The Lange B & B called Island Tree Farm

The first night out we stayed with Barry's cousin, Robert Lange at his bed and breakfast about 50 km. from the causeway to Cape  Breton Island.  We had a great visit and in the morning Robert showed us his Christmas Tree Farm.  They had lots of beautiful trees to pick from, but Robert said the money was in making wreaths, not in selling trees, he could make a wreath in an hour and sell it for $25.00, when he sold the trees to a lot he only got $4.00 a tree, cut and delivered to the lot.  He showed us an example which was in great shape considering it had sat there for 5 months.  

 From the farm we headed over to take the ferry to PEI, Barry had never been, we just missed a ferry so had 3 hours to fill.  We headed into Pictou, NS and toured an exhibit about the Herbert, a boat that brought over a load of Scotsman, that were the first settlers in the area. They had removed the tree masts and all the rigging in order to check them out and they unbelievable as they laid outside the building.  I am in the background to give a scale, as you can see they are huge. 

Landing in PEI

The red earth was in full view as we landed at Wood Island.  It was a bitter day, threatening rain and the temp. was supposed to go down to 8 or 9.  We both decided that tenting was not an option so we drove around until we found this lovely Inn in Georgetown.  I had some strange thought that Georgetown would be a big place, probably because of the other Georgetown's in the world, but it was quite small, but we managed to find a lovely spot to spend the night.  They had a great restaurant inside the Inn and we had a lovely dinner, dining on chowder, mussels and crab.  

We drove into Charlottetown and visited the spot where Confederation began.  The building is very well preserved and the PEI legislature stills meets in the building.  It was interesting to learn the nuts and bolts about how Confederation began and to see a re-enactment of the ball that took place after the talks.

The meeting room where Confederation was hatched. 

                          

 We headed across the new bridge between PEI and New Brunswick and headed north and east around the Gaspe Pennisula.  Our first night in the tent was cold, I had my towel draped over me and was still cold whereas Barry in his new Canadian Tire sleeping bag was very comfortable.  Our stove worked fine and heated up a great can of pork and beans, not just any but Libby's Deep Browned Pork and Beans, not that is camping.  The next morning we stopped at Maugish National Park. It has one of the world's best collection of fossils.  There are cliffs along the Baie de Chaleur that have layered sandstone that have fantastic fossils.  There are 3D fossils of fish as well as great plant and tree fossils, we spent a couple of hours learning about this very interesting spot.  

 We drove east along the shores of the Gaspe, it is rather like the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, a road squashed between the water and the mountains. The Appalachian run all along the middle of the Gaspe. and at times come right down to the water.  Once we had rounded the eastern tip and were travelling along the north shore we saw the famous  Roche Pierce.  It is quite the site, the sea was very calm today and it made a lovely picture.  We have continued west and at the moment we are almost  at the end of the peninsula.  I had a better night last night covering myself with both of our fleecies, and I don't think it was as cold.  Last night we had a salad, with a spaghetti dinner and I sipped a glass of red wine as we watched the sun set over the St. Lawrence River. Life is good!!

the boys hanging out with grandpa

we have been having a great time with the boys.  last weekend we went to visit a wildlife park.  they had lots of native canadian animals including a bobcat, which i had never seen.  there was a playground attached to the park so we spent time there pushing the kids on the swings and watching their antics on the monkey bars.

 during the week we kept busy shopping for more camping stuff and setting our finances in order at the very accommodating bank. i also took on the task of giving ithe play set in the back yard another coat of stain.

i was doing really well until the liter of paint fell of the second step and spilled all over the grass. i ended  up brushing the paint off the grass and managed to get the most important parts restained.  leeland was a great help, and didn't even get much paint all over himself.

we celebrated william's birthday yesterday, even though it isn't really until july.  he had a party last year and no one came because school was out, so this year the party was while school was on.  there were ten kids at the party.  it was held at the soccer dome and the adults had just as much fun as the kids.  there were frisbees, and small nerf  footballs to toss around.  there was a bouncy tent for the kids which they just loved, there were huge balls to roll around on or race with. hot dogs, cake and ice cream were next on the line up then the kids bashed away on a soccer ball pinata, fun all around. barry and i gave william a pair of in-line roller skates and here are his first successful efforts on them on the back deck.
we will be heading east on wed. spending the first night of our trip with barry's cousin robert at his b and b just over the causeway on the mainland.  we have three sets of old friends to see in ontario, so that should be fun.

