I had always imagined, looking at world globes and navigational charts, that the surface of the earth would somehow feel different the farther north you went. That perhaps gravity would pull you at a slanted angle, or that the horizon would look narrower as the longitude lines drew closer together. I imagined one would get shortness of breath or vertigo as the polar regions were approached. 

Not surprisingly, as far as those things go, everything seems the same even several hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. The horizon is as expansive as ever, water stays level in a glass, and my head is not swimming from lack of oxygen.

What is different, though—shockingly, disconcertingly different—is the perpetual daylight. Long before Polar Sun, the Stevens 47 we’re cruising in Greenland, reached the Arctic Circle, we had left the night behind. The last darkness we saw was when we left Flowers Cove, in northern Newfoundland, at 2 a.m. to catch the downtide to Mary’s Harbour in Labrador. After that, with the bows pointed north into the Labrador Sea, though the sun would briefly set, the twilight endured until it rose again just a little to the right of where it had gone down.

It was good that it should be so because there are icebergs about in late June in the Davis Strait, and though we didn’t see many, the ones we did see made us grateful for the light and a sharp lookout. There was little else to look out for, though. Between putting Labrador astern and fetching Greenland ahead five days later, we saw only one coastal ship between each place. It was a surprisingly benign passage at first, given what I’d been led to expect about the Davis Strait. For three calm and pleasant days, we alternated between the engine and the “whomper”—a huge, yellow ­asymmetrical spinnaker—and ­congratulated ourselves on our luck.

As luck will, it ran out two days from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. From just north of the aptly named Cape Desolation, we were treated to a strong following breeze with some confused cross swells that slammed the boat onto its beam ends every so often, and made heavy weather for the Hydrovane self-steering unit. It was a finicky business, tuning the vane, the deeply reefed sails and the helm so that everything would work together, but when we finally had it sorted, Polar Sun scooted along at 8 and 9 knots for hours on end without us touching either the wheel or the sheets. It was a good thing too because one of our number was down for the count, hugging a gently sloshing bucket of vomit in his bunk. The rest of us felt lucky if we could boil a kettle in the violently slamming boat to make ramen or coffee in a thermos without burning ourselves.

Even in the inner harbor of Nuuk, the wind was shrieking along the quays, making the boats tug restlessly at their warps. As is the custom in these parts, one that we got used to only with time, we rafted up to the first convenient tugboat and turned in. When you think about it, rafting up, especially to something big, is far preferable to grinding up and down a grubby commercial bulkhead with 15-foot tides giving your spring lines and fenders a workout. Better to let them deal with the headache of the inside tie, and ride up and down tied comfortably short. 

Besides, it’s a great way to make new friends. Farther north, in Ilulissat, we wound up in a six-deep raft-up, which made for quite the jolly social scene as everyone crawled over each other’s boats to get to and from the fish wharf.

I had expected Greenland to be much like northern Newfoundland and Labrador in the way of food and groceries, which is to say more packaged food than fresh, and more burger-and-fry joints than other sorts of restaurants. And once again, my imagination was incorrect. Being still heavily Danish, the grocery stores are crammed with European as well as Greenlandic foods, and best of all are the ubiquitous bakeries full of fresh bread and pastries. While the restaurant prices might raise the eyebrow of the cruiser accustomed to street tacos in Mexico or pupusas in El Salvador, the food is quite good, and we tried musk ox and reindeer and whale, as well as codfish and halibut. There is a bent toward the gourmet in the preparation and presentation that initially struck me as out of place in what should have been rough-hewn fishing towns, but that was just me projecting preconceived notions again.

I had no notions or ideas about what to expect of the coast between Nuuk and Disko Bay, nor could I have imagined the snow-girdled mountains that rise straight from 100-fathom fjords to 3,000-foot peaks. And not just once, mind you, but everywhere you look, for days and days as you cruise north. There is an inshore passage that begins about 50 miles north of Nuuk, and treads a winding, sheltered path behind coastal islands and through narrow, winding tickles scarcely twice the beam of the boat. This route crosses many fjords, and you can pick one at random and explore—up, up, along water ever more aquamarine, until at the head, the glacier can be seen, pressing a wall of ice toward the water and sending frozen chunks out along the silty glacial stream.

We alternated between anchoring in remote coves and tying up to commercial docks in villages. It’s luxurious, with perpetual daylight, not having to hurry to get somewhere before dark or to get up before dawn to catch a fair tide. But it’s terrible for the sleep schedule, and your daily rhythms go all sideways. Breakfast at noon? Why not, if the next boat in the Sisimiut raft-up was partying till 3 a.m. and heffalumping back and forth across your deck in clunky sea boots. Coffee at midnight? Why not, if you’re still in brash ice, three hours from Aasiaat, and calving icebergs have strawed your path with growlers and bergy bits. We eventually found it preferable to arrive and tie up after working hours—there was less bustle in the harbor, and whomever we rafted to was unlikely to be about to cast off and leave.

Aasiaat is on the southern shore of Disko Bay, the center of Greenland’s tourism industry. At the back end of the bay, a river of ice 30 miles long empties its bergs into open water. From there they fan out, drifting slowly with wind and tide so that, as far as the eye could reach, as we sailed north toward Disko Island, huge mountains of ice floated in solemn silence on water 200 fathoms deep. After stops at the secluded Whale Fish Islands and in Godhavn, we finally reached the real prize of Disko Bay.

Situated at the very mouth of the fjord from which all the bergs issue, Ilulissat is guarded by a barrier of floating ice chunks that looks impenetrable when approaching from seaward. This band of concentrated ice was 5 miles wide when we crossed it, and extended for dozens of miles both north and south. Bergs of all sizes floated amid myriad smaller pieces, but an intricate path could be woven between them, avoiding all but the smallest brash. Even when the way ahead looked shut, if you carried on, there was always an opening. 

All adventure has some risk, and if we were going to sail into the Northwest Passage, ice was one danger we were going to have to get used to.

 Back in the States, people had shown us diagrams of the closest safe approach to ice, which had proved ludicrous already in the narrow tickles south of Aasiaat, and were now simply laughable as we passed an arm’s length from hundreds of bergs of all shapes and sizes. Was it safe?  Who knows—it’s a long shot whether a berg will calf or roll in quiet water while you’re next door—but what choice did we have? All adventure has some risk, and if we were going to sail to Baffin Island and from there into the Northwest Passage, ice was one danger we were going to have to get used to.

We couldn’t have chosen a better place to acclimatize to ice than Ilulissat. More days than not, smaller bergs come bumbling into the harbor with the tide, and often, as they drifted back out, we had to direct them away from the boats with some special ice poles I had made. They were mostly harmless in the calm water of the harbor, but a passing wake would set the smaller ones knocking on the hull and have us out with the ice poles again.

Chasing Icebergs in Greenland

Beyond Ilulissat and Disko Bay, the coast of Greenland stretches northward, ever more remote and frozen, and is visited only rarely by cruising sailors. Farther yet, it becomes a land where both sea and air are freezing all year long, and even icebreakers with supplies for the handful of settlements are seasonal and occasional at best.  

I’ll cruise that direction someday, perhaps, but for this trip, our northing in Greenland was done, and Polar Sun’s path lay to westward across Baffin Bay, and from there into the winding paths of the Arctic Archipelago. 

While his wife conspires to turn him into a chicken rancher, Ben Zartman runs away to sea whenever he can. When not delivering sailboats, he runs a rigging business out of his garage, splicing line for local racing fleets.

The post The Air Up There: Cruising Greenland appeared first on Cruising World.

