Thursday, July 10th.

We left Rose Blanche the same way we entered – in thick fog and with light headwinds motored again all the way to Burgeo, 47 36.77N 057 36.47W.  We had AIS, Radar and eyeballs and saw nothing but fog all day on any of these devices.   And the coast here is, apparently, so beautiful.  Well we’ll just have to take an extra look on the way back.  We entered the harbour on GPS and Radar, without which we’d have had no chance of getting in safely, and docked in the travellift bay. 

A couple of Brits who had been living in Newfoundland since the 70’s came over, introduced themselves and offered their car.  We accepted and used their car to fill our gas tanks using our spare cans.  We spent a very peaceful night. 

Ships Log: 3824.7, Todays Log: 49.9, Seasons Total: 236.7

Tuesday July 8th, Wednesday July 9th

We set off for Couture Bay, 45 nm distant with forecasted southerly winds which would have been perfect sailing winds.  As it turned out, the winds were from the East which was the direction we were going in – not so perfect.  And the waves were still pretty big after the recent storms, so Quinita was banged about quite a bit.  After a few hours of beating into this mess, waiting for the winds to come round to the south we decided to head for one of our ‘emergency’ ports instead.  We entered the harbor of Rose Blanche, 47 36.59N 058 41.62W, at about 3pm after sailing a distance of 33 miles to make 19 miles to windward.  That’s sailing! 

Ships Log: 3774.8, Todays Log: 32.9, Seasons Total: 186.8

We are the only boat here that is not a local boat. We went on a hike from this village into the next (even smaller than this village) – Harbour le Cou. What a lovely trail it was! We decided to hang out here till tomorrow. There’s a Tea Room overlooking the harbour where we get our wifi connection and although the opening hours are 11 – 4 the owner said don’t pay any attention to that, if the lights are on, come on in. We said disappointedly, “oh you aren’t open for dinner” and she said “I can do dinner for you”. So we arranged to dine there tomorrow (Wed) night. 

Wednesday dawned cold, wet and foggy.  Ron had a few maintenance jobs to do on the boat and Teresa went for a walk to the local ‘Groceteria’ but it was closed for lunch.  (They’re open 9am – 9pm but closed for lunch and supper).  On the way back, the road had been dug up so not even pedestrians could get through, and Teresa had her walk extended by a mile or so. 

Ron hiked to the top of a hill to get cell phone coverage where he was able to call Raymarine for tech support of our chartplotter. 

In the afternoon, we attempted to dry our wet clothes from yesterday, but were unsuccessful.  Forecast is for fog and rain for the next few days.  Oh well – it’s still a beautiful area. 

We dined at “Madolyns Studio” in the evening.  It was very nice and Lyn was a very interesting person.  The name came from comments Lyn’s friends made when she announced she was opening a B&B and Tea Room at the far end of the only road east of Port aux Basque, at the age of 73 – Mad Old Lyn!

Saturday 5th, Sunday 6th, Monday 7th July. Storm bound

By 1pm, the winds were blowing strongly across the harbor, but Quinita is pretty well sheltered.  When the ferry goes past however, it sends quite a swell which rolls the boats around a bit.  Forecasted winds are from the SE (blowing us onto the wall), becoming W later, which will blow us off the wall and should be more comfortable. 

We had a coffee at the local hotel, and caught up on internet stuff – bills, blogs and (Teresa) sifting through the hundreds of iceberg photos…  We saw Joe in the hotel and he joined us with his computer.  We had appetizers for lunch and stayed all afternoon with the occasional check on the boats.  It was blowing hard and rainy.  We got caught up on blogging, and other internet stuff and helped Joe download some updates to his Chartplotter, (which took a while since the internet connection was not lightning fast). 

Suddenly it was dinner time, so we did!  Ron had Cod Tongues and Moose Stew.  Yum yum. 

After dinner the rain had eased and we (Ron & Teresa) went for a walk around town before returning to Quinita.  We were being blown off the wall and so had a comfortable nights sleep.

On Sunday, it was still blowing hard when we woke, but we were still pretty comfortable.  It was raining again and cold.  In the afternoon we took a scenic drive to the Rose Blanche lighthouse.  The drive was beautiful and the lighthouse was very interesting.  It had fallen into disrepair and recently been restored.  They made a very nice job of it.  The wind was howling at the lighthouse, almost blowing us over, which made us realize what a nice snug harbor we had for Quinita.  We had another quiet night, despite the wind.

By Monday morning the wind was starting to ease.  The forecast was indicating that we might be able to continue our travels tomorrow.  We’re hoping so.  There’s not really much to do here at Port aux Basque.  In the afternoon we went for a drive with Joe and found some very interesting dirt roads.  After driving through huge potholes at 5 mph for about 45 minutes, the main road re-appeared, but it was touch and go whether a road car would be able to get across the last big dip in the road.  We unloaded passengers to save weight, and cautiously crossed the last hurdle. 

Friday 4th July.