It becomes so easy to seamlessly slip into life ashore.  Having oodles of space to move around, being able to wash your hands with the water running and not having to worry about not having enough, access to a fridge that has room for a 2 liter container of juice. It is awesome to be able to just walk down the hall and put your dirty clothes in the washing machine, and then a dryer, instead of washing by hand in a bucket and hanging on a rope strung on the boat. The idea that you will absolutely, positively wake up in the same place you went to sleep, there is no possibility that your house may drift down the street and end up on the rocks.

Barry and \Leeland on the 4 wheeler in front of our new Nissan

                                   
The other day I washed the 2005 Nissan X-Trail that our wonderful daughter is gifting to us to drive across Canada. Today I washed and polished her new Honda Civic and Barry vacuumed both the vehicles.  It was a pleasure to bring a shine to a brand new car, no effort just wipe and rub a little bit, not like the elbow grease necessary to get even a half shine on our almost 30 year old boat.

Getting ready to fire the noon gun. 

Jennifer had a meeting in Halifax on Friday so we drove down with her on Thursday night and spent the day. We visited the Citadel, the fort in the center of the city, after we shopped for camping gear a MEC.  In the afternoon we drove to Peggy's Cove a beautiful spot about a half hour from Halifax.
                           

 It is a gorgeous example of a small maritime Canadian village, very picturesque with a lighthouse that has been there since 1917.

Scoping out the crowd before the race

We both are truly enjoying getting to know our Nova Scotian grandchildren, William is almost six just finishing his primary year at school, and Leeland is a very athletic almost four year old. This morning William with his school classmates participated in a 2.4 km run.  The doctors in N. S. have sponsored a program to get the kids in the schools moving and today was the culmination.  There must have been over 700 kids there  today, all dressed in matching T-shirts and ready to run. Leeland ran the course too, jogging along for some 4 year old reason he felt compelled to turn each traffic cone he came across.  On on street where we had to turn there was a traffic cone and if you continued straight you would be crossing a street that had traffic (they had stopped traffic for the whole route).  I kept an eagle eye on him and sure enough after he had straightened out that particular cone he headed right into the traffic, good thing Grannie's instincts were still functioning. Both William and Leeland were very proud owners of finisher's medals at the end of the run. It was very cute to see Grandpa running along side Leeland, it made my heart sing.  We finished our camping preparations by buying a GPS so that we can successfully negotiate across Canada and visit different members of our family. 

                               

We are in the Halifax airport, we travelled all day yesterday and then over nighted at the Holiday Inn, there was a 8 hour stop over.  I am too old to sleep in the airport so we were very happy with the room and the complementary breakfast.  Our trip so far has been excellent, no hitches, all the connections, one in Houston and one in Newark went off without a hitch.  

In Newark we got off the plane and got on one of those little airport buggies and were dropped off at an airport bus stop.  The bus took us to a different terminal and we walked right to our gate with a 3/4 of an hour to spare, wonderful.  We saw the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty from the plane as we went into land in Newark, that was great.  We only had to wait 15 minutes for the shuttle to the hotel once we got off the plane.  

According to Canadian Immigration, we are only visitors this time, since we don't have a home and are not going to stay in one place during our stay here we are classified as visitors.  Oh well, it didn't mean anything for getting in and out of the country but it was strange to be classified as a visitor in your home country.

The only sour note of the whole trip was on the way to the airport.  We had a guy from the travel lift give us a ride to the airport.  It is about an hour drive.  He had an older car with dodgy steering.  It was all good until some guy cut us off at about 90 km on the highway.  We were only about 2 meters away and we swerved into the other lane.  I saw my life flash before my eyes, no kidding, I have never been so scared.  Fortunately all ended up well and we made it to the airport.  I was thinking, we should carry cards in our wallets with who to notify in case of an accident because it might take a while otherwise.  Nor something a person wants to contemplate.  

Just another hour before I get to hug Leeland, William will be in school, so I will have to wait to see him. It is great to be back in Canada, although the +7 degrees out there this morning felt a little fresh.  I love seeing the spruce trees again. 

Barry contemplating what might have been!