A well-traveled friend once told me, “If you haven’t eaten with locals in their home, you haven’t fully experienced a place.” I used to think all that was required to check a country off your list was to exit the airport for more than 24 hours or step off the boat onto land. But my friend had a point. Could one really claim to have been somewhere after simply sightseeing and eating in restaurants? I started ticking off the places I’d visited, and was shocked to realize that by my friend’s standard, I’d hardly been anywhere.

But one can’t just cruise into a new port, knock on someone’s door and declare, “I’m here for dinner!” In most towns, you’d have to spend considerable time and make yourself available to folks for such an opportunity to arise. However, there is one spot my husband, Ken, and I have cruised where practically all you have to do is show up: Newfoundland (accent on the “land”). It is Canada’s most eastern province and the world’s 16th largest island. It is a mere day’s sail away from the northern tip of Nova Scotia. We cruised Newfoundland twice over five years, and fully enjoyed really getting to know the people and the place.

From the sea, at a distance, Newfoundland appears to be an impenetrable rock. Approaching closer, one can perceive the odd settlement at the base of cliffs, or a great fissure leading to a fjord. It is immense, foreboding, lonely and breathtaking. Sailing up the fjords and then hiking to their tops to take in the view is heavenly. Although Newfoundlanders are often shy at first, they are curious and extremely generous. It doesn’t take long for them to reach out.

During our initial visit, we’d barely stepped off the boat in Channel-Port aux Basques on the southwest corner of the island when Ken and I were offered a giant bagful of mackerel. When we sailed into little outports—the term used for small coastal communities throughout the province, with most of them accessible only by boat—folks would come down to the wharf just to stare at our vessel. This was a little disconcerting at first, but we quickly got used to it. I’d poke my head out of the companionway and greet whomever was coming to have a look at our “yacht,” Mary T. She’s an old Morgan 38, but we soaked up the moniker. After answering a few questions, mostly related to where we came from and where we were headed, the curious onlookers would launch into soliloquies about their own lives. Nothing inspires storytelling like a new set of ears! One man told us about the open-heart surgery he’d just undergone and even lifted up his shirt to reveal the scar.

our first invitation transpired in the town of Francois, pronounced “Fransway.” Sailing into this outport on the southwest coast is truly magical. Brightly painted homes are nestled in a semicircle at the base of towering red cliffs. We had arrived in time for their five-year “come-home” celebration. A party was to be held in the community center that night for all those returning home. The exodus to work in the Alberta tar sands, on merchant ships in the Great Lakes, and in larger towns in Newfoundland emptied these small villages. But no one ever forgot where home was. And here we were, two complete strangers invited to join in the celebration. There was live music, dancing and plenty to drink. The parties don’t really get started until midnight, and we had shown up way too early, but it definitely gave us a taste of local color.

RELATED: Newfoundland Has it All

Another encounter of note on that visit occurred in the town of Isle aux Morts (Island of the Dead), just 6 miles to the east of Channel-Port aux Basques. We tucked ourselves behind a sturdy government-­constructed wharf and set out a spiderweb of lines. Hurricane Bill was coming, and it seemed the best place to hide. It was only a Category 1 and weakening, so the locals weren’t terribly concerned; they are frequently battered by 60-knot winds in the winter. A man named Tom Harvey pulled his large power cruiser up to the wharf in front of Mary T. He was the descendant of a local family who, in the 1800s, rescued many shipwrecked souls clinging to the jagged rocks littering the waters just offshore.

We gratefully accepted when Tom offered us hot showers at his house. Then we were provided with drinks and snacks. His wife even gave us a jar of pickled herring to go. Although we didn’t share a full-blown meal, I think that counts. Another local, the dockmaster, drove us to Channel-Port aux Basque for diesel, and shared the town gossip. We were sworn to secrecy, so I can’t tell what he said, but there was more controversy in that little port than we’d imagined. He presented us with a jar of stewed moose meat before we parted ways. We felt embraced.

on our return to Newfoundland five years later, we sailed along the southwest coast to the town of Grey River. It is up a narrow fjord, the opening of which is invisible until you’re practically on top of it. We spotted a wooden dock at the edge of town and pulled Mary T alongside. At some outports, a dockmaster will appear and collect a small fee ($5 to $10 per night), and sometimes it’s free. It’s all very casual. Eager to explore, we ventured up a path, which led us past the dump and through the cemetery to a platform overlooking the fjord. It was a beautiful sunny day, but eventually the flies won out, and we ­hightailed it back down.

On our way back to the boat, we ­encountered some townspeople, and a few minutes into chatting, we were invited to Nate’s 60th birthday party at the lodge that evening. “Of course we’ll come,” I said. Nate didn’t know us from Adam, but that was of no concern to anyone. We cleaned up as best we could and arrived at the lodge earlier than most.

Before the party really got started, one of the lodge members took us upstairs to see the inner sanctum. It was a large, barren, wood-paneled room with a sort of altar at one end containing photographs of important members. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked. We didn’t know quite what we were looking at nor what to say. With his thick Newfoundland accent, we found it difficult to understand his explanation of the lodge’s history.

Then Ken said brightly, “Well, we have been to an Elks lodge in Maryland.”

The man laughed and asked, “You mean like the Flintstones?”

Downstairs at the party, there were chairs around the periphery and a table at one end for the potluck dishes. John at the general store had told us to be sure to try the pork buns, which are biscuits with salt pork and raisins. I tried one of those and a pork rib, some ham, a chicken wing and whatever else I could fit on my plate. In addition to the cornucopia of pork treats, there was a large sheet cake boasting a Photoshopped image of Nate with two scantily clad Brazilian women in carnival garb. I think we were more surprised by it than Nate. As soon as the band struck up, the dancing began. One man played the accordion, and another was on guitar and vocals. Their repertoire ran the gamut from country to polka to zydeco to rock, and it was impressively loud.

Because it was five years since our last visit to Newfoundland, Francois was having its come-home celebration again (timing!). When we pulled up to the wharf, the whole town was down by the water for dory races. I tried to sign up, but I was a little too late and couldn’t find a partner because Ken wasn’t interested. A lot of the folks were not accustomed to rowing, so it was a great source of amusement to all.

That afternoon, we attended a talent show in the community center. People sang and read poetry. One man sang a song about how everyone was moving away from the little Newfoundland outports in the wake of the declining fisheries so the towns were closing down. I looked around and saw most of the audience wiping away tears. One woman near me who couldn’t stop crying nodded at me and said, “That’s how it is.”

I was in the small grocery store a little later, scouring the aisles and pushing one of the tiny carts that no one ever seemed to use. Most people just shopped for a few items at a time. A young couple looked at me with the cart and laughed. I smiled. They asked where I was from. “We used to live in Washington, D.C., but we’ve been living on our boat for several years.”

“That’s cool,” the man said. “I’m from Halifax, but my girlfriend is from Francois. I bought a house here with another friend. The purple one down by the water.” He made a ­gesture in the general ­direction. “We’re having a party tonight, before the big one at the community center. C’mon over.”

“Thanks! We will.”

I couldn’t wait to tell Ken. We were invited to a pre-party with all the cool people! It was being held in the fishing shack behind the purple house, which had been transformed into party central with festive lights and a bar. Wow! We learned from our host, Greg, that he’d paid only $7,000 for the house and fishing shack. I couldn’t believe it. Now I wanted to buy a house in Newfoundland!

