St. Pierre to Fortune

Early morning run with the wind behind us, and no fog. All went well until the we got to the mouth of Fortune Bay where the waters became choppy and confused making for a long uncomfortable entry into the Harbour.

We cleared customs here with a very nice custom's officer. It was a bit of walk around the dock to the town and we had access to some pretty nice showers.

We would also like to thank Jake Weymouth for finding the name of a book I had read once after lending it to someone, never got it back, have got it now and enjoying the read. A point of interest in all the ports we visited so far they have general stores with everything in them and a real good place to wander around and check out.

Our First European Country

Finally heading to St. Pierre in confused seas with 5 to 6 ft waves. We could see St. Pierre, most of the way, until we were engulfed with fog for the first time this trip.

Upon arriving we were welcomed by many people who were there on other sailboats and by quite friendly customs people.

Just a point I wish to add to Karin's report when we were trying to find the entrance to the harbour, it was Karin who said to me what is that bouy over there, and I replied that's the channel not this one, problem caused by our interface between chart plotter and Auto pilot.

Unfortunately the day we arrived it was a holiday on the Island and everything was closed. So no french bread, cheese or cheap liquour for us. We were told you can take a taxi drive anywhere in St. Pierre for a dollar. It would have nice to stay here an extra day but the Captain seemed to have put the schedule back into play.

Lawn to St. Pierre (still her view)

Well we finally made it around Cape Chapeau Rouge, Cape Rosie, Ferryland Head and Lawn Head. Throwing out the sailing schedule we decided that was far enough for today and decided to dock at Lawn for the night.

This actually turned out to be a few nights due to the weather again. This is were we met Fred Cox who preceded to take us under his wing and show us the town.

He helped us get water and diesel and drove us everywhere, back to St. Lawrence and then off to Marystown to see the oil platform being repaired there. He even supplied us with a bottle of wine.

Thanks for everything Fred.

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.