A Rough Sail from Halifax to Shelburne, Nova Scotia

8/8/19
While enjoying Halifax, we continued to watch for a weather window to make the passage to Mount Desert Island, Maine. The prevailing winds along the east coast of Nova Scotia are out of the southwest. All of our jumps along the coast so far have been on the nose since we are sailing SW down the coast. From Halifax, it is about 130 NM southwest to the southern tip of Nova Scotia and then 125 NM northwest across the Gulf of Maine to Mount Desert Island. A low-pressure system was predicted to provide some westerly direction to the wind, so we decided the best time to leave was early Thursday morning, 8/8/19. Bryan was up at 5:15 for his shower and we were off our dock at Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron at 5:50 am.  It was cool, cloudy/foggy with a light breeze.  As we motored out the channel towards the ocean, the waves were stacking up and by the time we reached the ocean, they were 10 feet and very close together. Yikes!!  It helped stabilize our motion a little when we turned along the shore and unrolled our jib but the waves were averaging 10 -12 feet with a 15-footer thrown in every once in a while. It was also cold and gray - NOT a pleasant day on the water. After several hours, Bryan looked for a spot towards the southern tip of Nova Scotia that we could pull in to rather than going the whole way to Maine. We decided to go to Shelburne, which looked like a great harbor and a good spot to make the jump into Maine. By afternoon, the wind had built to 20 knots and we we going steady 10 knots so we switched to the “Cute Little Jib” (CLJ) on the inner forestay. We made it up into Shelburne Harbor by evening and anchored in the dark at 9:15.

We spent the next three days in Shelburne and really enjoyed it.  The people at the Shelburne Yacht Club were friendly and welcoming.  We were anchored off the yacht club marina and for a small fee we could use the yacht club facilities.  Unfortunately, they had a fire in their main building several months ago, but there were showers in the "learn to sail" building and they had a trailer set up for their bar.  We joined several members two times for happy hour and it was fun hearing about fishing and other local activities from them.

We watched the junior race team, or maybe "learn to sail" kids have a fun race on Friday afternoon.  We had a traditional Salt Cod Dinner (Salt Cod, mashed potatoes and turnips with bacon & onions over all) at the Sea Dog Tavern and celebrated our anniversary on Saturday night with a very delicious dinner at Charlotte Lane Cafe.  We also took a hike to the Boxing Rock Brewery and walked back to the marina with 2 12-packs of beer.  We had met the owner of the brewery at the yacht club, where they served Boxing Rock Red Beer which was quite tasty.

Fun race for the juniors on Friday

Joli looking tres joli in Shelburne Harbor 

Surf & Turf for Bryan and Lobster & Scallops for me at Charlotte Lane Cafe

Liquid desert (scotch sampler) and chocolate/carmel cake

The Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore was filmed in Shelburne, Nova Scotia in the 1990's.  A steeple was added to this building to make it the church in the movie.

Sign from Boxing Rock Brewery