Posts In The “North America East Coast” Category
In the late 1800s, locals built a canal between Malagawatch Harbour to Denys Basin. Via a portage from Little Harbour into Malagawatch Harbour and then through the canal into Denys Basin this safer route took 20 miles off the trip between Marble Mountain and Orangedale. The canal was 1,000 ft long, 17 ft wide and…
From the Washabuck River we travelled south through the Barra Strait to spend a couple of days in and around Denys Basin. The current can reach several knots in the Barra Strait narrows, so we left the anchorage at Washabuck River to time our arrival for slack water mid-tide. The Grand Narrows Railway bridge in…
We’d never seen flocks of eagles before, but that was practically the scene at Indian Island at the head of Wyhcocomagh Bay. We anchored in the pristine Washabuck River and ran the tender twenty-five miles up Wyhcocomagh Bay. As we rounded the southwest point of Indian Island, we saw an eagle in a tree, then…
Despite 1) falling rain, 2) a forecast for thunderstorms, 3) an exposed run through the edge of the North Atlantic 4) uncertainty about anywhere to land the tender, and 5) a potentially difficult re-entry to Little Bras d’Or channel into a strong ebb current against a freshening northerly wind, the shorter and admittedly slightly more…
Baddeck is the largest town on the Bras d’Or Lakes and is famous for once being home to inventor Alexander Graham Bell. We very much enjoyed this traditional maritime town with its strong Scottish heritage and the excellent Alexander Graham Bell museum. Trip highlights from August 30th and 31st follow. Click any image for a…
From Newfoundland we made a 150-nm, 24-hour passage to Bras d’Or Lake in Nova Scotia. In addition to looking for a good weather forecast for the run across Laurentian Channel between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, we also needed to time our arrival at the entrance channel, Great Bras d’Or. The current at the narrow north…
Newfoundland is a world-class cruising destination and we’ll certainly be back for more. Our initial plan for cruising the province was to circumnavigate the island, hitting the highlights. But after our first taste of the beautiful fiords and amazing view hikes along the south coast, we were hooked. We decided instead to spend our time…
Bay de Vieux was a microcosm of our Newfoundland trip and a fitting final anchorage. There we enjoyed fabulous scenery, dramatic waterfalls, an excellent view hike and chatted with some friendly locals from nearby Ramea. Trip highlights from August 27th follow. Click any image for a larger view, or click the position to view the…
The narrow entrance channel to Grey River is a gap in the cliffs only 450-ft wide and hardly is visible until you are right up to it. We’d timed our entrance for low-water slack as an ebb current against wind and swell can generate steep and rough seas outside the entrance. Even without any opposing…
We entered La Hune Bay past a stubby light perched above a helicopter service pad on a steep, barren cliff. The light and the abandoned community of Cape La Hune gave the place an even more remote feel than some of our other anchorages, as if nobody had been there for a very long time….
You’d think by now that we might be getting tired of yet another view hike with a waterfall. Not yet. But even if we were, Aviron Bay would perk us right back up again. There we anchored off a one thousand-foot waterfall and climbed to the clifftops for sweeping views of the anchorage and surrounding…
We’d been told that we couldn’t really say we’d been to Newfoundland without sighting a moose, but we’d not seen one yet. We’d seen moose dropping and moose tracks, but no moose. We have been up on the highest points in the area where we can see for miles in all directions with unbroken hills…
Facheux Harbour is the longest, at about ten miles, and deepest fjord on the south coast of Newfoundland. Surprisingly, a good anchorage is at the head in 45ft. The steeply-sloped sides make shore access difficult, but we did find a track to the top, complete with climbing ropes. Trip highlights from Aug 19th follow. Click…
The first permanent settlers inhabited Pushthrough, at the mouth of Northern Arm, in 1812. The population reached 209 by 1884 and peaked at 247 in 1961. Between 1966 and 1968, a third of the 50 families relocated and the entire community resettled in 1969. Much has been written about the negative impacts of the resettlement…
Northern Arm extends as two long inlets roughly eleven miles into the Newfoundland Coast from the western edge of Bay d’Espoir. The scenery there, particularly along seven-mile North Bay, is spectacular. We spent four nights in Northern Arm where we saw seals, whales and eagles, made five climbs, and completely ran out of superlatives to…
From Piccaire we travelled around the east side of Long Island into Bay d’Espoir through scenic, but aquaculture-filled Little Passage. We stopped for the night at Jack Damp Cove with great views into Bay d’Espoir. The next day we ran through even more scenic Lampidoes Passage and anchored at beautiful and sheltered Middle Goblin Bay…
In 1961 when best-selling Canadian author Farley Mowat visited Piccaire, he could barely find room to tie his skiff to the crowded new Government wharf. He prefered to anchor off Piccaire and make the three-mile walk overland if he wanted to reach the nearby town of Gaultois. Little remains of that new Government wharf today,…
We weren’t planning to visit Round Harbour on the south side of Long Island as the entrance looked tight and the charts showed aquaculture filling the small basin inside. But we decided to at least check it out on our way past and are glad we did. The entrance wasn’t difficult and the bay inside…