Greetings from Shelburne, Nova Scotia!

We spent 2 nights there in Sandwich, MA waiing for the right wind and weather. The perfect combination never completely materialized, but it was good enough, so we left Sandwich at 1230 on Friday to head north.  Dave, Lucie, and I were the crew.

We had a smooth passage overall, and eventually used almost every combination of sails that we could. We flew the spinnaker for a while, had double-reefed main with staysail only, full sail, and motored more that we had hoped for.  It was pretty busy with all the sail changes, fog, big ships, etc. It was also our first longer passage in the actual ocean on our own boat, so we were all also somewhat nervous and sleep-deprived, but overall it was a smooth and comfortable trip.

Spinnaker selfie

We made landfall at Cape Sable, Nova Scotia where we had some contrary currents and lumpy seas, but then the current turned, we rounded the cape, and shot along northeast to the entrance the Shelburne Bay.  The wind picked up and we were able to finish the trip under full sail. We made pizza for our last dinner of the passage.

We arrived in Shelburne, Nova Scotia at about 9pm (after setting our clocks forward since we have sailed into another time zone).  Shelburne turns out to be a really delightful little town with extremely friendly people.  We cleared immigration easily, since the Canadians let you do it by phone, then were able to get off the boat and walk on land again for a little while before sleeping  for 10 hours.

On the dock at Shelburne, happy to be there!

Shelburne waterfront at about 10pm on arrival day

Here in Nova Scotia, many of the marinas available for travelling boats are managed by yacht clubs.  We are at the Shelburne Harbor Yacht Club.  If your idea of a yacht club is white shoes and stuffy people, this is the polar opposite.  They couldn’t be more down-to-earth and friendly and know everyone and everything around here.  Dave had to leave us on Wednesday to get back to Burlington.  Turns out that Shelburne is isolated enough that there is no bus or even Uber to get to Halifax or Yarmouth or another transportation center, but the folks here knew somebody who knew somebody who would do trips to Halifax in their van on Wednesdays, so we got Dave on his way home.

Shelburne Harbor YC docks – pretty small! That’s WildHorse on the end face dock.

They hava a bar!

Happy hour – we’ve had incredibly nice weather here.

Since arrival, we have been catching up on our rest and exploring the town on foot and bike.  We hadn’t planned on staying here that long, but it’s such a nice area that we have hung around for a week.  One nice thing about cruising is that you see places that you wouldn’t ordinarily go and are not in any tourist itineraries, and they turn out to be really cool.

Home from the grocery store, after hunting down the wily melon.

So far on our trip, it’s felt kind of hectic. We feel that we have been trying to go to too many places too fast, and with the boat work, learning our new boat, and all the other logistics, it’s felt at time like a stressful job.  Our plan now is to slow down and enjoy the days, with a balance of boat things and land things.

Overall, we have been enjoying Shelburne a lot. Today we went to a local brewery with some other cruisers we met here. Instead of darts, they had…. Axe throwing!  Crazy Canadians, eh?

Wind-up…

Aaaand release!

We are hoping to start heading up the coast tomorrow to see more of Nova Scotia!