Sailing Karma

This went on for the evening, the night, the morning, and the next day. The weather was chilly overnight as the dew point was hit but our newly made cockpit cover was helping keep things from getting entirely soaked through. Fog rolled in, not too thick, but it made it a pretty dark night. The following night was far warmer without the fog, but in the middle of the night we made the realization that we actually had only gone half the intended distance and therefore we'd entirely miss the good winds across the Gulf of St. Lawrence…. maybe it'd be best to detour?

One tack was the plan to semi back track to St. Peters, the town with the wee lock that goes into the south end of the Bras D'or lakes we passed through last year. We'd get there mid morning apparently. Turns out, in the ocean, making headway is wildly not nearly as possible as it is on flat water going dead up wind. We did 70 hard upwind miles tacking to make 16 miles towards the locks. We therefore arrived after the lock had closed actually. Once there though this turned out to be a blessing as we were allowed to stay tied alongside the lock for the night! What a cute little spot.

The harbour master from the marina inside the lakes came over to catch our lines as he saw us coming in. He said we were welcomed to walk over to the marina and use the showers and the like. How kind! We tied up along side and walked on over. On the way back we saw that SY Sutje hailing from Germany, which we saw in Halifax, was tied up in the marina. They had us onboard for a beer and conversation. Turns out they'd lived in Seattle in Capitol hill for a year a while back!

In hindsight we maybe should've just motored through the lakes and staged at the exit in the north right away, but after passing through on a lovely sunny, and windless, day, we were not keen on motoring so we only went 10 or so miles to an anchorage we had missed on our first go round through the lakes. With a tiny entrance opening up into what is sort of like a pond if it weren't connected to the rest of the lake system, this was our first real "nature" anchorage we realized. We took advantage of the silence by reading the day away in the cockpit.

We sailed the next day under the bridge and to Baddeck, the small town in the northern part of the lake. We somehow seemed to be early this year around, and like being late in the season last year we essentially saw no cruising boats in the Bras D'ors once again. Baddeck we stayed for a day to get a few things from the Home Hardware and some groceries, mainly hot dogs. The weather was looking decent to head out again and stage for exiting the lakes and heading to Newfoundland's south coast.

We drifted and sailed about heading up the channel with really flukey winds. About half way up they filled in in ernest but of course they were on the nose. We tacked our way up the three quarter wide channel making far better headway than the way into the lakes. Turns out Karma is decent up wind when the water is totally flat!

Passing under the bridge we anchored in an actually shallow spot along side a beach for the night to be ready to leave with the tide the following morning for an overnight sail of about 100nms or so to Newfoundland's south coast. Harbour Le Cou as the destination. In the mean time we painted the first two letters of the name Karma on the stern of the boat. Long over due.

We left and exited the channel, which can apparently have pretty gnarly currents, with ease. Flat clam, no wind, and a clear day not too much fog. There were definitely traps about but they were clear in the waveless water. The wind was more on the nose than expected but not too strong and we could actually head in the correct direction. So we were close hauled but in flat water essentially the whole way. Overall it was a rather pleasant trip. The wind grew for a few hours but not enough to kick up waves and we never took a reef and we just stayed on the same heading and sail plan the entire way. Not too cold or damp of a night either. Around 9am we were pretty close to the Newfoundland coast but the fog was settling in. Good Buddy Furuno helped as we approached the coast and the fog lifted.

Newfoundland has an entirely different feel geographically than Nova Scotia which is strange being as they're so close. There is a low tree line with short hardy looking trees, then it is hard looking rock with shrubs and rocks and stuff. Dramatic fjords being the name of the game. We entered the one with Le Cou and were in 50 meters not 20 meters from the high rock cliffs.

There is a huge waterfall around a few corners up the end of the fjord, which of course with our shallow draft we tried to maze our way in but chickened out. We stern tied just around the corner and really felt like we were somewhere new. Which we were, it's now entirely new territory (I guess excluding St. Johns) from here!