Everyone was having such a good time catching up with old friends and relatives that it took a lot to get us all motivated to go to the big party at the community center. It was bustling when we arrived. We drank and danced with many partners until 2 a.m., which is way past our bedtime. Finally we dragged ourselves out, wended our way back to Mary T, and climbed into the V-berth. We did not want to get up in the morning, which is how everyone else in Francois felt that day. We knew because we were really there.

Thank you, Newfoundlanders, for giving so much of yourselves and allowing us to know you. Now it’s no longer enough to sail into a new port and just provision, sightsee, and meet other cruisers. A new bar has been set. We mustn’t leave until we’ve dined with the locals. So set your tables, folks. Ready or not, here we come!

Amy Flannery and Ken Kurlychek are currently sticking close to home in Bradenton, Florida, and cruising the Gulf coast as they await an end to the pandemic. They hope to return to Newfoundland in summer 2022.

The post Cruising Newfoundland appeared first on Cruising World.

If someone had told me that less than 1,000 miles from the well-traveled waters of New England lay an enchanted island of breathtaking beauty, teeming with wildlife, carpeted in edible berries, inhabited by the most generous people on Earth, and absolutely riddled with harbors, bays, inlets and anchorages, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. If they had added that, in spite of these charms, you could sail there all summer and barely see another cruising boat, I also wouldn’t have believed it. Any of it. I would have chalked it up to the superlatives that sailors commonly use for their own favorite or most frequented cruising grounds — in some cases their only cruising grounds. We’ve sailed to lots of people’s favorite places — and have some of our own — but never found one that was head and shoulders better than all the rest. That is, until we accidentally wound up cruising in the one I’ve just described —which we’d barely even heard of.

We hadn’t actually meant to explore Newfoundland at all. It was only to be a stopover on our bigger plan to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland. But plans, as they often do, fall apart and get changed, and early in 2013 we found ourselves in a deep bay on the southeast corner of Newfoundland with a whole summer before us. We had a choice: go back to St. Pierre and Miquelon, from where we’d sailed several days before, and then back to Cape Breton Island and the Nova Scotia coast; or sail around Newfoundland counterclockwise and see what it had to offer. Since my wife, Danielle, hated turning back, we needed a consolation prize after having to abandon our long-cherished transatlantic ambitions. So we decided to press on northward, and were rewarded by the discovery of an amazing cruising ground that exceeded all superlatives, staggered the imagination and left us breathless at nearly every turn.

Around the corner of the island at Cape Race, the coast is indented by a series of deep fjords whose cliffs are alive with nesting seabirds: puffins, terns and gannets mostly, but it’s not unusual to see a bald eagle or two winging majestically by or sitting stately in a lofty pine. The Avalon Peninsula ports, Fermeuse, Aquaforte and Cape Broyle, provide shelter for boats waiting to round notorious Cape Race, or relief for those who just have. The Labrador Current, traveling south along the Atlantic shore of the island, mixes with the warm, fog-generating waters of the Gulf Stream just there, adding an extra measure of intrigue to an already formidable cape.

In spite of the offshore breezes that accelerate to astonishing force as they funnel down the narrow fjords, we found these harbors a very pleasant introduction to island life and what we could look forward to ahead. Sitting out some weather in Cape Broyle (we needn’t have bothered — the endless wind was local, and it was not blowing at all out at sea) we discovered one of the many pleasant aspects of Newfoundland cruising. “That’s a bit of a piece to row ashore from your boat,” several locals observed in their charming Irish-like accent. “Why don’t ye tie up to yonder public wharf?” “We don’t want to take anyone’s spot without permission,” we protested.

“Bless you, that’s not no one’s spot. If there’s room, you ties up, and it’s your spot.”

We were still wary. “For how long?”

“As long as you wants!” they laughed. “It’s a public wharf.”

It proved true, and we realized as time went by that you could almost cruise Newfoundland without a dinghy — or “go-ashore boat” as they call it. Nearly every harbor has a public wharf, and the highest we ever paid was $10 per night. Mostly we paid nothing, and in some places it seemed that the harbormaster intentionally avoided us so as not to have to charge a fee at all. It’s just the sort of people they are. By the time we were at Savage Cove, our last port of call on the island, we had tied wharfside in exactly half the harbors we’d visited, and had to pay in less than half of those.

Though we’d been warned of icebergs along this stretch, we saw none as we sailed toward the capital city, St. John’s. What we did see, mostly while crossing the wildlife sanctuary of Witless Bay, were whales, pods and pods of them, as well as birds innumerable. The children sat in the sun on the foredeck and laughed whenever a startled puffin took off at a right angle to the boat, his stubby legs pounding the water comically until his wings caught up.

In contrast to the sleepy fishing towns that we mostly explored on our cruise, St. John’s is a busy, bustling metropolis. It’s a great place to stock up before heading into more remote parts, especially because you can barely go ashore from the wharves reserved for transients without some outgoing local offering you a ride. Costco, Walmart, Best Buy, ship chandleries, gas, propane, laundry — all the benefits of a big city, with a friendly lift to anywhere you need to go. For those who’ve been cooped up aboard too long, there’s a narrow walking trail along the steep cliffs that guard the harbor entrance, past gun placements from 1812 and World War II, up to the historic Cabot Tower, where the first transatlantic wireless message was received in 1901.

We could happily have spent a few weeks exploring the nooks and crannies of that ancient city, and watching the giant oil-rig tenders, container ships, cruise ships and fishing vessels that come and go day and night without stop, but there was a lot of coast yet to cruise, and the short summer was getting along — in fact, the only two truly warm days we had that year happened there. The day after we left under double-reefed main to sail past Cape St. Francis and Bay de Verde to the quaintly named port of Old Perlican, we had to put on wool sweaters, which rarely came off for the rest of the summer.

The north coast of Newfoundland is indented by three or four major bays, each supplied generously with harbors and islands. Conception Bay, Trinity Bay, Bonavista Bay and Notre Dame Bay could easily be cruised for a whole season apiece without running out of places to go. Unlike the south coast, it has very little fog, since the prevailing southwest wind dries out while blowing over the land. We had time only to skim the surface, sailing from cape to cape without going deep into each bay. We left each one behind with only regrets that we couldn’t explore it more fully. Who wouldn’t want to go to places with names like Heart’s Content and Heart’s Desire? But we had to be heartlessly selective. As it was, it was on this coast that we discovered what we unanimously agreed to be the most beautiful and serene harbor Ganymede has ever anchored in.

“Welcome to Traytown, Population: Zero,” reads the lonely sign as you enter a narrow gorge on Ireland’s Eye island. Inside the tiny harbor the water was clear as glass, the air was fresh with the scent of pines and a bald eagle stood quietly on a high, mossy rock. Ashore were a few seasonal fishing cabins, and a web of overgrown trails led between patches of wild blueberries, moldering graveyards and the remains of houses long abandoned. It was all so peaceful, so dreamy, it was as though time wasn’t being measured at all.

That’s not to say that other spots were a disappointment — they weren’t — but every place was different from the last, sometimes markedly so. On Fogo Island we encountered pink, rounded rock formations similar to those on the Quebec coast; a day away in Lumsden South there had been a beach to rival many in the Caribbean; just before that at Pork Island it was piney granite cliffs dropping straight into deep green water.

Each change in topography left us wondering how much more variety there could be, and each new place we sailed revealed that Mother Nature still had plenty more up her sleeve. We saw less than 5 percent of what the coastline has to offer, and in that little bit was more of nature’s majestic splendor than we’d seen in the 10,000 miles under the keel since Ganymede first left California in 2009.

