Tuesday, Wednesday, 26th, 27th August, Souris

We had planned to sail to Georgetown since they were advertising a Ceilidh on Tuesday evenings, but the weather was against us – 25 knots of headwinds. 

So we started preparing the boat for haulout instead.  There’s a fair amount of work at the end of each season – washing, drying and stowing sails, cleaning the boat, etc. etc. etc.  We had a productive day, and then drove to Georgetown in the evening for a delicious dinner followed by the Ceilidh. 

The Ceilidh was interesting and fun.  Maybe 80 townsfolk were there from a population of ~675.  We were warmly welcomed when we arrived and paid our $5 entry fee.  People were dancing to local amateur country and western musicians (some were pretty good).  We practiced our waltzing techniques and then the dancing switched to something like square dancing in that you promenade around and change partners frequently.  We, of course, knew nothing of this, but once again the locals were very helpful and showed us what to do.  At 10pm, “lunch” was served and 2 birthdays were celebrated (with cards which we were asked to sign!)  The evening finished with a few jokes from one of the locals. 

On Wednesday, we had another day of sunny and windy weather and were able to continue getting the boat ready for haulout tomorrow.

In the afternoon a Gannett came to visit.  It was swimming around the marina, very close to our boat.  Someone suggested that it had a broken leg. 

Monday, 25th August, Souris

Drove to Charlottetown, the capital of PEI, to drop off our boat cover for a few repairs.  We then went on to Victoria, a tiny but quaint village further up the coast.  It was very hot – the first time we’ve been this hot this summer.  We had lunch there and watched the kid swimming in the harbour.  Despite its size (pop 100), there were many speciality shops. 

Went back to Charlottetown, had “Cows” ice cream and visited the marina we stayed at last year.  

Sunday, August 24th, Souris

Ron caught another 3 mackerel this morning – not huge, but big enough to eat, so tonight we’ll dine on fresh fish!  He also lost 2 lures – one simply flew off the line on his 2^nd cast, and the other got caught on something on the bottom. 

We drove out to New Glasgow, via St. Peters, where we spotted a bald eagle, and bicycled along the northern coast to Stanley Bridge, near where Anne of Green Gables was set.  This part of PEI is a little different from other places we’ve seen so far.  More variety, and more touristy.  After the ride, we drove to Tyne Valley – a very nice looking town where our friend Carolyn grew up. 

We returned to the boat, and grilled the mackerel whole.  The smaller ones were pretty fiddly to eat and we found plenty of bones.  Perhaps I need to google Mackerel grilling!

Saturday, August 23rd, Souris

We took another scenic drive today, this time to the southern tip.  We left the car at Wood Islands, and cycled to Cape Bear.  We had a very nice lunch in Murray Harbour and rode back via the Confederation Trail (a disused railway cycle path). 

After returning to the boat, Ron tried his hand at Mackerel fishing.  He caught 5, but only 1 was big enough to keep (for an appetizer perhaps tomorrow).  Anyway, that brings the seasons total to 15 – 5 Mackerel, 9 Cod and 1 big ugly Scobie, but who’s counting?

Friday, August 22nd, Souris

Since we now have our car available to us, we did the Points East coastal drive which included East Point – the headland we rounded yesterday – and it’s lighthouse. 

PEI is famous for, amongst other things, potatoes, and we saw plenty of them.  We resisted the urge to visit the few potato vodka distilleries we saw …

Thursday, August 21st – Souris, PEI

We awoke early again and this time the forecast looked good for our trip to Souris, PEI, 46 20.85N 062 14.86W.  We cast off at 6am and started sailing in lighter than the forecasted Northerly winds.  Pretty soon our big light wind sail – the screecher -  was hoisted, and we had an ETA of 9:30pm.  We sailed for 4 hours until the boat speed dropped to 3 knots, with an ETA of 2:30am.  So the engine went on and we motored sailed for 6 hours.  The winds picked up in a hurry and we started rolling away the big screecher.  Until the furling line parted that is.   2 parted lines in 2 days is not right!  Fortunately, the line had parted at a point where it could be temporarily tied and the screecher was rolled away, otherwise we could have had an interesting situation on our hands.  Anyway, the genoa was rolled out, the engines went off and we had a very nice sail for the rest of the trip, including rounding East Point and broad reaching in 12knots of wind at 8 knots boat speed. 

Our first encounter with Gannets was last year in Gaspe.  We were enthralled with these amazing birds that would dive bomb the fish from 50’ high.  We found ourselves entertained once again by the gannets on this trip.

We docked at 7:30pm and by 8:30 had ordered take out pizza, and collected it on our bikes. 

Ships Log: 4447.9, Todays Log: 64.6, Seasons Total: 859.9

Wednesday, August 20th – Ile d’Entrée.

5am.  Master berth, Quinita.

What’s the weather forecast?

NW 20-25 with 3 metre seas. 

Let’s go back to sleep. 

Good Idea!

We rose at 9am, and putzed around the boat.  By 10am the updated forecast was looking good for a departure tomorrow – (where have we heard that before). 

We’ve docked a lot on rough walls in fishing harbours this season, and are always careful to protect our lines against chafe.  We’re not so concerned when docking on floating docks, but we should be.  We were sitting on the boat, the wind was still blowing strongly and we heard a bang.  Our bow line had parted and the bow of the boat was swinging out, held only by the spring line, which was now under great strain.  We retied the bow line and realized that the mooring posts, were rusty and rough enough to chafe through our lines.  This time we added chafe protection.  Thank goodness the line didn’t part in the middle of the night.  Lesson learned!

We went for a short walk to the disused airfield in the afternoon and found a great blueberry spot where we picked container number 5.  On our returned to the boat we were just in time to see the ferry having a very hard time unloading a camper onto a narrow wharf.  Greg and Perry (on Sukha) arrived while the fun was going on and docked opposite us. 

Living on a small boat, particularly in remote locations often necessitates a certain inventiveness when preparing meals, depending on what food is available.  Teresa excelled herself with a delicious dessert of fresh blueberries over oatmeal cookies topped with Baileys Irish Cream!