Halifax, Nova Scotia (10684 miles)

And so to Halifax - a city that feels about the size of Belfast (probably much smaller) it has lovely boardwalk docks where you can dock free during the day. I visit several places in the Halifax bay. You enter a narrow mouth and then the narrows that have the city broadens to a large basin where they assembled Atlantic convoys during the war.

Good walk around the dock.

The boardwalk has many places to park a boat

Hammocks again!

Lots of wee chill out spaces - love the Adirondack chairs - another project when I get home is to make a few of these!

I come back to the dock here on my way back.

Nick hires a bike from one of these containers so we can visit a chandler. We did entertain segways but I reckon falling could wreck knees, all four of them.

Some nice old boats moored on the docks

Talking of old boats on the dock... here is Shadowmere, the marina staff is bending over worshipping her. Normally the HMCS Sackville would be moored to the right, but it is away getting refurbished.  the last surviving flower class corvette. I am in good company - I picked this berth so that Nick Butler can find me. He does.

There is lots of on the water activity, including dumpy ferries

Which always appear at the worst time - here they are attempting a scissors maneuvere as I wanted to go between them

I visit the Museum of Immigration (before Nick arrives)

The old immigration had brilliant "suitcases"

A lot of ships arrived here carrying immigrants

And they brought more than clothes. By the way the book "Accordian Crimes" by Annie Proulx is a good read.

Whilst I found the immigration museum small - and not much detail prior to 1920, they did have an exhibition of refugees, timely. Below is a refugee tent, how would you like to live in this for 20 years in the cold and the hot, the dry and the wet.

When Nick arrives we visit the maritime museum, it had an interesting display on hurricanes, as I write this I have survived Hurricane Florence, It remains to be seen how the Intercoastal waterway in North Carolina has survived it.

I had also been told hurricanes were uncommon in Nova Scotia, my sense of security is somewhat affected by the poster below...

Gulp!

Other things in the museum are an innovative hydrofoil navy ship designed by Alexander Bell and friends  - we visit his museum in Baddeck, Bras D'Or lakes in Cape Breton - see a later blog.

There are some beautiful things created by the first nation people on the area.

Maybe hard to see, but the workmanship is incredible.

And of course boats

An interesting version of our breeches buoy. I like the way they coil the line.

Mr Cunard came from Nova Scotia and there are some superb models of his ships

And a radio room which I love. The equipment on the table behind the chair is a modern rig - I have a similar one on Shadowmere.

It was alright when it left us...

And a model made of bones made by a POW

I love the passion that model makers possess.

And then I leave Halifax, the actual timeline of my visits to Halifax is complicated. I arrive in the estuary and swing right to a narrow channel that hosts Shearwater yacht club. I need a mooring as I am leaving the boat to visit Rachel in Montreal. Unfortunately they have none available, apart from two across the channel in a bay off an island - locals come across to the bay to picnic. I anchor there and use the Wifi in the Yacht Club.- their laundry room isn't working and there is no supermarket nearby. Shearwater give you two nights on their buoys free.

A nice Canadian on anchor visits - a Belgian who spent a long time in the Congo - he offers me his mooring up the sound but when I visit it the night before I am to leave I don't like the rope riser and decide to go further up the Bedford inlet, past Halifax to Dartmouth Yacht club, 4 miles "upriver".

This works out well, a lovely club new clubhouse, good facilities and a nearby food market "The Chop Shop" that sells most things as well as good pork chops. I leave Shadowmere on a buoy - I go ashore to get to the railway station - 5 or 6 miles away by road and Dan the YC manager very kindly runs me there by car. The kindness of strangers again.

I visit Montreal and the next blog covers that. I go by train - 18 hours overnight, comfortable seats... I arrive back by plane and get a taxi to the YC and have to ring Dan to get home to open the gates, luckily he can do this remotely. I get to the boat, rest a day, and then move to Halifax city Docks so Nick can more easily find me.

We spend a day in Halifax and then head up the coast to the Bras D'or Lakes via two remote anchorages to St Peter - the town, not the gates, although they are the gateway to the Lakes as you go through a lock there. We also visit Iona and Baddeck in the Lakes before returning to St Peter and back to Halifax, phew. I am now coming home.