What did not change, but that we never tired of, was the goodness of the people of Newfoundland. From our first encounter with a “Newfie” at St. Pierre (who helped our daughter Antigone clean some tiny codfish she caught, and who gave us several jars of home-preserved caribou and clams) to the last one (who gave me a lift to the grocery store in Savage Cove), we found them to be the most universally friendly and giving folk anywhere. In all the other places we’ve sailed there have been people, here and there, who stood out as genuinely, sincerely happy to meet us — to help us if need be, to simply make acquaintance if not, and pass the time of day. But far more often in other places the approach of strangers meant we were going to be begged from, or sold something, or charged some sort of made-up “anchoring fee.” Not in Newfoundland. Here the approach of strangers means only one thing: They want to give you something or see if they can help. One has only to begin walking down the road with fuel jugs in hand, and it would be strange for the first passing car not to pull over and offer a lift.

Often, walking along a road, we were waylaid by someone calling out from his or her porch to invite us up for a bowl of soup or a gam, and folk typically came right down to the boat to see what they could bring. Fresh vegetables from their garden? Charts to the Strait of Belle Isle? Seafood? Blueberry muffins? Use of their washer? All these things and more were poured freely forth in abundance by people so generous by nature that they don’t even think they’re doing good — it’s what’s done every day in Newfoundland.

There are downsides, of course, to this cruising ground — even paradise has its price. The biggest one is the shocking lack of groceries. Though there are grocery stores, per se, which even on a casual cruising schedule can be visited every week or so, they’re not always very well stocked, and the vast majority are the convenience-store sort, with anything remotely fresh becoming quickly rubbery in its small glass hutch. Apart from St. John’s, which as a busy international shipping port has absolutely everything, we saw only two cities with a choice of grocery stores. But even when the selection was decent, the prices were not — it felt strange to pay more per pound for vegetables like broccoli than for pork chops, and to pay more for margarine than we normally do in the States for butter. Some prices placed even staples almost out of reach — milk weighed in at an astronomical $10 a gallon, and we gave up entirely on things like chips and salsa. The locals are so used to everything being canned or frozen that some had never thought to try the rubbery veggies behind the glass, and the major part of all their diets is meat. What places don’t have fresh beef and pork have them in every frozen and preserved state imaginable. You can even buy an entire bucket of pickled beef, or simply fish out as much as you need with a hook from the open tub every store seems to have available.

Even their most abundant and delicious food source, seafood, has suffered from their necessarily insular ways. Whenever we were given a few fillets of codfish or some mackerel, they were attended with cooking directions. “What you does, is you takes pork lard — what we calls ‘fatback’ — and melts it in a pan, and then you fries the fish.”

My answer of “Not me. I aim to drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle on dill and paprika and bake it in the oven,” invariably met with stares of incomprehension.

“Or you boils it with potatoes,” was usually their second try. Actually not a terrible idea. I had never considered myself a tuber connoisseur, but I can say without reservation that the potatoes in Newfoundland were far and away the finest I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s the islanders’ Irish roots, maybe it’s the climate, likely a little of both; but not only were the spuds heavenly, they were the cheapest food going. Even better were freshly dug ones from garden plots that dot the landscape, some of them less than a foot from the high-tide mark.

As the coast takes a sharp right turn to form the Great Northern Peninsula, English place names like Round Harbor and Fortune give way to handles like La Scie, Fleur-de-Lys and Grandois. This upper portion of coast was used in time out of mind by French whalers and cod fishermen whose memory lives in the names they left, though little else remains. Here the distance between settlements is farther, the outposts — villages inaccessible by road — are more remote. Many harbors, even very good ones, remain uninhabited, and the katabatic breezes are even wilder than in the southern fjords.

Near the very tip of the peninsula, at the threshold of the Strait of Belle Isle, the major city of St. Anthony (it boasts two grocery stores), is home to an important regional hospital, and was Wilfred Grenfell’s base of operations for his famous medical work in Labrador. As in the rest of Newfoundland, which is careful to preserve its wonderfully rich history, the past seems to be still in progress. Some of the old Grenfell mission buildings still remain, such as the original hospital and historic churches. From the well-sheltered anchorage you can hear on weekdays an authentic steam whistle still calling workers to begin the day and dismissing them at the end.

The scariest, and potentially hardest, part of sailing around Newfoundland is the Strait of Belle Isle. Since the prevailing weather is from the southwest, most people go around the island clockwise, and if they get too much wind in the Strait, at least it’s from astern. Quite often there is rather a lot of it, plus respectable tidal currents, frequent fog and abundant icebergs, mixed in with shipping of all sorts. We had read stories of, and knew personally, folks who had tacked for days back and forth across the Strait between Newfoundland and Labrador, trying to pass through to the Gulf of St. Lawrence as we needed to. It didn’t help that, in September, sailing season was officially over: The fishermen had mostly packed it in for the year, and there was a tropical storm or two spinning away out in the North Atlantic. We had thought then, sitting out our third gale in 10 days in a small bay at the very northern end of Newfoundland — and not knowing whether we’d get through the Strait or not — that we’d be pretty happy to see the last of Newfoundland. We regretted that unkind thought when as a reward for our patience we got a perfectly quiet day to traverse the Strait, with a following wind, no sign of fog and a fair current that got us through to Savage Cove with hours of daylight to spare.

The next morning we sailed out to cross the Strait to the mainland coast of Quebec. We had arrived in Newfoundland, months before, at Trepassey Bay in the fog, and now as we left, a fog rolled in to hide the island from view. The relatively little we’d seen of Newfoundland had left a deep impression. Nowhere else has nature been so varied, so rich, so exuberantly wild; nowhere else have we felt such a warm connection to the people. They had loved us, simply for being us, for being there. It’s a wonderful feeling, and connected to such a wonderful place, it’s no wonder we were sorry to have to leave.

– – –

The Zartmans are currently living in Bristol, Rhode Island, while making improvements to Ganymede and warming their winter with memories of voyages past.

The post Newfoundland Has it All appeared first on Cruising World.

The very top of the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, at almost 52 degrees of North latitude, is a chilly place all year ‘round. There’s not a lot of trees, and the ones there are cannot be called opulent. It’s windy and rocky and cloudy and spends most of the winter frozen over. The locals love that, since it makes traveling over the sea a lot easier. After all, there’s no waves in sea ice, you can drive your pickup truck on it, and there’s no speed limit. It’s also the place where the vikings first came ashore, and it’s no wonder they aren’t there now—without pickup trucks, winter would get pretty boring.

Our experience there was anything but boring, but then, it wasn’t winter quite yet. I wouldn’t normally poke my nose out of a harbor with a gale warning on, but there didn’t ever seem NOT to be. The question was just whether we could get to the next spot before the gale did. Our first sally out of Quirpon into the Straits of Belle Isle was to go just ten miles to Ship Cove, underneath Cape Onion, to tie up to the lee of the public wharf and be grateful to spend three days there in the rain while a roaring Sou’Wester did it’s thing. Cape Onion CoastThere was no grocery store, but the girls found some potatoes growing wild to dig, and a local gave us some more potatoes out of his patch. Of course, we still had a whole sack of potatoes we’d got in St Anthony, but freshly dug potatoes are delicious, and washing them uses up time. We also killed time by cutting up firewood we’d gathered in Quirpon, and had a couple of fires to dry things out and make the cabin cozy.

After the gale blew itself out, as if a reward for our patience, we got an SE wind—that meant an offshore breeze, the sailor’s best friend that lets him make good time without kicking up waves to make him spill his coffee. There was also a fair tide, and we made a long day of it, all the way down the Straits of Belle Isle with a quiet sea and a gentle wind on the quarter. We even, for the first time in days, caught a glimpse or two of the sun. All told, Ganymede averaged seven knots, and it was astonishing to arrive fifty miles later in Savage Cove with plenty of daylight to hitch a ride to the store, and for the girls to put on snowsuits and roam the beach for scallop shells.

