9-30-10 Halifax to Chester

Thursday- Very foggy

Ann writes:

Today we saw 2 tunas jumping out of the water and 3 seals. It was extremely foggy when we left Halifax, and the Sambro Light disappeared into the fog. It was a white-out, so I went below to nap and still couldn't see anything when I came back on deck 2 hours later.

Finally around 3 pm, the fog was lifting from Mahone Bay and we could begin to see Little and big Tancock Island. There was a huge, unattractive motor yacht anchored near a large estate, and as we were watching, a helicopter landed on the deck. We snared a Chester Yacht Club mooring, but the yacht club was deserted when we went ashore. We walked around town, but almost by Jon's design, it was after 5 pm, so all the little shops were closed.

We had an excellent dinner at the Rope Loft- a delicious lobster bisque, and good medium-rare hamburger (it's difficult to get Canadians to cook hamburgers anything less than medium). We had the added bonus of watching the the last sailing race of the year finish right at the restaurant.

Jon writes:

We navigated out of Halifax by Braille, turned down the Sambro channel running buoy to buoy in the fog. I would not have attempted it without GPS and radar, unfamiliar as I was with the area and its currents & many rocks. The wind rose to 6 knots by 1115, so we put up the sails. 15 minutes later I handed them again, as the wind died to 3 knots and the slatting in the left over Atlantic swell was too annoying. Up again at 1300 with about 7 knots, and we sailed the rest of the way to Chester.

View from the helm leaving Halifax

What happens if you don't pay attention

Fog finally clearing over Sandy Cove Pt., Mahone Bay

We picked up a mooring at the yacht club, but the club and in fact the entire town of Chester seemed shut for the season. Good dinner at the Rope Loft watching "The Last Damn Race of the Season" (as it was billed). A bit of wind that night in the mooring field coming from the south made the dinghy ride to and from the dock a bit wet. It would have been much quieter in the back harbor which is better protected from all directions and just as close to town.

Moored off the deserted Chester Yacht Club

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

9-29-10 Making New Friends in Halifax

Wednesday- Humid fog.

Ann writes:

Can't miss a morning at Starbucks if there's one nearby. The bona fide one on Sackville has free wireless, too. After catching up on email, I went to the Nova Scotia Art Museum. I especially liked the Folk Art Bird sculptures by Ralph Boutilier- they were built as whirligigs, but the bird images are strikingly real.

After tracking down the dahlia beds in the Public Gardens that I had missed the first time, I spent the afternoon gift shopping. Then we had a very nice visit from Jane & Jamie Morrison and Glen Brunt. They seemed to enjoy touring the boat, and they took us to dinner at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron where we met up with Glen's wife Deb. I thought the food was quite good, and we found out that Jamie and Jane were Apple fans too, having been in the desktop publishing business from the very beginning.

There was a terrible Bob Dylan wanna-bee wailing on the dock when we got back. Fortunately he stopped singing at 11 pm.

Jon writes:

Great dinner at the RNSYS, and great to meet face-to-face long time fellow Nonsuch owners. Glen and Deb keep their boat in Mahone Bay are were able to give us some up to date information for the area.

A cormorant dries and stretches in preparation for another day of boat sullying

'Anomaly' berthed with the HMCS Corvette 'Sackville'

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mount Desert Island, Maine

9-28-10 More Halifax

Tuesday- Foggy

Ann writes:

We had a good breakfast at Perk's especially if you like strongly maple-flavored bacon. Jon led onwards to the Starbucks in the nearby Marriott, but as with the habit of Starbucks in hotels, there the wireless internet was not free.

Halifax has all kinds of things to do and explore. I overheard that there are 5 universities and 7 colleges here, so there is a youthful quality to the venues.

The maritime museum was packed with tourists just off the bus, so we decided to come back later for FREE admission on Tuesdays after 5:30. Instead I dragged Jon into the Dancing Beaver where I found amazing watercolors by Inae Kim and Julie Wilson. Kim's 'Snow on the Lake' is pretty amazing for a watercolor.

We did some provisioning at Pete's on Dresden where we found big chunks of Cows Cheddar as the clerk in the Cows ice cream shop had advised. I grabbed an avocado sushi and continued on my own to find Atlantic News which did have Kerry Brown's notecard "Elsie" I let her know by email, however, that they didn't have the "full selection" of her cards as she had believed. The Nova Scotia Liquor Store had Bailey Irish cream for about 50% more than the U.S.

