Down East Circle Part 5 - Chapter 1

1. We’ve journeyed 30 hours by train across Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and finally here to St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia, where our Niagara 35 Phantasia II has been stored since last fall.

2. It’s exciting to see our boat again, and to get going on this summers cruise. We sailed from our home port of Cobourg on Lake Ontario 5 summers ago, and have since been to the Gaspe region of Quebec, Les Iles de Madeleine, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore.

3. We’ve got a couple of days allotted to get Phanty, cleaned up, un-winterized and back in the water. We then need to get the jib, staysail and main re-rigged, blocks installed, sheets led and of course stores brought aboard.

4. We picked up a rental car in Halifax, 35 kilometers away, when we came in on the train. We’ll use it to get from Shining Water’s Marina where the boat is now, 5 kilometers to Upper Tantallon where the shopping centre is. My Dad is flying in from his home in Vancouver in a few days and will sail with us for 10 days, so I’ll have to figure out how to get the 50 kilometers out to the airport too.

5. For our first day out after getting the boat launched and rigged we’re going to sail about 10 nautical miles down St. Margarets Bay to anchor off of Troop Island. We’ll spend a few days there getting the rest of the boats systems ready before heading out into the Atlantic. From Troop Island it’s about 10 miles down to Peggy’s Cove, that we passed in fog last year when we brought the boat around from Halifax.

6. Troop Island proved to be such a fine spot that an overnight stop turned into a few days, spent swimming and exploring by dingy on the island and in the surrounding coves. We were kept constantly entertained by a family of Osprey Eagles, resident in a huge stick nest in a dead tree near the shore. The boat is now fully transformed from “in storage” to “ocean going cutter”, and with it well organized we set out in light conditions to round the Peninsula into Mahone Bay.

7. Once in Mahone Bay, we’ll pass near Tancook Island, to Deep Cove, entered through a mile long fiord to spend an evening at anchor before heading over to the town of Chester.

8. Tancook is a micmac word and means facing the open sea and is one of 365 islands in Mahone Bay. The island is accessible by ferry from Chester, and is home to a few hundred permanent residents. It was at one time the leading producer of Sauerkraut in Canada. We had intended to visit there and go in search of the remains of an early boat works where the Tancook Schooners were built but along with exploring the other 364 islands of Mahone Bay that will have to wait for another year…

9. Deep Cove proved to be a superb but popular anchorage, almost completely protected and occupied by a dozen or so boats at anchor and on moorings. Along the rocky shore of the inlet leading into the cove are some spectacular homes and an interesting assortment of vessels on private docks.