There was a mini-gang of local boys on dirt bikes who, having nothing more interesting to do, rode out to the wharf to check out Ganymede. They weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, since while I talked to them they pointed out where they lived, then proceeded to see who could hit the skylight with the rusty broken chain littering the wharf after I went below. After I emerged in righteous indignation and reminded them that they themselves had told me where they lived, the rain of rubbish dried up.

Though it had changed with each successive broadcast, the weather forecast sounded safe enough next morning to get across the Straits to the mainland side. Accordingly we took off, foggy rain notwithstanding, and were rewarded by a fast and pleasant sail under reefed main & stay’sl (practically a calm day, for these parts) to the edge of Quebec, just across the border from Labrador. It was strange to think, looking back into the fog, that we were leaving Newfoundland behind at last. We had discovered in it an almost untouched jewel of a cruising ground—unique scenery, incredible people, a summer not sweltering in frightful heat—it was cruising as different from cruising the tropics as could be. Not that we dislike tropical cruising, but it had certainly been a refreshing change, and more of an adventure than the beaten Caribbean and Pacific paths. We had at no time feared piracy or theft, never had wanted for a ride to the gas station or grocery store, suffered from no language barriers, and hadn’t been allowed to pay a dime for mountains of fresh seafood. Yes, a wonderful place indeed but were were leaving none too soon. Fall was advancing, and we still had hundreds of miles of the coast of Quebec, about which we knew nothing yet, to traverse before November.

As Ganymede chugged gently into her first mainland anchorage, a rock-studded harbor just around the corner from Blanc Sablon, I almost wished we could have stayed in Newfoundland. But part of cruising is getting along, leaving behind all the magical places but taking the memories of them with you, treasuring them even as you look forward to the next mysterious and undiscovered coast. Our next coast lay before us now, curving gently southwest toward Cape Whittle, then straight west to Sept Iles, where it finally drops below 50 north to form the northern bank of the great St Lawrence River. I only hope we find this next leg as wonderful as the last.

The post The End of Newfoundland appeared first on Cruising World.

St Anthony, Newfoundland, was not an unpleasant place to spend a week. There were two decent grocery stores, a public library with wifi, a laundromat, and plenty of walking to do. Most importantly, there was a chart agent, and we needed charts. I had bought the two small-scale charts of the coast of Quebec that Campbell’s, way back in St John’s, had in stock. But those were no good for detail—we needed all the coastal charts from Blanc Sablon, at the edge of Labrador, to the entrance to Lake Champlain, off of the St Lawrence River. I’d been hoping to scrounge, buy or borrow some used ones, but all I had managed to rustle up was coverage through the Straits of Belle Isle. That still left me 29 charts short, and at the $20 apiece the Canadian government wants for them, not a trivial purchase. Still, I can’t get along without charts, so I bit the bullet and ordered the whole stack at once from Shear’s Building Supplies.

What I regretted more than the money the charts would cost was the time it took to get them in. Already the season was far along, and fall weather was beginning to set in. The Straits of Belle Isle are not to be trifled with at any time, with frequent gales, strong tidal currents, and all the fun that ensues when the two of those mix. Fall is, of course, notorious for heavy winds. In just the eight days that we sat in St. Anthony there were two full gales, with lesser windy days in between. So I was pretty keen to get along, since we still had to get up to the Straits, then through to the Gulf of St Lawrence, then across to the south shore of Quebec before we could start sailing back South.

The charts came in reasonable time, considering there was a postal holiday to wait through, but even so I was bursting with impatience when they arrived on a Friday afternoon. Even though it was rainy and windier than I like, and Danielle and the girls were busy making chicken pot pie and cookies, I got the anchor up and away we sailed. It was only fifteen miles or so to Quirpon (pronounced “cahr-poon”), and after some pretty bumpy seas getting around Cape Anthony, Ganymede settled in to race there in near-record time, scooting along at six knots with only her storm canvas set. The pie and cookies were set aside unbaked against our arrival while Danielle took the helm and I popped in and out of the companionway, matching coastal features with the chart, and trying to pilot Ganymede as close to shore as was prudent to avoid getting into bigger waves offshore.

The entrance to Little Quirpon harbor had just opened up on the portside when things got squirrely. With the wind funneling out of it at close to thirty-five knots, there was no chance of tacking into it, especially as it narrows to barely a boat-length at it’s end. But for only the second time since we sailed out of California, the engine refused to start when we really needed it. Almost every time it hasn’t started, we’ve been at anchor or tied up—not a huge deal. But here our arrival in port depended on it, and heading out to sea with dark coming on, the gale rising, and all the fetch of the Straits of Belle Isle waiting just an hour or two’s drift away was not to be thought of.

I had doused the storm sail just before trying the engine, but got it up again pretty quick so Ganymede could maneuver. We had only one choice: a little cove on Quirpon island, not very sheltered at all, and fraught with hull-eating rocks. We had to get dangerously close to shore before finding water shallow enough to anchor in, and then it was rocks, and the chain grounched and grounched as Ganymede pitched slowly in the swell. Horrible place to spend the night, but good enough under the circumstances to take the engine apart and put it together.

“Put the pie in the oven, I guess. At least we’ll have a nice supper.”

The sun was setting when an hour later, after having new spark plugs and the carburetor dismantled twice, the engine roared into life at last. Getting up all the anchor chain from eight fathoms down was backbreaking, even with Antigone in the locker to stack it as it came in and Danielle motoring into the furious wind to slack it a bit, but I didn’t really mind. The relief of knowing that we’d sleep quiet in a safe harbor with our bellies full of hot supper and ginger cookies, rather than clinging to a precarious, rolly, exposed cove made any amount of toil worthwhile.

“Can I do anything?” asked Danielle as I began dismantling the carburetor into a stainless steel bowl.

Of course the pie and cookies needed taking out and putting in to the oven just when we were at the trickiest part of the ‘tickle’—the narrow channel between Quirpon Island and the mainland. Evidently some cruisers get there, take one look at it, and go all the way ‘round. I found out later that we took a crucial rock on the wrong side, but I’ll never know how close we may have got to grounding, since I was too busy taking cookies out of the oven to heave the lead. Everyone we asked later disagreed on the available depth; some said 8 feet, one said 19 (?!), others said barely enough to float a cockroach. No matter; we made it through, and the chicken pot pie that night might have been the most delicious I’ve ever tasted.

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Zartman- Fleur-de-Lys

La Scie, just on the north side of Cape John, is the first of the old French fishing ports encountered as you sail north along the east coast of Newfoundland. It is not an interesting place, except as a haven from bad weather, but it did have showers at the public wharf and a gas station nearby. In a testament to the latitudes we were getting to (we’d just crossed the 50th parallel of north latitude rounding Cape John), a notice at the head of the wharf strictly forbade the pelting of seals on it. We half hoped someone would disobey the injunction, so we could watch a seal being pelted. But no one did, and feeling very fresh from the showers, we left after breakfast the next day to take advantage of a rare un-swelly sea.