I had a sugar and cinnamon Beaver Tail, really a cross between a donut and a waffle. There had been a booth in Tobermory last year, but it was closed for the season, so I wanted to try one. Later I cooked an early pasta dinner before we visited the Maritime Museum. I could have spent more time there, but we went on to the Shakespeare performance. The pair playing Juliet and Romeo were very good, and the overall performance was just a bit rushed and uneven, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

It makes me appreciate the quality of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, even tho' I'm not very happy with them at the moment. Every year at about this time, they start calling non-stop- I'm sure to ask me to renew or some such stupid thing, and I find this incredibly annoying. First of all, I'm out of the country, so it costs me $$ to pick up that call. I don't like unsolicited phone calls in any case, and I even emailed subscriber services where they promised to mark my file as such. However, the phone calls have continued, and I'm considering dropping my subscription altogether.

This is the only moose we saw in all of Canada

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

9-27-10 Halifax does not disappoint.

Monday- brisk and sunny

Ann writes:

     We found a Starbucks before we even expected one on Sackville, but first we got tickets to the production of Rome & Juliet at the Neptune Theater.

Halifax waterfront in the backgound

     After grabbing a real mocha buried in Canadian whipped cream (yum!), we explored Arglye, the Paperchase news store, and the shops on Spring Garden Road. I took Jon's picture at the 1 Starbucks Jon didn't visit the entire time we were in Halifax

Civilization!

The entrance to the Public Gardens is at the end of Spring Garden road. The garden is a lovely tranquil place with many beautiful trees, flower beds, a lake and the biggest, fattest geese I have ever seen. The two Toulouse Dewlapped Geese, Finnegan (male) and Flora (female)", are so fat they have huge double chins and their bellies drag on the ground.

A well fed goose

On the other side of the garden is the Halifax Citidel, and we showed up just in time for the 12:30 tour in english, which I insisted we follow over Jon's protests of starvation. Our tour was led by an excellent guide who said he was one of the supervisors.




We learned:

• Kilts differ from skirts in that you wear something under a skirt.
• There are 4 seasons in Halifax- Almost winter, Winter, Still Winter and Road Work
• Pigeons are really day bats.

Standing guard at the Citadel in kilts

Finally had lunch at Q, a BBQ place that was not great- strange gravy on the brisket. We went back to move the boat to a hopefully less bouncy spot on Sackville landing which turned out to still be subject to incoming wakes and waves. On the way, I stopped to talk to artist Don Manning who gave me lots of tips, including that DeSerres art store is just a few blocks away. I bought some of his bookmarks and notecards of harbor scenes.

As soon as we were settled again, I dragged Jon off to see tugboat Theodore II- it's just soooo cute! 

We explored the shops beyond the ferry bldg. then went back to The Lower Deck for a bowl of seafood chowder and the blueberry grunt, which still turned out to be too much food. I guessed it's called a grunt because you feel like a pig after eating it!

However, as borrowed liberally from King Arther Flour:

First you take a quart of blueberries (Cape Cod aside, wild blueberries grow in profusion on low, scrubby bushes scattered over rather barren land in Maine and all over the Northeast; the tiny tart ones from Maine are by far the most famous.)... preferably, tart Maine blueberries, stir in some sugar and water and put them in an iron spider (a cast iron skillet) or casserole dish that can sit on a burner. (Grunts used to be cooked in an open cast iron Dutch oven over the coals of a fire.) Then you top the berries with blobs of biscuit dough and let it cook very slowly.

As the concoction begins to heat, bubbles slowly work their way up from the bottom of the pot to break through the biscuit dough topping. The small snufflings you hear from the pot on top of the stove today probably sounded like a significant grunting of pigs in the huge cast iron pots that were used 300 years ago.

Jon writes:

After exploring the possibilities, we moved three blocks downtown to the Pilotage Wharf, a bit quieter both on land and sea, and almost no seagulls. Just the Pilot boats coming and going at all hours. We were again among civilization, for the first time in nearly a month - there were 3 Starbucks within walking distance!

Three blocks down at Pilotage Wharf - no seagulls and still downtown

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

9-26-10 Halifax lifts our spirits

Sunday- Another gloomy day in Liscomb. I'm sure it's very nice in better weather, but I will always remember it as a camera eater.

Ann writes:

I think we both were very happy to see Halifax. I don't normally think of myself as a city girl, but the first sign of real civilization since Charlottetown was very encouraging. There were all kinds of interesting things to look at, and even the sun came out.

It was pretty dark by the time we got settled right next to Murphy's on Cable Wharf, so we popped right up for a nice chowder and I had the lobster wrap which was fairly good, although we continue to marvel at how much Canadian restaurant food costs.




Jon writes:

Motored out of liscomb river and were able to raise sail in the bay and sail all the way to Halifax, ghosting into the harbor on a dying breeze. 