We had been monitoring Hurricane Arthur for the past few days.  It wasn’t expected to reach Newfoundland, but its effects would probably be felt in the next couple of days.  So we cut our trip short, and returned to the boat.  On the way we popped in at Gros Morne, a huge national park.  We didn’t have time to do the park justice, but we did manage to hike to the start of the boat tour into the inland fiords. 

We got back to the boat at 9:30pm after a long day mostly driving.  It was still light and so were the winds, so we decided to move the boat to a better location before the predicated strong winds arrived tomorrow.  We tucked ourselves into what we hoped would be a relatively sheltered spot against the harbor wall.  Two other yachts had arrived since we left 3 days ago – one from Germany and one from Maine, heading for the North West Passage.  So in the past couple of weeks, we have met one boat on the way and another planning a trip to this tough sailing area.  Good luck and fair winds to both of them!

Thursday 3rd July- Icebergs off the Starboard Bow!

Fortunately it wasn’t the bow of our boat, which is tied up 390m south of here.  We took a tour of the icebergs with Cecil http://icebergtours.ca, and it was fantastic.   He has been giving tours of the icebergs for 30 years and is still so passionate about them, and of course very knowledgeable.  As you probably know, icebergs are very dangerous, since 90% of them are below water and their centre of gravity changes as they melt which can cause them to suddenly roll without warning.  Our skipper pointed out icebergs that had recently rolled – he could tell from the texture of the ice whether the exposed part had been underwater recently but I forget the details.  He was still cautious of course about going too close but we did get some amazing views of them. 

Teresa must have put a really big roll of film in the camera, ‘cause she took ~300 photos which she has pruned down to 136.  It was extremely difficult but she’s chosen a few to include here – enjoy! Note that one of the photos is an eagle nesting in the mountains.  The photo was taken from the tour boat. What an amazing area!

In the afternoon we went for a short and very hilly bike round around North and South Twillingate Islands.  The islands are very pretty and hilly and the weather was unbelievably warm – 33C, 92F.  We took a hike up to Long Point lighthouse and just missed seeing an iceberg calve – when a large chunk breaks away and forms a smaller one.  In fact we heard the crack and by the time we turned around, just saw the remains of the splash. 

In the evening we went for a ‘Theatre Dinner’.  This took place in a community centre and was attended by a mixture of locals and tourists.  We had dinner, then the wait staff took up guitars, accordions and various props to entertain us with music and sketches.  The jokes were intentionally corny, but the whole experience was enjoyable.  It took me (Ron) back to the middle 1960’s when my Boy Scout troop performed “Gang Shows”, attended mostly by friends and family, to raise money for the troop.

Wednesday 2nd July.

We set off north in the car bound for Twillingate, a beautiful fishing town on islands off the northeast coast of Newfoundland.    It was a beautiful drive, although rather long – 620Km, 390m.  When we got to Twillingate it was even beautifuller and we were treated  to the site of several big icebergs.  Yes, that is a big iceberg behind those buildings in the second photo.   Our B&B was very nice – a small room, but what the heck, we’re used to living in a small space!  We went for a short bike ride, saw more icebergs and then had dinner on the outside deck at a local fish restaurant. The Snow Crabs were delicious.   We never dreamed that we’d be eating outside in shorts, t-shirts and sandals at 9pm watching the sunset and looking at icebergs.  What an amazing contrast.

Tuesday 1st July.

We visited the harbor master and moved the boat to a more secure berth.  This was however a fixed dock designed for fishing boats, not a floating dock which is usual in a marina.  Floating docks have the advantage that they rise and fall with the tide.  We spent some time therefore adjusting our lines so that they held the boat at high water but had sufficient slack for low water.   

Once satisfied with the lines, we went for a short bike ride around town.  July 1^st is Canada day, so there was music playing all afternoon close to the boat.   There were also a few brightly coloured booths  selling ice cream, doughnuts, etc.  We listened to the music for a while, then sauntered through the booths until Ron saw “Deep Fried Mars Bars”.  This was a challenge that couldn’t be ignored so we bought one.  It was actually pretty good – a Mars Bar wrapped in some kind of thin bread dough and fried!

We alternated between the boat, (to check the lines and get warmer clothes), and the music bandstand and marveled at the locals standing around in T shirts.  (By this time we had donned sweaters and wind breakers). 

Late in the afternoon an American powerboat arrived and tied up in front of us.  It turned out that the skipper, Joe, was single handed and hailed from Beverly, MA – our sailing buddies Brenda and Vin’s home port.

We had organized a rental car for the next few days to explore this large island, and the rental guy called us to arrange delivery.  We were having lunch at the time and agreed to meet him in ½ hour at the boat.  20 minutes later, as we were walking down to the boat, a car wound down its window and a voice called “Are you the car renters?”  I guess we were the only 2 people in town that the rental guy didn’t recognize.  Life is different here!

We had dinner on board and then went back to the music and watched the Canada Day fireworks.  Ron woke at 1am to check the lines one more time.