We are back in Halifax and arrived again to rain and fog! We had a great time at home and finally experienced some summer weather. We are beginning to think that it may be the only summer we get. We had a great time at home and saw quite a few friends and family. I made it up to Sault Ste. Marie to see my mom for a couple of days which was great as it has been a while since I have seen her.
We brought Bruce's son Trevor and his girlfriend back to Halifax with us as he was on holidays and Allison had just finished university and really needed a break after a couple years of solid school! As I mentioned, we arrived to rain and fog but since we had not planned on going out until the next day, we didn't let it bother us too much. We rented a car at the airport and on the way back to the boat we stopped in Sackville to pick up our brand new 2.5 horsepower engine. I didn't know I could get so excited about a new toy but we now had wheels so to speak to get from our boat to shore again. This would make anchoring out enjoyable again especially since we now had a working generator. Before we left for home Bruce had washed all the boat and left it all clean for our return, so clean that the birds fell in love with it and must have spent many hours crapping all over it. The boat was just covered in bird poop so the first thing was to wash it all over again. Of course that chore went to the newest crew member, Trevor. The captain just loves delegating chores. Thank goodness it had been raining for a while and it wasn't too baked on. I think you get the picture. Bruce had gone to a sail maker and found someone who would sail our ripped sail cover in a couple of hours so we dropped off the sail cover and went for groceries and picked it up on our way home. We were feeling good that we now had everything fixed that we wanted fixed before we started out again when we found our anemometer lying on the deck of the boat . How it didn't fall in the water we will never know! Bruce will have to go up the mast again unless he can find another mast monkey to do it for him, so everything is not fixed yet. We decided to drive the car into Halifax and drop it off downtown as the Busters were on in Halifax. We would then take the ferry back and a cab to the boat. The weather was so bad however that when we got downtown wearing all our rain gear, the Busters had been cancelled due to bad weather. We walked around, had dinner and went back to the boat fairly early as we were all tired as we had gotten up at 4 a.m. to catch the flight and Trevor and Allison had gone to bed at 2 a.m. Even the young people need more than 2 hours sleep at night.
We woke up the next morning to you guessed it, fog and rain. We were not in a hurry to leave as we were only going about 40 miles to Chester and the weather forecast called for the fog to lift about noon. We pulled out of the harbor about noon and it didn't look too bad till we passed the first bridge and we couldn't see much. There was a boat following us and we called them to see where they were going and they were going the same place as us. They were from Halifax and used to navigating the harbor in fog so we thought we would take advantage of the local knowledge and follow them! Poor Allison, her first time sailing the Atlantic and we had fog the whole way. We had hoped to take the Sambro Channel which would have cut some and is supposed to be a good channel to spot some whales, but the fog was too thick to see all the markers so we went the long way around. As we approached shore we expected to come out of the fog as this was what usually happened to us but this time we had fog all the way in. It was really ere approaching an anchorage when you can't see any boats around you. Again we were very thankful for our chart plotter as Bruce, Trevor and Allison watched for other boats and I drove into the anchorage! What an initiation cruise for Allison. We may stop getting company if these things keep happening! We now have a new first to add to our list of firsts - first time anchoring in fog! Since it was too foggy to take the dinghy to shore or even find shore, we had a great dinner and went to bed early to finally catch up on our sleep.
We finally woke up to sunshine on Wednesday morning and to a beautiful view of the area. We decided to stay put for the day and explore Chester. It is a very busy town this week as it is Chester Race Week and I think everyone with a sailboat is here his week. We met up with Scott and Marie Sterling from PCYC (Texas Belle) who are here with their kids helping out with race week. We also went to the bar in town that my cousin Byron's brother-in-law Tim (Sue's brother) and his wife Monica owns and met up with him and his wife and family. It is the second oldest bar in Nova Scotia and the oldest in a rural town (Picture to follow.) Chester is a cute little town and we enjoyed spending the day. We had hoped to go back for some nightlife later but the winds picked up and we changed our minds as we thought we would get too wet going back and forth in the dinghy. When we got back to the boat we tried to fire up our GPS and for some reason it would only bring up the first page and then shut itself down. We tried it a couple more times and nothing. This is the worst possible piece of equipment to have not working! It is almost impossible to try to navigate thou fog without it and a good day can turn foggy in an instant here. It is also bad timing as we have company and would like to travel around the Bay. Why do these things always seem to happen to us at the worst possible time???
Thursday was another great sunny day but we couldn't go anywhere till we made arrangements to have the GPS fixed. The company telephone support is in California and did not open until 0800 which is 1200 here. We called and they told us that they have never heard of this problem before and we should pack it up and send it back. This was kind of what we were expecting as there are very few authorized service dealers around. The closes one is in Vancouver. We went to Tim's bar and talked to Tim about using his car for the day and possibly going into Fedex in Halifax to send it back. While there, Bruce met up with someone who knew someone in Halifax who sold the same GPS system that we had and gave Bruce his phone number. Bruce called the guy and he said he would bring us a new GPS on Friday and send the old one back to California for us to be fixed. This meant that we would now own 2 GPS's but we figured it was better than waiting for one and we would always have a spare which we probably will never need if we have it. The GPS problem solved, we decided to take Tim and Monica up on the offer of their car and drive to Lunenburg and Mahone Bay. We had a great day exploring the area by car and again were very happy that we have met such great people who are always willing to help out when you need it. We dropped the car off and went in to have a drink. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. By the time we finished our drink, the fog had rolled in. It is impossible to imagine how quickly the weather changes here. We made a beeline for the dinghy and headed back to the boat while we could still find it. I forgot to mention that while going to shore to call around about our GPS, we ran out of gas in the dinghy. Of course the spare gas was on the boat as the guy we bought the dinghy from told us a tank of gas would last about 4 or 5 hours and we had only used the dinghy for under 2 hours. I do have to mention that I did suggest we take it with us the first day and was told we wouldn't need it. I do hate to say I told you so!! We got a tow into the club and things could have been a lot worse if we had brought the dinghy in the night before, we would have been stuck in the dark and wind trying to row ashore. We have really initiated Allison into the world of boating! She has been a great sport as this is the first time she has spent any time on a boat.
We were all snuggled in our beds on Thursday evening when a huge thunderstorm struck. It was the biggest storm I have ever been in. I got up and wanted to go to the cockpit to watch the storm but it was so severe, I couldn't get past the companionway! You could feel the electricity in the air and the lightning was so bright it hurt your eyes. The thunder and lightning were right on top of each other. The surprising part was that Trevor slept thou it! The storm lasted for at least an hour and a half!
Today, Bruce went to shore to meet the guy who was bring us the new GPS and it works!! Yes. We are back in business.



Lunch in Lunenburg at a great little pub and a picture of the Bluenose coming into port in Lunenburg.

Trevor is the only brave one to go swimming. The water temperature is 18 degrees!

Halifax harbor in the rain