We have arrived in Trinidad after a week of liming down the west coast of Tobago.  Liming in a Tobagan term for hanging out and relaxing.  We were not able to get the shroud repaired properly so Barry lashed it up with some spectra line and fastened the halyards to where the shrouds attached and it has held.  We motored a couple of miles from Charlotteville and found some very isolated beautiful little spots, that were a bit rolly, but we thoroughly enjoyed them.  There was great snorkelling in both bays we stayed in, some of the best since the Chagos.  There were wonderful  lilac fan corals everywhere and fish I have never seen before.  We headed ashore one day and for the first time in this rigid bottom dinghy we were pooped, the wave at the shoreline came pouring in over the back and almost swamped us.  In the picture Barry is trying to figure out how we didn't get flipped.

Part of our liming experience was a great BBQ ashore with the crew of Mr.Curly.  We don't do enough of having dinners ashore, cooking over an open fire.  It was great fun, we had chicken and veggies done in tin foil as well as a lentil salad and a potato salad.  After the main course was finished we ate watermelon while watching the sun set with our rum punches close at hand, oh my, it is a tough life!!!

It was over 80 miles to Trinidad from where we were so it meant an overnight trip.  With an unstable outer shroud we had to motor, it was a shame.  There was a great sailing wind and we had to putt along, rolling about in the swell, the sails would have made the trip a lot smoother.  To get to Chagaramus where we were going to haul out we went through a narrow passage with high cliffs on both sides.  We must have hit the tide right because we did not have to battle a big current and our trip through the gap was painless and very safe.

Looking to the left of the back of the boat

Looking to the right off the back of the boat.

We are at the dock of the boatyard where Cat's-Paw IV will spend the next four months.  Looking to the left you would never know that you were near a boatyard, the bouganvillia is stunning, the upstairs deck perfect for a break from boat work and there are hot showers to be had. To the right is the slipway and the boatyard.  People are cleaning their bottoms with electric sanders and the eternal hammering is not music to my ears. Today is our first full day at the dock, we hosed down and scrubbed the staysail, I cleaned the cockpit cushions and wiped all the salt I could off the boat  Barry fixed the galley fresh water pump, something that has been driving me crazy for the last six months (we just needed a new pump, imagine that),  the oil and put a new solar panel regulator in.  That is a few tasks I can strike off our very long to do list.  The boat comes out of the water on Wed. so we will be busy fixing and cleaning until then.  Good thing we did a good bit of liming last week, there won't be much this coming week.

The best of both worlds, beer tasting ice cream, ummmm!!                         

We arrived safely in Tobago, Friday afternoon about 1430 hours.  We had nice steady 1 knot current from about noon on pushing us nicely around the top of the island so we landed on the leeward side of the island at a town called Charlotteville.  It is a sleepy little town, very laid back.  We managed to get checked in and wandered around the town.  One particular sign said you were not allowed to tether your goats on the local soccer pitch, shows what is important here.  

                     

Yesterday we bought a couple of lobsters and went back to the boat and had a lovely lunch and then laid around the rest of the afternoon just catching up on our rest.  We are going to take the bus into the capital tomorrow and arrange internet access. 

After coming back from checking in I saw one of the shrouds just hanging loose off the boat and told Barry he had better do it up.  He took  a look and it was broken, it is one of the main ones that holds on the mast, so we are extremely lucky that it didn't give way when we were sailing or we could have lost the whole rig. 

On the port side, completely broken apart

On the starboard side, ready to sheer off at any time.  THIS IS REALLY SCARY!!

A month of pounding up the coast and the damn things breaks when we are at anchor just after we arrive, we must have some patron saint watching out over us, I tell you we are some lucky.  We had those fitting replaced in Aus., so they are just two years old.  Barry checked the other side and the other fitting has a hairline fracture all the way around, it is ready to give out any moment as well.  We are going to get in touch with a rigging shop in Trinidad and get two new fitting sent up. isn't life grand.

We saw this as we came around the corner into Charlotteville, are there pirates in the Caribbean??

