Isles de Madeleine

We took a long walk down the beach yesterday (close to seven nautical miles) it was a lovely day and I didn't have to put my hoodie on, yeah! In the first picture you can see the dinghy with the boat anchored in the background.  We went ashore at low tide and had to row the last 10 meters to shore, it was so shallow.  

We found this stump on the shore, since the islands have been denuded of trees for the most part we speculated where the stump was from, I figured Nfld but Barry thinks from somewhere on the St. Lawrence River. We hope to take the bus tomorrow to see more of the island and then head over to PEI on Tuesday, a westerly is supposed to blow.   They are predicting gale force gusts off the 

Cape Breton highlands again tomorrow so we will stay put!

I said to Barry the other day that I never thought we would be sailing around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, they had a sign up the other day that said Jacques Cartier, so we are definitely following in some famous footsteps, Jacques, John Cabot, Captain Cook and that is only the C's!!!

We are safe and sound in Les Isles Madelienes, which belong to Quebec and are about 50 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, who knew??  The are a series of mostly sandy dunes connected together.  We haven't learned too much about them yet but hope to remedy this in the next couple of days.  We are having a hard time believing it is the end of June because it feels like Oct. very cold and windy !! 

On the Move Again

             Cat's-Paw IV looking good heading for the water with her new bottom paint. 

The boat is in the water, no drama putting her in thank heavens !!  Our summer plans are to head to PEI and then go in a week long race called Race the Cape which takes place in the Bra D'Or Lakes and area.  About the middle of July we will head over to Nfld and circumnavigate that province.  Barry commented that we will be among an elite group that have circumnavigated both Vancouver Island and Newfoundland in the same boat.  

We will return to Sydney and say farewell to Mark, Jen and the boys and head south.  We have to stay north of Cape Hatteras until the end of Nov. so will take some time exploring Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, etc.  We are thinking that Cuba may be a place to spend some time this winter but we have made no definite plans yet.  

We left Sydney, NS on Father's Day and spent Sunday night and Monday in Dingwall.  It poured all day Monday so we hunkered down aboard.  Today we hit some big winds going around Cape North at the top of Cape Breton and then motored into the wind to get to Chetticamp. We will stay here for a couple of days, big winds are predicted for tomorrow.  We hope to get to the Magdelene Islands out in   the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Thursday.  The winds look favourable at the moment.  I hope to be able to keep everyone up to date.