St. Lawrence to Lawn (her view)

St. Lawrence is a busy fishing port with a busy fish processing plant. Seagull heaven. We were able to tie up to another fishing boat, which the guys said was not going anywhere for awhile. They have nice showers there and laundry facilites.

We attempted to leave here the next day, the Captain's plan was to go right to Baddeck from here; however when we tried going around the cape there were huge waves ( 20 to 30 feet high and there was one which we seemed to just keep climbing) and a nasty on the nose wind. We decided to turn back and wait another day. Even the crab fishermen were waiting for better seas.

St. Brides to St. Lawrence (her view)

Well we finally made it to St. Brides after a bit of a detour into St. Mary's Bay. We arrived just before dark and tied up to a fishing boat. Beautiful cliffs all around but too tired to take pictures.

The next morning the fisherman helped us turn the boat so we could get out (the harbor was pretty crowded) and set out to cross Placentia Bay. Upon leaving we got the Newfoundland nod from the fisherman who helped us out.

Crossing Placentia Bay was beautiful, wall to wall sunshine (and calm seas) as Maurice would say. If we had checked the weather we might have kept going but instead we headed for St. Lawrence to take a break.

Trepassey to St Brides

Here is Karin at the helm doing her 30 minutes as I was doing an hour where by then I would plot our course on the paper chart. Because our auto pilot was not working we had to hand steer. With having to do this we were able to get a better feel as to how Artful handled the different sea conditions and winds, even though it was a hard way to learn. Once we got to Trepassey the wind was on our port side blowing at about 15 knots. This resulted in us being blow onto the dock which we dock on our star board side. We were lucky there was a chap who also was traveling who caught our lines. He was heading on to St John's he has brought his new boat he had bought all the way from Florida. With the wind and sea conditions as they were, it was a rough night being rocked about as well meant for a waited moment in the morning when we were able to get off the dock and on our way to St Brides in the morning. Our departure was around 6:30. This was also the leg to Trepassey of which we went around Cape Race we were amazed how the wind was on our Starboard side and shifted that way all around the cape.

Fermeuse to Trepassey

This is us tide off to a fishing boat in Fermeuse Harbour, was a good calm place, with a restaurant close by and as well some gasoline, as it was here that we started making use of our Honda 2000 generator. We found that one tank full would last a day for us which in terms of money was about $3.50. It was here where we also make our first of many attempts on our journey to Halifax to sort out our issues with our auto pilot. We were treated really great here, which started with such treatment through out our entire journey. We found it cold here as well so we kept our propane fireplace going, along with an electric blanket for the bed, I must say was a good item to have and sure recommend it to others as well, it was good for cuddling. After our day of rest we departed on the 17th of May with first again trying to swing our compass and fit the auto pilot, again didn't work, and if your not sure what I mean by swing our compass, we didn't swing it around our heads we sailed out into the harbour and turned the boat in a small circle, to try and set our boat deviation, more on that later in a post.

Our Day Of Departure from St John's Newfoundland

Breakfast at Cora's before our departure, with Randy, Karin, Steve senior and Steve Junior



















On deck for departure pictures







































Just leaving the dock, as we have turned and are heading out to the Narrows.



















Just entering the Narrows leaving the Harbour



















Also just entering the Narrows looking back into the Harbour

















Just now coming out of the Narrows and heading on over for Cape Spear, seas were not to bad here but we could see some waves ahead and they were breaking.

















In the Narrows also just entering the sea




















This is looking again back as we are leaving the Narrows and St John's Harbour.




The trip on an average sail would have taken us about 9 to 10 hours, but on this day with seas at about 9 to 10 feet on our Port side and breaking with also a 15 to 20 knot wind gusting at times to 30 plus knots we made our first leg of the trip in just 6 and a half hours. This was a good start although we realize we have to store things a little better as there was a bit of a mess inside the boat. So with that we decided we would spend a day of rest and get better organized in Fermeuse.

Some of our Many Friends From Newfoundland

Cake which Karin's place of employment had for us on her last day at work.

Cutting the cake

Wayne and Karin

Karin, Jerry, John, Dianna, Pat and Mike

Maurice, must say we our greatly indebted to this chap, a real true friend beyond measure.

Buds of mine Wayne and Dwayne, great guys

Tom from speedy, I'm still keeping count Tom, at least every day.

Dave Pike, great golfer and real good friend, he said we would never leave.

Moose, again another great person I worked with

Darrell, best fellow I've worked with and best sales guy at Speedy, good on you Darrell.

Quidi Vidi Office crew

Mike

Kim

Frankey, real great guy always trying to help you

Chris on the brewery line

Dave , would like to thank you for having us for 3 and half years

Barbara, we would also like to mention Ed Soper and Roy the Brew Master of Quidi Vidi Brewery, wasn't able to get pictures of them.

There are many more people but going forward in following posts will speak of them with respect to our times in Newfoundland.

Thanks to you all

Patric and Karin

On our Way

At the dock in St John's

Leaving St John's

Oil Rig Marrystown

Well its been about two weeks since we have been able to post anything here, as we have been sailing the east and southern shore of Newfoundland. Today we are at the Hotel Port Aux Basques where we have finally found some internet. Its been a hard two weeks inching along, having the weather controlling what we do. We are hoping that late Tuesday or Wednesday morning to push off over to Cape Breton. Once we get to a better spot for internet will upload some pics of what we have been seeing.

Cheers

Patric, Karin and Butch