It was only 20 miles or so to Fleur de Lys, named so after a three-pointed hill that rises above the harbor. While Danielle read to Antigone and Emily down below, Damaris kept me company at the helm. This is less restful than it sounds. I made the mistake once of playing with some of her dolls, walking them about and giving them voices, and now I’m required constantly to do “Funny Shows.” It could be the same one over and over, for all she cares, as long as I’m careful to do it exactly as she remembers it. I can’t, of course, so sometimes her doll is a tyrant queen, wielding an iron bamboo spoon with which she orders her varlets about; sometimes she’s a shopkeeper, and the other dolls buy her goods. It takes more imagination than I can command sometimes, when I have to pay attention to my steering and the mainsail looks like wanting to gybe. But today the steering was easy and after a couple of shows, followed by pretending to die noisily and dramatically of pig bites, Fleur de Lys harbor hove itself into view.

It was a small sort of place, not in the least dramatic or breathtaking, but it looked clean, tidy, and somehow shiny. It was the sort of harbor where the harbormaster, if he was around, would lock up his office and hide away somewhere so as not to have to charge wharfage—at least we never saw him. It was the sort of place where locals would carefully back their cars down the wharf and sit there smoking until you noticed them and came out for a chat. You’re expected, if you see folk setting on a porch, to walk up and set as well. I was given, on one porch, a giant bowl of turkey-neck soup, with an equally giant dumpling, out of a vast cauldron that simmered perpetually on the stove. There being little else to talk about, we discussed the sad state of frozen turkey necks these days. “Not big like we used to get en.” “No, they only sends small ones along these days.”

Thankfully, turkey neck soup wasn’t the only thing on the menu. A few hours after we tied up, a couple of fishing skiffs returned, laden not only with buckets of mackerel, but a giant Ocean Sunfish, or Mola Mola.

The latter was not to eat—it was just brought in as a curiosity. “She were going to be a pod of orcas’ dinner,” said the fisherman. “They were circling all ‘round, and she come in among us to hide, so we gaffed her on in.” The sunfish was admired by all for a few minutes, then allowed to swim lazily away. The mackerel, though, were for dinner, and everyone who had wandered down to the wharf to see the sunfish got a goodly share.

We spent the weekend at Fleur de Lys, hiking a trail through miles of blueberries to Spotted Cove, where we watched two bald eagles flying along below the cliff-edge; visiting an old native soapstone quarry; fishing in the shadows underneath the wharf; setting on porches gazing out at the water. It was among the nicest places we’ve been to yet.

Though the locals told us we could easily just leave the boat tied up to the wharf all winter with no problem, we weren’t quite ready to retire yet, turkey-neck soup notwithstanding, so we cast off early one morning to trudge the 40 miles to Englee. There were possible stops on the way, but there was bad weather coming and we didn’t fancy getting stuck in an uninhabited fjord for maybe even a week when our last decent grocery store had been the sad selection at Twilingate. We spent only one night at Englee, arriving early enough to walk some trails on the surrounding high hills and see pods of whales playing and spouting out to sea, and enjoy laundry and showers at the harbor office. But the weather forecast had become more gloomy with each update, so we did another pre-dawn start and motored the 45 miles to St. Anthony though a calm made altogether creepy by the gyrations and acrobatics of the clouds that hurried along overhead. It proved to be a good decision, and there were not just us but three other cruising boats that made the dash to St. Anthony that day, mostly up from Labrador.

One of the boats was Companera, a wooden trawler-sailor from Alaska whom we’d met several years ago in Mexico and El Salvador, in Pacific Central America. We had a nice sociable time with Jill and Doug while the gales shrieked overhead, comparing notes on various stops we’d shared along the way.

They had taken the long way ‘round, through the Straits of Magellan and out to the Falklands, while we had transited the Panama Canal for quicker access to the Caribbean. But here we all were again, this time in sweaters and wool hats instead of sweltering under thatched palapa eaves. I gave them our Newfoundland coast pilot, and in return Jill gave me her book, Rowing to Latitude, by Jill Fredston. It was most welcome, since I’ve just run out of reading material and had started plowing through Bowditch again. If the bad weather continues, though, I’ll have it all read and done with before we can get out of here, and by the look of the forecast, I may have to read it twice.

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We were talking about Labrador, a local and I, and I asked him whether a place was further up along the coast than Red Bay. “No,” he said, giving me a funny look. “There’s not much further UP from Red Bay—everything’s down to the North from there.” I remembered reading, somewhere long ago, that along this coast they refer to North as “Down”, as if descending into further cold and danger, and South as “Up.” Up toward the light and warmth and greenery; up to where life is easier. But it was still surprising to encounter it the first couple of times, and I’m still getting used to telling folk that we’re heading north, “Down toward Labrador.”

Our departure from Twilingate was a little difficult—there was still a stiff wind blowing from the north, but since we wanted to get a few miles southward into Notre Dame Bay, we thought the struggle north for three miles until we could turn the corner at Long Point would be worthwhile. And it was, once we had made it, but it was a frightful slog against not just the wind but a huge swell that only got bigger and steeper the further we got from the harbor. It may have been the worst rolling we ever got in Ganymede—without a sail up to steady her, she rolled repeatedly gunnel to gunnel, and the tubs of water I’d filled for washing dishes later got completely sloshed out. Mostly on my trousers, but enough on Danielle’s too that we could be miserable in company.
Exploits

But we turned the corner at long last, and had a delicious sail down—er, up into Notre Dame Bay. The next day it would have been impossible, since it was to blow 20-25 from the SW. It had been late in the day when we left Twilingate, and it was nearly evening when we tied Ganymede up to an empty wharf at Exploits Island. There was still good time for a walk on shore among lonely cabins overgrown with berry bushes. The contrast from the dirty bustle of Twilingate made it seem all the more quiet and peaceful and altogether wonderful.

In spite of the restfulness of it, we left early the next morning—we had one day to find a good haven before the next SW gale was to arrive, and Upper Exploits harbor was wide open to the south. We had a mere ten miles to go to Fortune harbor, but it was hard enough to do. The swell coming up from the North was still wicked, making some spectacular and horrifying breakers on the shoreline and offlying shoals, and the wind was being accelerated in its usual way off the high cliffy hills surrounding Fortune Harbor. It seemed almost a miracle, once we fought slowly into the harbor entrance, how the wind dropped to almost nothing, and then to actually calm the further in we went. I could hardly believe that barely half an hour before I had had to get the double-reefed sail in as quick as possible before the rail could start scooping foaming water. But there was the mainsail, bundled untidily to the gaff, and all the halyards festooned any old way to testify to a harrowing entry.

We were sounding about looking for a likely anchoring spot when a voice from shore hailed to invite us to a mooring near the shore. Ah, Newfoundland! Not only did we get a mooring for free, but were offered filtered, UV-disinfected water; tasteless, colorless, odorless water! Gleefully we filled all our empty jugs and debated whether to dump out all the smelly yellow stuff from Bonavista. We decided in the end not to abuse our benefactor’s hospitality—it had to cost something to filter and purify all that water, and the bad water would do for sponge baths and dishwashing in future gurry-filled ports.

When we arrived in La Scie several days later, they were still shellshocked from the gale, but in Fortune we hardly felt it—not because it hadn’t blown there, but because we were in the best possible spot to ride it out. It’s worse to ride out bad weather pinned against a dock than at a mooring or at anchor where the bows can always be into the wind and the companionway faces properly downwind—it’s how boats are designed to handle weather, and that gale was the easiest time we ever had in one.

It was a gray sort of day when we left Fortune to cross Notre Dame Bay to Cape St John—an uneventful day, mostly, except when a darker patch of cloud passed somberly overhead and made the wind shift five times in as many minutes. It’s a pity the wind was so fickle and the sky so fretful, or we might have changed course to get closer to our first iceberg. As things were, we felt there was not a moment to lose in getting to La Scie, so we took photos from afar (how far? No telling—distances to icebergs are hard to judge on muzzy days) but carried doggedly on.

