Saturday, July 28, 2012

Shelburne, NS

One thing I left out about Halifax was the anything-that-floats race that the kids at the RNSYS had.  Laurie had a bird's eye view with the finish line right behind our boat and snapped a few pictures.  The kids cobble together some assortment of foam blocks, life jackets, and whatever, then grab anything flat to paddle with, and the race is on.  It's the flotsam and Jetsam Jamboree.

RNSYS Anything-That-Floats Race

We arrived in Shelburne Thursday evening and spent a bunch of time poking around trying to find a good place to anchor.  The winds were predicted to kick up quite a bit over night and we wanted a place sheltered from the prevailing direction.  One spot was completely open to the predicted direction of the wind, another turned out to be right in the middle of the channel into an unmarked mini-harbor, but we finally found a great spot up on the west fork of Shelburne Bay (the town of Shelburne is on the east fork).  It was a very nice spot, but the next day we went over to the town to top up with fuel and ended up staying for two days.

Sunset, Shelburne

Shelburne Yacht Club and Waterfront

Remember the Tall Ships that we passed leaving Halifax as we arrived?  Well, from Halifax, some of them kept going up to coast the way we had come, and half went down the coast to Lunenburg.  And this weekend they were all coming to Shelburne.  And quite the festival it has been.  Everyone in town appears to have a pirate costume hidden in their closer, and this is the weekend when they all come out.  Men, women, children, and whole families of pirates wandering around.  The festival is part pirates, part about the War of 1812 (200 year anniversary), part about ship building, and part about Revolutionary War loyalists, a huge gang of whom moved here to settle.  The grown-up boys were playing with their Blunderbusses and cannons with great explosions every couple of hours, the Tall Ships all fired their cannons on arrival, and a few amateurs chimed in as well.  My kinda stuff!  At the Sea Dog Cafe, they are having a Grand Buccaneer's Ball tonight with "Parrots, Monkeys, and Goats Welcome".  What a hoot!

Arriving Tall Ship, Shelburne
Roseway, Built in Essex, Ma

Pride of Baltimore II

There also is a kindred relationship between our home port of Gloucester and Shelburne.  They are Sister-Cities, whatever that means.  But more tangibly, one of the few remaining dory builders is here in Shelburne and we had a nice visit with Milford Buchanan who is one of the only remaining craftsmen.  It turns out that many of the dories in Gloucester were built here, some by Milford himself.  Plus, the big Christmas Tree at the intersection of Western Ave and Essex Ave is an annual gift from Shelburne, hand picked each year by the Mayor himself.

Tomorrow the plan is to reach Yarmouth which is the launch point for crossing the Bay of Fundy.

And last but not least, here's the progress map as of today.

Progress as of July 28, 2012

2 comments:

  1. Awesome stuff. You still don't show up on the Maurader's map (or however they spell it). Remove your cloak of invisibility.... :)

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  2. I know. We showed up very briefly i Halifax, but that's it. The land-based receivers that pick up the AIS signals and broadcast them on the internet are all installed and operated by volunteers. As a result, the coverage is very spotty once you get out of major metropolitan areas, and even when there is a receiver, it's location is often less than ideal. For example, the only receiver between Marblehead and Portsmouth is in Annisquam somewhere and doesn't pick up anything from Manchester to Halibut Point - Only the occasional very large commercial ship with a high powered transmitter. For example, you can usually see the Independence, but that's about it.

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