Thursday 26th, June.

Windy, rainy and cool, but it’s nice to be afloat and tied up to a dock.  We both putzed around doing jobs on the boat.  Ron installed 3 LED lights, which save a lot of electrical power, and estimated the time to be ½ hour each.  The first 2 took an hour each and the last took 3 hours – about par for Ron’s estimating skills.  Teresa stocked up on food and did the laundry.  Strong winds are forecast from the NE tomorrow, (the direction we plan to sail), and from the NW at 10 – 15 knots for Saturday, which is absolutely perfect for our first trip to Cheticamp, Nova Scotia.  So, we’re planning our departure for Saturday. 

Our “next door neighbours” when Quinita was ashore were a Canadian couple – Tom and Clarissa.  Our few conversations so far revealed that they had sailed from Northern Lake Huron to PEI, via the Gaspe Peninsular over the past 4 years.  Pretty much the same trip we have made.  So we invited them over for dinner thinking that perhaps we had had similar sailing experiences.  We had a very pleasant evening with them, but in terms of sailing experiences, we were totally outclassed.  It turned out that they had built their boat (a 34’ Van de Stadt steel sloop) 20 years ago in Australia, and had sailed to New Zealand, the islands of the South Seas, Hawaii and ended up in British Columbia.  Next season they are planning a circumnavigation of Newfoundland (no mean feat) and are considering a passage back to the West Coast of Canada and Alaska via the North West Passage – a trip few sailors would attempt.  Despite their obvious sailing prowess, a very nice and unassuming couple.  We hope to meet them later in the season on the Bras d’Or. 

Many pink, purple and white lupins in flower at the moment.  And a pretty lighthouse on Souris provided us with some nice evening walks.