It was good that we did, for just as we were off of Cape John the wind began to blow briskly off of it. If we’d been longer in getting there, we might have had more difficulty rounding it. As it was, we had to get all canvas in pretty quick, and soon after there was a gust or two so strong it picked up bits of spray and sent them downwind in little whirlwinds. It was a long five miles to La Scie against that wind, but we made it in at last, only to have the hardest time ever trying to tie up to a wharf. The wind was constantly changing direction as it shotgun-blasted around the hills, and even if I charged head-on at the wharf and turned at the last minute, I couldn’t get Ganymede closer than ten feet off. Danielle refused even my urgent suggestions that she should try and jump the gap anyway with a spring-line.

At last a scimitar-like swoop got the stern in close enough for me to leave the engine and leap ashore with a stern line, which is the least useful scenario, but we weren’t being picky. Before all was said and done, we had spent a few minutes moored stern-first, with the bowsprit waving bravely into the fairway and the transom pushed hard against the wharf. Finally Ganymede lay decently alongside and we could see what there was to see in La Scie, the latest stop of our trip down north.

The post Where North is Down appeared first on Cruising World.

Zartman- Twilingate

At first, Twilingate appeared to brim with promise. Negotiating the approach channel we saw the back of a Foodland supermarket dominating the harbor; we hadn’t seen more than a convenience store since leaving Bonavista. In the harbor, though the water was bright pink from shrimp processing and smelled to high heaven, there was plenty of room, and there were showers and laundry in the harbor authority building. All of it almost too good to be true—and at first it was.

Though right on the water’s edge, the Foodland was all the way around the other side of the harbor: a considerable walk. Then it proved to be one of the saddest supermarkets ever, worse even than the stores in Costa Rica (our benchmark for everything disappointing), which was surprising for such a big town.

Danielle was absolutely spoiling for a shower, and the ladies’ room shower valve didn’t work. There was no chance of using the men’s even late at night or early morning, since the fish plant went 24-7 and there were guys in and out of there all the time. Of course I had a shower, and very refreshing it was, but Danielle and the girls had to remain dirty. Then there was neither toilet paper not paper towels in the bathrooms, no coffee in the lounge, and the TV didn’t work. To top it off, there was no place for the girls to play near the boat—the wharves were crawling with forklifts, big trucks, and the usual Newfoundland casual drivers: park the car, smoke a cig, drive away. Far too many chances for little girls to get squashed.

There was bad weather on the way (anytime there isn’t bad weather in Newfoundland it’s on the way, depend upon it), and we were beginning to regret our decision to wait it out there when another big pickup idled along the wharf and stopped. “Hello the boat!”

I stuck my head out the companionway and returned the standard greeting in my best ‘Newfie’. “Hit’s a foine day!”

“Beautiful day!” came the countersign. Now we could get to business. But this was no idle driver—it was the harbormaster, come to welcome us to Twilingate and collect the nominal wharfage fee. But he wasn’t just harbormaster, it turned out. Gordon Noseworthy was also the mayor of Twilingate, and he gave us the rundown on everything there was to see and do, offered to drive us wherever we might need to go, and promised to do his best to find several crucial charts we were lacking for our cruise to Notre Dame Bay. Wharfage, which here included the showers and laundry (not coin-op; just normal machines), worked out to about ten dollars a day, Sundays free, and there was wifi in the lounge. Things were looking up.

Maybe it’s not too often that cruisers visit Twilingate; maybe he was up for re-election—no telling. But in the few days we were there Mayor Noseworthy exerted himself heroically. A new, working television appeared in the lounge, which also became stocked with coffee (complimentary), creamer, sugar, paper towels; needful things appeared in the bathrooms, and though his efforts to find charts were fruitless, he evidently did have a good try. He wouldn’t take wharfage for more than just two nights, and stopped by now and again just to see how we were getting on. One could see why he was mayor—I’d have voted for him too. We never got a chance to mention the shower valve, so Danielle never got her wash, but we did find a splendid play park for the girls up the road from a second supermarket, one which somewhat filled in the gaps left by the Foodland.

Our chart supply dilemma was solved by someone else—a local resident who was attracted to Ganymede because he also happens to own an Atkins-designed gaff-headed cutter. Eric Facey had an impressive sailing resume, it turned out as we talked, and also three huge boxes full of charts we were welcome to borrow. I spent a very pleasant afternoon at his house, which was more full of seafaring books and artifacts than I imagined existed, sorting through charts of Notre Dame Bay, the Northern Peninsula, and the straits of Belle Isle, returning to Ganymede with a triumphant armload of needful cartography.

Though still noisy, smelly and largely unattractive, Twilingate proved less of a disappointment than we’d feared: it is, after all, full of Newfoundlanders, who excel at looking out not only for each other, but for any strangers that happen to wash up on their shores. And those that do are never strangers for long.

We are the Zartman family: Ben & Danielle, and our three girls, Antigone, Emily and Damaris. We created this blog to chronicle our sailing adventures on Ganymede, a home-finished 31-foot gaff-rigged cutter, which has been our home since 2009, when we sailed from San Francisco, California, to the Sea of Cortez, then down along the Central American coast.

The post Highs and Lows in Twilingate, Newfoundland appeared first on Cruising World.

It blew near-gale or gale force four out of the five days we were at Lumsden. We hadn’t meant to stay that long—in fact we tried to leave once, when the wind was only supposed to blow 25-30. With storm try’sl and reefed stay’sl, we were making good time close-hauled against a wicked chop, which was considerable even less than a half-mile from shore. But the wind kept getting stronger, and worse, shifting gradually more and more on the bows. With a skinny passage through shoals to run, we didn’t have that greatest of sailor’s comforts: searoom. There was only one heading to make it safely though, and Ganymede simply couldn’t steer that course. It’s not often we get turned completely back (I can remember only one other time), but there was nothing else to be done. As it was, we had a job of it getting through the fairway back into Lumsden, after a two-hour return beam reach, since it was blowing a full gale by now and the little outboard can’t do much against that sort of wind.

“She’ll always blow more West around here than the forecast say,” someone told me who had watched Ganymede sailing back through the foaming crests. “Ye’re lucky there’s not much swell—sometimes she breaks right across the entrance.” I had found it more than enough swell as it was: the wind was blowing against it, which always makes for very uncomfortable, steep waves—the sort that smack the bows and send all sorts of spray flying back to soak the helmsman. Danielle had been pretty wet by the time we turned back, and I couldn’t imagine how it would have been with the seas any worse. Perhaps we would have been turned back sooner.

We got out of Lumsden at last during a rare dead calm, and it was strange to motor gently between reefs that had been vicious, ship-killing breakers just a couple days before. The predicted wind—a fair wind for once—didn’t materialize till we were just ten miles from our destination. We didn’t really mind. Once bitten, twice shy, they say, and we were feeling pretty shy of any sort of wind just then. Still, we enjoyed a couple-hours sail before arriving at Deep Cove, accessed through a rocky passage barely thirty feet wide. There was another gale on the way, so we set an extra anchor and settled in to wait it out. Deep Cove, on Fogo Island, couldn’t have been more different than Lumsden. Where that morning we had been tied up in a busy, smelly, gurry-slimed port on a coast low, grassy and windswept, we were now among rocky red hills that poked abruptly from the water, covered in patches of low scrub that proved to be mostly blueberry plants.

