge lobster pots, but once they got under the Confederation bridge things settled down. The last part of the journey was a bit windy, but a good trip overall and the crew enjoyed their day. Noah and I drove the van over to Souris and spent the last day of summer holidays at Basin Head beach. We had a great day making sand castles and enjoying the good weather.

 
 

 

 

Noah and I met the travellers on the dock.  Knotica 3 had arrived at her winter home.  It has been an amazing summer.  We've seen so many wonderful sites in Canada.  Can't wait for next summer!