SVJoli: Halifax, 8/5/19 through 8/8/19

Monday, 8/5/19 Owl’s Head Bay to Halifax

We left Owl’s Head Bay at 8:30 and the poor engine blower sounded like it was on it’s last leg. After stopping and starting it a few times, it sounded OK enough to run it. Rather than beat into the wind the whole way, we decided to take a long tack out onto the ocean and a long tack into Halifax. The strategy was partially successful but we still had to motor into the wind and waves along the shoreline for the last 7 miles. We were docked at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron by 5:30 pm. It was a beautiful part of the city, with large homes lining both sides of the channel.

In Halifax, we rented a pick-up truck since that was the only thing available on short notice. We ran errands, including a stop at the Binnacle where we bought a new engine blower, some hardware and some line; the grocery store; liquor store; and Wal-Mart and we both got much-needed haircuts at First Choice. We walked along the waterfront and through downtown a couple different times and visited the maritime museum which we really enjoyed. Reading about the Halifax explosion of 1917 brought tears to my eyes. Over 2000 people were killed and the north part of the city was leveled when a ship carrying explosives collided with another ship in a narrow part of the river. Such devastation! I also learned that Halifax was the closest port to the Titanic disaster and the Halifax people were very active in rescue efforts and body recovery.

We enjoyed watching the boats leave from RNSYS for their Wednesday night race. They have a large racing fleet, including lots of J’s, Farrs, Mumms, and other “fancy racing sailboats”. There was a very large catamaran at the dock behind us, with a crew of 2 young men and 2 young women. We assumed the owner was coming soon because the crew was very busy on Tuesday getting fuel and cleaning the boat and Tuesday evening they had the boat, Namaste, all lit up. The RNSYS facilities were very nice and I did 3 loads of laundry. I met Shirsten and Steve from Dragonfly while doing laundry one morning. They live on their boat with 2 daughters and a dog and they plan on doing the Salty Dawg Rally to the Caribbean. So fun!

We continued to watch the weather to identify the best window to make the jump to Maine and it looked like the right time was to leave early Thursday morning. Wednesday was spent doing boat work, including replacing the engine blower, fueling up, rinsing off the salt and filling up the water tank. On Weds. evening, we had a couple visitors, Jill and Graham, who Bryan knew from Sailing Anarchy. They were very nice and brought us a Daily Rum Ration from Graham’s distillery, Compass Distillers. I thought it was funny that Jill commented, “It’s great that Graham finally met one of his imaginary (Internet) friends”. It was a fun close to our visit to Halifax.