Jul 31
We got lucky last night as the local boat next to us at the marina came in with a boat full of fresh mackerel. Ricky used his French charm to garner us a lovely meal of fresh fish. We BBQ’d the whole mackerel with onion and cloves of garlic, finished it with lime and had a great sunset on the back deck as the weather cleared.
This morning we left the Bay of Shippegan and on the way out the channel saw more Blue Heron’s in and hour than we had in the rest of our lives. We are now in the Land of Sand. We set a course for Shediac NB which will take us right by the NW coast of PEI. Winds light and from the SW, and we are expecting a great summer day. 30 miles out the water is only 80 ft deep and beginning to warm up. We are also seeing alot of pleasure boats now as this is more protected water. We are doing 95 miles today and so far the weather has been perfect. I guessed we would be 13 hours and arrive at 6pm, we arrived late at 6:01pm… close enough.
Great Marina at point du Chene, with a lively tourist seen and live music and good pubs. 5 min walk to Parlee Beach. We arrived hungry and walked into the Friday night supper at the marina. We put our pasta away and for $12 we ate a 3 course Greek supper including a lovely seafood chowder and moussaka and salad, bring our own wine too. We were so full we had to take dessert back to the boat(and eat it at 2am after returning from the local watering holes where we saw some good live music).
Aug 1
Day off. Slightly hungover, who puts bars this close to boats? it is hazardous. Blair left early to hitch to Hali and on home. Awesome time with Blair on the boat, a really easy guy to crew with. We had lots of good times and good music and developed new friendships. Happy sailing next week! Admiral Dad and I are cleaning and taking the dinghy to town for reprovisioning. This dighy runs awesome with my new motor on it .
After enough recovery time we sink our teeth into an oil, fuel and filters change. My first time doing all this. Everything went smooth and I learned alot already about my new baby. After the 3 hours in the 180 degree engine room we finished and decided to go swim at the local beach. We drove the dighy over and drifted down the sandbar which comes out about a mile from the beach. Couple cold beer in the sun and a swim in the warmest waters north of the Carolinas. Tough sub!
We got back to the boat and I went to the local fish market across the pier and treated the Admiral and myself to a Snow Crab and Lobster each for supper. Took us 2 hours to harvest all the lovely meat from our critters and then we sat back and listened to the salsa band at the pub and started to plan our next big adventure which will be to take dads sailboat to Bahamas and up the coast to NS and eventually onwards arond the world. Got about 5 years ahead of ourselves, but you gotta dream right. This trip was a dream once and we also discussed how we made this a reality. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Admiral/Captain/Engineer and most important driving force behind this trip. It is the trip of a lifetime for him and it would never happen without him. It was a nice night just the two of us.
Aug 2
Rick and the boat are staying here for a couple days. I am getting picked up for a wedding Sunday in Fredricton. Great 2 hour walk this morning and we cleaned the boat up….she sparkles again. Anyway, awesome weather again and Dad can relax by himself for a couple days for the first time in a month or more. We will be back Monday to deliver his new crew on the way back from the wedding, Dennis is rejoining the journey and Tim Best is jumping on to help get it to Cape Breton. They will update you on the PEI portion and onwards. Happy sailing!