Nova Scotia 1 - Shelburne ( 10,550 miles to date)

I enter Shelburne on Nova Scotia after 220 miles and 40 hours at sea after leaving Rockland, Maine - which involved passing through 13 miles of lobster pots. I tack a couple of times as I decide to continue "around the corner" and 25 mile up the coast to Shelburne. The Fog on the end of NS made me keep quite far off - 20 miles off in fact. I arrive in Shelburne in darkness and use the radar as I know there are fish farms about and they are unlit. I anchor in the loom of the lights of the town and am reasonably happy I am well away from other boats. <phew>

I awake to a beautiful morning, again, and head ashore to the Shelburne Yacht Club. They have a payphone on the wall and a toll free number for Canadian Customs - who give me a reference number that I must display prominently on Shadowmere - Easy-peasy.

There are no marinas in Nova Scotia - just yacht clubs that have pontoons and mooring buoys - and free anchorages. Lovely club, friendly, free coffee!! and very helpful. I walk the town

A nice quiet town -  ten by ten streets and avenues with a main street. Well spaced out houses, lots of trees.

love the trucks

And the "motel" rooms are cute mini cabins

Main street

Loyalists - home from home, I wish I had been here during the 12th week in July

Flegs on the road, more Belfast than Belfast...

I find a Museum called the Dory shop and fall in love with the Grand Banks Dory boats
I get chatting to a guy who teaches people to build these with beginners in a week. I feel a new project coming on when I get home. The Dories here use pine boards with bevels to allow a scarf joint, the bottom of all dories is flat - which makes construction much easier - if you remove the seats you can stack dories -  big ships used to take a load out to the grand banks, lower them over the side  -one or two men to a dory and let them loose to line fish in the fog. If you couldn't get back to the boat,you died (maybe).

And some details of their construction - suitably rustic that I might be able to master - if I have an electric plane and get my bandsaw working properly!

The frames are joined with metal joiners - less hassle than steaming or having to pick through timber to get bent ones. Oak is used here but I am told many woods will do as the "planks" have considerable strength

The bottom is pine planks with grooves, mastic and biscuits (thin lathes that fit in the grooves - I got a router and learnt to use it before the voyage - I made a new staircase and galley locker so the bottom is easy... Knots in the pine are removed and replaced with epoxy so the Dory shop is not averse to modern technology.

The fact that the slopey bits of the frames are straight also makes things easier. The complete design is easy to build - if you can use a plane - a new skill to learn!

This is how they were stacked on the mother ships.

Milford runs one week long courses, I am also told to visit Lunenberg further up the coast as they also make boats, sell plans, books and videos. An alternative method of manufacture is to use sheets of plywood bent around the places and a bottom plywood base - with similar frames to the ones above. The secret to this method is to add fibreglass tape, epoxy and filler to the joins and probably sheath the entire boat, inside and out, with fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin - and do a superb paint job.

I leave Shelburne and head for Halifax where Nick from Donaghadee is due to join the boat - no wind!

Halifax is big - maybe smaller than Belfast. It is up a channel and then is narrow where the town is, and then opens up to a large deep basin that can hold a 100 large ships at anchor - it was used during WWII to assemble convoys that set out across the Atlantic. I anchor off Shearwater yacht club before the town and do some maintenance  - but their washing machines are out of order and there is no supermarket. Also I am planning a land trip to Montreal to see Rachel who has immigrated there. I move past the two to Dartmouth Yacht Club where they have mooring bouys where I can leave Shadowmere safe. I get a train to Montreal  - a mere 18 hours away and fly back - the flight takes nearly two hours. Canada is big.

I found Dartmouth Yacht Club really helpful. I ask Dan the manager about buses to the train station and he runs me the 4 or 5 miles himself. Returning by plane meant I arrived at the club at midnight - and again Dan came to the rescue to get me through the security gates - I was able to dial up a number on the keypad, talk to him at home and he was able to open the gate remotely, Phew.