Entering Halifax harbor on a dying breeze

On the way I was able to call the waterfront harbormaster and determine that there was dockage available on the downtown waterfront. The alternative was the Northwest Arm of the bay, most of the yacht clubs are here but it is some distance from downtown. We struck sail in front of Cable Wharf downtown, tied to the float  and walked up to Murphy's restaurant built on the wharf. The good news about the waterfront berth is you are right downtown in a compact, walkable provincial capitol city (in this respect it was similar to Quebec City and Charlottetown). The bad news is that it is quite busy with cruise boat tourists, street musicians and the like; and not well protected from the surge working into the harbor from the sea as well as the many wakes from ferries and shipping that run all night. The particular case of Cable Wharf also had a plethora of seagulls, with their associated detritus. 

Murphy's Cable Wharf on the Halifax waterfront - dinner was not far away!

'Anomaly' is center frame on Cable Wharf, from the Citadel

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

9-25 Bad day for Ann

Saturday- rain, fog, drizzle, showers, no sun

Ann writes:

     I had to cook breakfast since the Lodge didn't have any reasonable breakfast items. They seemed to be more set up with buffets for conferences with little to offer individuals at a reasonable price.

     By noon, it looked less drizzly so we decided to hike the Liscombe trail. This turned out to be a bad mistake for me. They blamed the trail condition on the recent hurricane, but I don't think you can fix slippery rocks, tree limbs and bogs. Every 10th step was a real struggle over the 6 mile course that was advertised as 4. My ankles started to give way after 3 1/2 hours and I just wanted to get out of there. Finally, I really whacked my head on a tree branch, and I must have brushed against something else because the next time I took my camera out, the LCD screen was broken. The camera actually still works, but you can't see what you're aiming at, or any of the controls since everything uses that screen. What a bonehead thing to do; I am so upset! I just want to go home...

Jon on the suspension bridge before  Ann broke her camera

The tree on the trail that did Ann in

Jon writes:

The trail started out for the first 2 miles as a smooth graveled path, then suddenly decayed into a scramble over roots, slippery rocks, downed trees, and bogs. And of course half way through it began to rain. It was a pretty place though, and would have been much more so in the sun, I'm sure.

Liscomb River at the Lodge

Beautiful trail - for 1.5 miles or so!

Trail? Actually, much better than bush whacking, but not a stroll, either...

The cascade of dark tea water at the top of the trail

I guess it wouldn't be Nova Scotia without a little moisture?

'Anomaly' is currently on the hard in Somes Sound, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

9-24 Country Harbour to Liscombe Mills

Friday- grey drizzle, cool and wet.

Ann writes:

     I'm still dozing a lot; I don't see how I can sleep so much. Maybe the drugs are still in my system. The only points of interest were the Cranberry Point Lighthouse that has a strangely shaped outbuilding next to it, and the bald eagle we disturbed in the channel on the way in.  We arrived at Liscomb Lodge marina around 3, and Chester answered the radio and came to help us tie up. Said he'd worked there 33 years.

Liscomb Light at Cranberry Point on Liscomb Island

    We tried to warm up with specialty coffees in the lounge. There was no fireplace and 2 drinks were over $20. Dinner later was very expensive and Jon's planked salmon was dry. My Digby scallops were good, but the chive risotto was a bit undercooked and tasteless. I'd recommend the blueberry crumble over the chocolate trio.

     It's quite wet and grey which doesn't help the ambiance. The river is nice even though the organic matter gives it quite a tawny brown appearance. Liscombe Lodge has a large building with hotel style rooms, but I'd go for the little cabins along the river if I had to pick. They're really cosy looking and it looks like each one has it's own fireplace.

Jon on lawns sloping down to Liscomb River

Ann admiring the hydrangeas

BTW- this area can't seem to agree whether the spelling is Liscomb or Liscombe.

Jon writes:

After weighing anchor and getting the thick mud washed off the anchor and chain, we began motoring in light winds down the coast 30 miles to Liscomb. The Liscomb Lodge is about 8 miles up the harbor and river, and is a large hotel and conference center run by the province of Nova Scotia. The channel is narrow but marked, and we arrived at a somewhat ramshackle dock wondering if that was really it. But Chester, the marina manager for 30 years answered on VHF to say go ahead and tie up, just don't tie to the Hurricane Earl damaged bits. We were the only one there in what is supposed to be a very popular spot. You get the run of the resort (hiking trails, indoor pool, etc.) included in your $40 berthing fee. We ate at the restaurant famed for its cedar planked salmon (perhaps living on its reputation?).

View of 'Anomaly' in the Liscomb River from the restaurant deck

If you were looking for a secluded quiet week in the woods, this might be a good place. The setting is beautiful and the cabins are oh-so-cute.


'Anomaly' is currently lying Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine