Sunday, May 15, 2016

Two guys and a sailboat in search of craft IPA in Nova Scotia

Rudy and Phil had a discussion over coffee in the marina early in the spring about their desire to set-off on another of their great adventures at sea. Our last was the around the cape, a trip of 190nm. We wanted to sail longer and also to have a destination. So we hatched the plan to sail to Nova Scotia and back. When is a plan a plan rather than just an idea which is soon to be forgotten and de-prioritized by daily work commitments? We immediately blocked off the week May 8th 2016 – it was now a plan. Upon a little further investigation, we had three candidate destinations: Yarmouth, Shelburne and Halifax. Given time pressures the former two were higher on the list. Since it would be a short stop Yarmouth came higher to the top of the list since it had town facilities immediately dockside. Included amongst them was a local brew pub.

Route and winds: Down hill both ways
A few days before departure and after consulting weather forecasts we decided on a mid Sunday morning departure. The weather looked promising with no gales expected and winds out of the south or southwest. Our float plan still included the three destinations which we would update on route based on our progress and updated return weather forecasts. We set sail at 10:51 am on Sunday May 8th 2016 and set a waypoint at the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia with a course of 90 degrees magnetic.

Sails were up within the first mile, and by the time we left outer Boston harbor the asymmetric spinnaker was flying.  Given our theoretical hull speed of 7.4 kts we made good progress at an average speed of 8.2 kts for many hours. The going was fantastic making 143nm in the first 24 hours, a record for Prairie Gold, and included in this was a 1-2h period of 2-3 knot winds in which we tried to eek out a little forward progress. One day we will get 150nm!

We finally decided to head to Yarmouth – that local brewery was tasting better as every hour passed. It wasn’t until we actually arrived in Yarmouth that we decided to stop. We were contemplating heading into the harbor, taking a picture and immediately returning to Boston so that we could clock in a 500+ mile non stop voyage. With the brewery in sight we picked up a mooring and called the Canadian Border Patrol and entered Canada – all by phone. Arrival was at 6:30am on Tuesday having sailed 243nm under sail power only.

Canadian Courtesy Flag

After sleeping for a few hours we moved Prairie Gold to open docks and were set to head off to a marine store to make a purchase necessary for a repair. Before we left one of the locals associated with the marina came running down to the dock – “We don’t open until next week! But you can stay.” He then proceeded to help us by telling us where the marine store was (one block away) and where we could get lunch and a beer(s).





After a great lunch at Rudder’s Seafood Restaurant and Brew pub” we went back to Prairie Gold, slept a few more hours and then disembarked by 7:15pm local time for Boston.

The weather looked very good, with sun in the forecast as well as winds of 10-20kts, initially on the nose but then from the north until they were forecast to drop to little to none by Thursday. The return trip was uneventful although initially the strong current slowed our progress and caused significant drifts away from our destination. But by the middle of the night the winds shifted to the north so we tacked and we were flying towards Boston. We arrived at the north shore on the Thursday evening and decided to pick up a mooring at Salem and sail into Boston fresh (relatively) the next morning.

Looking back after departing Yarmouth


We got back to Boston mid afternoon with Captn Bob waiting on the finger pier to catch docklines. I had left the Spot transponder on for the final day and he had seen our progress. It was great to see you there waiting for us Bob!

Wild Life
We had our share of wildlife experiences. On the way to Nova Scotia a sparrow joined us for a day. S/he became so familiar with us that s/he would be sitting on the seats in the cockpit as we were adjusting sail trim, gybing etc. We were concerned that we would kneel on it. Later I went into the saloon to start making dinner and who should I find on the stove? Who then tried to get into the bedding for a nap?
Stowaway

On our return journey we decided we need to fish. Unfortunately, our lure was of more interest to a seagull than to fish. We slowly brought the bird on board and managed to get the lure out of the bird and set it free. Although, Rudy did get a nip from the bird’s powerful beak.

Thursday morning the winds were so low that we motored a fair distance. However, the upside was that the water was so flat that we could easily spot wild life. We saw over 20 dolphins within the course of about an hour followed by a humpback whale about 200ft away.

Night watches: 2, 3 or 4 hours?
At the beginning of the trip we discussed how to do our watches. Given that there were only two of us we wanted to minimize fatigue at night so we decided to go for two hour watches at night and maximum flexibility during the day. Of course the difficulty is this prevents getting a sustained period of sleep, but we quickly managed to combat that problem by sleeping in the daytime when conditions permitted. However, effects of acute sleep deprivation were evident on the second night when while reefing the sails we inadvertently performed what we called a pirouette. Look for that in the sailing instructions classes!

The cold, sunset, late dinner
The most difficult aspect of the trip was the cold at night and finding ways to combat it. We ended up developing a pattern of trying to minimize the watches to manage the cold. By the end of the trip we were making ~8pm a special event when we sat and watched the sunset – a highlight of the evening. Then we would chat and begin to discuss dinner which we cooked for about 10pm. With intermittent radar scans and periodic 360degree lookouts we were able to spend about an hour beneath in the relative warmth of the saloon. This was then followed by two mandatory watches 11pm-1am and 1am-3am. Subsequently by about 3:30am twilight began which was soon followed by sunrise. It was so cold on the ocean at night that we really needed to manage the time spent above decks. However, this did reduce total sleep, although we caught up with flexible sleep during the day.

 Sunset - It's about to get cold

Nice to see you again
Breakage aboard Prairie Gold
When we arrived in Yarmouth we noticed a strange scraping sound. Quickly I realized there was a problem with the boom vang: The linkage pin that holds the vang to the base of the mast had been lost. We used zip ties to hold the vang in place and measured the dimensions of the missing pin with a Vernier gauge and headed to the marine store that was just a block from the docks and obtained a stainless steel nut and bolt which fixed the problem.


Celestial Navigation
 Sun dancing through the spinnaker
 Skipper having a fun time
Where did that come from?

Entering Canada and the US
My biggest concern about the trip was not the trip itself but the customs and immigration procedures for re-entry into the US. Canadian entry seemed to be simple and frequently consisted of making a phone call. This was indeed our experience. However, we had mixed messages about how to return to the US.  One set of information told us that if we arrived back at the weekend that we would have to wait until the start of business on Monday to clear into the country. After making several calls prior to the trip I found someone who was knowledgeable and very helpful. With their information re-entry was simple. We called a Maine number that is active 24/7. They took some of our particulars and then called a local Boston office. We then received a call from that office who relayed our information to a local Customs and Border Patrol officer who came and visited Prairie Gold at our slip in our home marina. Customs forms complete together with passport check we had been through re-entry.
Quarantine Flag

What’s next now that Prairie Gold is an internationally travelled sailing vessel? A couple of things come to mind. First, Rudy and Phil spent hours discussing sleep deprivation and ways to combat its effects and the best system for watches. We didn’t come to conclusions but we are committed to learning more. We are both Neuroscientists so there were periods of geekiness on Prairie Gold. Also I study sleep and the mechanisms of sleep deprivation-induced changes in memory formation and cognitive capacity. If any of you readers have connections to distance sailors who I could talk to about their procedures please leave me a comment or email to me. Maybe a sleep deprivation watch system blog entry is in the making. Second, having completed this trip its time to begin to plan the big trip over several years. My goal is to sail legs and have friends join me for individual legs and gradually make it around the globe. Time to plan the dates for the legs (months) and later to fill in the year.


Finally, it's time to get Prairie Gold hauled out of the water to gt her bottom painted and to switch out propellers for our new folding prop. Off to Hingham in a few hours.


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