At sea  08 54' n  056 58'w
We are just whizzing along, it is actually unbelievable.  The Guyana current has got us in her grips and we are going faster than we have ever gone before. We are like that turtle in Finding Nemo, just grooving along while riding the current.  The current occurs at the drop off from the coast at the continental shelf.  At times there is a 3 knot current and we are experiencing 15-20 knots of wind on the beam so the boat is going over 6 knots on her own and then the current is pushing us up to speeds of 9 knots, crazy. What a feeling, the boat just picks up her skirts and dances.  Once we were going along about 7 and 1/2 knots, wallowing a little as we were wing on wing.  The wind picked up 5 knots and the boat was just skimming, she felt so light and still in complete control, the wind vane, Bob, valiantly steering away, the wallow was gone and the boat seemed to just float over the water,zzzoooommmmmm  what a feeling. Yesterday we did 203 nautical miles in one day, that is an average of 8.4 knots an hour for 24 hours, the boats theoretical hull speed is 7.75 knots so we were flying. We only have 260 miles to go to Scarboro, Tobago, we are hoping to arrive on Friday. We are heading further offshore at the moment to angle up towards Tobago, so we have lost the good current, we only have about 1/2 knot now, but the winds are still great and the angle is a bit better.  We only have to make 130 miles each day in order to get there in the daylight so hopefully we should be able to make it, if not what is another day at sea after the last month.  Caribbean here we come.

The A is there position if it is plotted correctly.

We are finally having a great sail, after all that bashing up the coast we had a down wind leg after the top of the bump to Fortaleza and then for about 100 miles after that and then we hit the ITCZ. There was rain, there were squalls, there were flat calms, sometimes within hours but we got through it and for the last 3 days it has been smooth trade wind sailing, yippee.  We are cruising along under blue skies with sparkling seas.  We have just successfully navigated across the mouth of the Amazon without encountering any adverse effects, mind you we are 250 miles offshore just to make sure none of the outflow and currents will get to us.  We are coming up on the turning point to visit Devil's Island in French Guyana but the Captain has put a kibosh on that idea.  I can see his point, we have been on the go for 27 days now. I have a nasty sore throat which is trying to become a bothersome chest cold.  Barry has been covering lots of my day shifts so I can get extra rest so we are both tired and worn out and right now we just want to be there.  We are going to land in Tobago at the capital Scarboro. Trinidad is a supposed to be a very commercial, busy place whereas Tobago is mentioned as being on of the prettiest islands in the West Indies.  We hope to land on May 4 or 5 and spend about a week there before making out way down to Trinidad, which is only 20 miles away at the closest point, and get ready to be hauled out for the hurricane season.  Sometimes my head just spins with plans for what we needs to be done to get the boat ready, what we should take home and plans to visit friends and family across Canada, good thing it is quiet out here.

We are sailing north from Fortaleza and nearing the equator.  Our position is 01 36 S and 040 14 W. We have a great positive current of at least 1 and 1/2 knots sometimes 2 so we are just buzzing along.  We had loads of rain yesterday but good wind mostly.  Hopefully  the wind will continue all the way across the equator.  We are in good spirits.

The arrow indicates their position.

We are in Forteleza, our last stop in Brazil. We are up over the bump, hooray, and on our way westward once again.  We have some beating once we left Salvador, but we used  wind to our best advantage.  The wind would shift in the late afternoon and we would be about 10 miles out to sea so we could sail in towards land.  In the early hours the wind would shift again towards the land and then we would motor sail out to sea, motor sailing so we would make a better heading and be going north east instead of straight east.  We made the  800 miles in seven days. As soon as we passed the top of the bump it was downwind sailing once again and we were rollicking along at 6, 7 and 8 knots when the current was good, now that is sailing, we hope we are done with the beating stuff for awhile!!

We have not explored Forteleza much, there was some kind of concert by the hotel that we are moored by, it was 180 realis a ticket, or about 90 dollars, so we declined to go and instead sat on Mr. Curly and had a lovely pot luck supper and danced on their back deck late into the evening.  (Remember I said they had a 60 foot boat, well they store rigid dinghy under the floor at the back of the boat and the deck overtop of it makes a wonderful dance floor).  Yesterday Barry was busy getting fuel and water. I cleaned up the boat.  Today he did laundry, since the last time I did it I ended up with back spasms the next day and I cleaned the barnacles off the bottom of the boat.  We have this supposedly terrific anti-foul on so I was very unhappy that there was so much growth on the bottom but I guess it has been 4 months since we put it on and all the other boats had lots from sitting in the anchorages outside of big cities here in Brazil.  