It was a beautiful spot, and mostly quiet, except when someone or other drove slowly down the waterfront road, turned around at the end, then drove slowly back along. It seems to be a Newfoundland thing, for everyone to get into their truck, drive aimlessly around for a spell, then do it again several hours later. We had noticed it first in Cape Broyle, when several times a day the same truck would drive onto the wharf, park for a few minutes, then drive thoughtfully away. If another of the regular drivers happened to be there, they would have a bit of a chat before moving along. Of course, here in Deep Cove they had something to look at: it’s not often a sailboat anchors in their harbor, so the stream of traffic was nearly endless. Some folks we met ashore, the only non-natives in the settlement, disclosed an extra reason we were considered of interest: Ganymede is registered in California, which proved, beyond any question, that we must be drug dealers. (Do you really think people with small children aboard would be drug runners? Our friends had asked. “That’s just to throw us all off the scent,” they answered sagely. ” Ye should be careful, talking to en.”)

While they kept a close watch on Ganymede and speculated whether our anchors would foul on the tons of lost ground tackle, engine blocks, cars, refrigerators and other junk believed to have been lost in the harbor in past years, we happily scrambled among the rocky hills, picking blueberries and enjoying the scenery. There’s a lot more in Fogo Island that we didn’t get to see, but it’ll have to wait till next time ’round. We had spent longer than our alloted time in Lumsden, and needed to make up some leeway in the calendar. Luckily our anchors came up with no difficulty, and on the third morning after arriving we threaded our way back out the narrow cleft in the rocks, past the pink rockyness of Hare Bay Head, and shaped a course for Twilingate. Again it was calm, and again we didn’t mind—around here it seems to never rain but pour, and the last thing you want when wending through rocky passages is a snorter livening up the scene.

We were looking forward to Twilingate—it was reported to be a thriving place, which always means groceries, laundry, wifi, and other comforts, which after not much of either since leaving Bonavista would be a welcome change. In certain ways it proved unique indeed; in others it was classic Newfoundland—but I’ll have to tell you all about it in a future post.

We are the Zartman family: Ben & Danielle, and our three girls, Antigone, Emily and Damaris. We created this blog to chronicle our sailing adventures on Ganymede, a home-finished 31-foot gaff-rigged cutter, which has been our home since 2009, when we sailed from San Francisco, California, to the Sea of Cortez, then down along the Central American coast. Currently in Newport, Rhode Island, we plan to sail to Canada, the U.K., and beyond this summer.

The post Fogo Island, Finally appeared first on Cruising World.

Zartman- girls

Ganymede likes what every sailboat does; give her a wind just forward of the beam, a little more sail out than feels prudent, and she’ll put her lee side down and go. Danielle likes that also, and will sit at the helm for hours just loving everything while Ganymede makes 6 ½ knots and spray crashes over the foredeck and tries to wash my halyards out the scuppers. I on the other hand, who has to go forward to fiddle with sails or try and navigate below, like it a little less. It’s wonderful, of course, to be going that fast, but I’m a timid sailor at heart, and trying to feed the children or tidy up everything that leaps to the cabin sole when the boat is mostly sideways takes the edge off my enjoyment. Not that it matters: around here, it behooves you to go if the wind is fair, even if there’s rather more of it than you want; otherwise it’ll be no wind at all, or more than you can handle from straight ahead.

So the wind being fair we crossed Bonavista Bay, and it was pretty grand to get across so fast, even if we were double-reefed and well splashed when we arrived at the other side. Our destination was Pork Island, accessed by going between Brown Fox Island and, interestingly, another named ‘Beef’. As we entered the sheltered waters next to Beef Island the wind redoubled its already considerable efforts, and we were glad enough to motor into the anchorage on Pork Island and find a perfect haven, nearly as gorgeous as Ireland’s Eye, and with mud to anchor in instead of kelp.

It was early enough to launch the dinghy and go explore, even after waiting for a couple of rain showers to pass. The cottages here, though all empty, were in good repair. The ground was covered in deep mosses and springy plants, which were softer than the deepest carpets, and the girls sank past their ankles as they walked. There were no paths, and there would have been very little to do if there hadn’t been blueberries and raspberries by the hundred. We’d found a few in St. John’s, and a couple more in Trinity, but here the bushes were just bursting with them. Danielle borrowed the dinghy baler and she and Antigone filled it and their mouths while Emily, Damaris and I found tiny starfish on the shore.

The next day, after picking berries on the opposite shore, we motored out and around to Puddingbag Cove. Not because we thought it would be better or prettier than Pork Island, but because it would put us 10 miles closer to Cape Freels, the next big cape to get around, and we wanted to get to it as early as possible when we did go. What wind there is always seems to increase as the day goes on, so early mornings are the best time to do the ticklish work. Puddingbag, though having one of the narrowest entrances we’ve ever put Ganymede through, proved well worthwhile. The hills were low, but carpeted in the same spongy groundcover as Pork, and the berries were even more abundant and easier to get to. Though we had nothing to roast or toast, we made a bonfire on the shore, just because fires are such jolly fun, and kept the smaller girls entertained while Danielle picked berries.

Capes of all sorts have a well-deserved reputation for being ugly and dangerous. Even innocuous-looking ones like Point Judith in Rhode Island, or Cape May in New Jersey seem to generate their own nasty weather conditions, be it never so quiet elsewhere. Cape Freels was no different. Even though it had been flat calm for a whole day before we rounded it, there seemed to be three biggish swells running from different directions, and the many outlying rocks and reefs Ganymede was wending her way through were breaking spectacularly. The light breeze changed direction and constancy several times as we came around the final of the cape’s three heads, and then we were around and the swell miraculously disappeared , the breeze steadied out, and we could see our destination in the distance. As we approached Lumsden, we were glad to have gotten an early start, since the breeze that built would have been most uncomfortable around the cape.

Little fishing cabins built along a creek on Pork Island.

Another advantage of our early start was that we got to Lumsden with plenty of time for the girls to enjoy the first sandy beach we’ve seen in Newfoundland. If it wasn’t for the coolness of the air, it could be any beach along the Jersey shore—all fine gray sand and sparkling blue water. Coolness notwithstading, the girls couldn’t resist and went swimming while I went in search of a grocery store. Lumsden, it appeared, is less of a seafaring town—the harbor is relatively new—and more of a redneck vacation paradise.

The sandy trails along the beach are crawling with ATVs, the ground is littered with shotgun shells and broken glass, and the occasional sagging travel trailer sits abandoned in a meadow where cows and horses graze behind rough pole fences. I even learned a new redneck unit of measurement when I asked directions to the grocery store. “Just make a left at the stop sign,” the lady at the post office said, “and it’s just a gunshot away.” Now, I had no idea how far a gunshot is, but it turned out (if you’re curious) to be no more than a furlong.

We were held up by weather in Lumsden longer than we wanted, but that’s part of the price to pay for cruising. Though we’d rather be in a new port every other night or so, often we’ve had to wait a week and more for a chance to escape some harbor or other. It’s a little frustrating here, because all we need, and are not getting, is a few quiet hours to make it to Musgrave. Which really, in passagemaking terms, is barely a gunshot away.

A little taste of the cold Labrador Current.

We are the Zartman family: Ben & Danielle, and our three girls, Antigone, Emily and Damaris. We created this blog to chronicle our sailing adventures on Ganymede, a home-finished 31-foot gaff-rigged cutter, which has been our home since 2009, when we sailed from San Francisco, California, to the Sea of Cortez, then down along the Central American coast. Currently in Newport, Rhode Island, we plan to sail to Canada, the U.K., and beyond this summer.

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