We will check into the state tomorrow and out of the country and hopefully leave in the afternoon.  It is a 1800 nm journey to Trinidad or Tobago and it should take us about 16 days.  We are already feeling the effects of the ITCZ or the inter tropical convergence zone.  There were squalls and thunderstorms as we approached Fortelelza, our last  night at sea was very busy with 100 degree wind shifts and 30 knots squalls, as well as dodging fishing  boats.  Enough to keep you on your toes!!  I hope to convince Barry to stop at Devil’s Island in French Guyana  to see the ruin of the prison there, but it will depend on how our time is.  I must look up more info on the internet later this afternoon.  Just over a month until we will be back in Canada, wish us luck on this last passage. 

One of the myriad of oil wells we had to dodge on the way up the coast.
They are really well lit though so no problems dodging and they don't move!

We are currently in Salvador in the Brazilian state of Bahia. 

Salvador at our dawn approach

Notice the skinny little apt. buildings.

 If you look at a world map, Salvador in at the bottom of the bump that sticks out to the east on the Brazilian coast.  We had a difficult passage hear from Rio.  It took us 2 days to get around the cape about 60 miles east of Rio and then along the way the head of the genoa let go and the sail started coming down.  We managed to get it furled up before it make a mess and then headed towards land so we could fix it.  It ended up that the stitching in the webbing that connects the sail to the halyard had all disintegrated (due to uv wear)and it just let go. Once we got it down in a very calm anchorage we decided to put up the yankee instead of trying to fix it while we were anchored.  We stayed overnight in the anchorage and got a good sleep.  It had been quite rough and we had been beating into the weather so there was a lot of  bouncing and pounding going on so sleep was hard to come by.  Once we left we were glad that we had not tried to fix the sail at anchor because it took us 2 days of stitching with an awl, hammering it into the thick webbing, pushing the needle through using a palm and then pulling it out the other side with a pair of pliers, to fix it.  

Check out these homes built into arches under a roadway, very clever how they have painted the outline of the house on the cement wall. 

One of the other boats that left St. Helena at the same time as us decided to head north a few days after us.   They have a 60 foot boat so caught up and passed us on the 11 day passage.  Richard and Cathy on Mr.  Curly are great company and we had fun yesterday seeing some sight and doing some shopping together. Salvador has an upper and a lower town and last night we went up the vertical elevator to the old town and had dinner and saw some of the magnificent buildings that have been beautifully restored.  

All along the Brazilian coast the cities are nestled along the flat stretch of shoreline between the mountains and the sea and this results in densely packed high rises squashed together.  When we were at sea we saw the weather pattern that is common along this coast in actions.  The  rain clouds gathered in front of the mountains, the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed and the rain bucketed down. . There was not a drop of rain that reached the  boat which was about 5 miles to sea. 

Barry forgot to wear long pants, he only had shorts on, so he was not allowed to go to see the Capitanie de Porte, so I had to be the Captain for once in my life, I was in my glory!

Checking in, in Salvador, the cranes were unloading wheat from a container ship. 

We weren’t really planning to stop here but it is an very interesting place and a rest was needed and the wind was not going to be in our favour so a stop was called for.  We are on a mooring buoy and have access to land though a marina so life is good.  Our next leg will take us up and around the corner, or the bump and we will stop just at the top of the bump and clear out of Brazil for Trinidad.  We have about 2300 miles left to go but we have almost 6 weeks before out lift out is scheduled so we should be able to make that no problem.  

This is going backwards but I have some lovely pictures to share.  We spent Easter Sunday wandering around deserted downtown Rio. 

 We visited three different churches, the first was a old Catholic cathedral with marvelous wooden chairs instead of pews and the most ornate ceilings I have ever seen.  

The organ was playing and it was decorated with flowers just awaiting the worshipers. 

 We stopped in at a Protestant church whose service was just about starting.  They had a lovely series of statues of a congregation outside the entrance.  We headed off to the new avant garde Catherdral, which I did not find very appealing.

I just love this twisted reflection of the bell tower in the high rise close by. 

 It is an open air building that seats 20,000 but the street people were gathering outside under the tower and the police were very much in evidence to maintain the peace!!!! We sat inside and listened to a Catholic mass in Portugese for about 15 minutes.  I was hoping the choir would sing and that the acoustics would astound me.  They eventually got up  but they were very ordinary so we left. 

The opera house

Here are some great shots from the anchorage just under Sugarloaf. 

The planes had to bank over the harbour in front of Sugarloaf to make the approach into the airport.