AL SHAHEEN -
June 2010
Difficult to know where to start when it’s a 6-
Oct – Apr we spent in Broederstroom, enjoying both the weather and the vegetables
from the garden – which grew from a reasonable size to gigantic in a couple of months
as we “needed” to plant more varieties! The birds loved it, but fortunately neither
the monkeys nor the warthogs had discovered it by the time we left, although we have
made a bamboo fence around just in case. Hatton made a wonderful Ayoba scarecrow
(which scared nothing cause he was too cute!). We gorged on fresh corn, tomatoes,
green peppers, aubergines, onions, spinach, beans, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, rocket
– it was a banquet of note. We’ve missed the strawberries this year – that’s a delight
still waiting.
As usual John was up to his eyeballs in tasks – some necessary and some created to fill in the time, I think! The man’s got to keep busy, you know. New French windows, new wooden doors hung, a brand new patio in front of the cottage (bringing the total to date up to three!), new barbecue facility and seating were only some of the things he managed to accomplish – I believe the actual figure was 39 jobs undertaken!
Add to all that the fact that it was school holidays and grandkids time, plus Christmas
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Exciting times, wonderful to have all my family together for the first time ever up in Magoebaskloof for a week (although Matthew was present only as a bump!), and wonderful for the kids to get to know each other a bit better.
Cricket was the game of choice, even for the Canadians, and we managed to get them
to some good local games.
Mum wasn’t too good, in fact gave us a real scare one day by dying for a few minutes, then coming back and demanding her tea! But she’s as well as can be expected, and really excited at the arrival of Matthew. 4 generations, 94 years apart!
Back in Sevenoaks, we were just getting into our stride, doing some land rover stuff preparatory to the big Nov Oldies Overland trip, when we had to return to SA abruptly as my nasty neighbour had decided to apply for permission to build a resort (2 conference centres, 2 wedding chapels, 2 restaurants and parking for 200 cars not 300 metres from my front door). Not too happy with that, we mounted what I hope was a successful series of objections – but now have to wait to see what’s going to happen with Madibeng who are in chaos – municipality in administration, all senior staff suspended for bribery etc, all quite a scene. Life in Africa.
No sooner back in UK again and we were out to Camden Maine to launch Al Shaheen.
That was three weeks ago, and we are still tied to the dock! Continuous little niggling
repairs needed – main sail ripped, engine not working properly, gas strut on boom
de-
Still, it means we’ve caught up with some great friends again, received all sorts of parcels including a wonderful book My Grandpa is a Sailor done by Toni for John’s 70th and available on
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1401285. We have generally got our breath back after a rather hectic few months, and now we’re ready to go.
Hopefully it’ll be tomorrow!
2nd July 2010
Sailing in Maine is really difficult! Mussels picked fresh from Perry Creek’s rocks
Friday, lobster from the lobster pound at Swan’s Island Saturday night, fresh salmon
last night (courtesy of French & Brawn, Camden!) – and tonight we’re reduced to
lobster again, bought from the lobsterboat in Trafton Island as it hauled up pots
right next to us this morning – at $10 for two one and a half pounders, it’s cheaper
than $12 worth of Canadian salmon from the supermarket! Isn’t life hard??
It would be very easy to spend a lifetime “gunk-
Not much profit in lobsters these days, they say. That’s not what they tell you when
they charge you out in the restaurants! But lobstering is getting harder and harder
– their quotas are being cut, the price is dropping while the fuel and bait price
is rising, a small lobsterman has to haul 180lb of lobster a day to make a good day;
the bigger boat up to 500lb a day. That’s a lotta lobster!! The lobster man gets
$2.75 a lb from the co-
One thing that is really interesting is how dependant we’ve become on available wifi
connections – gone are the days of walking to town to find a cafe with dial-
And of course it gets worse – I’d sort of forgotten about the pea-
So many of these islands up here are privately owned; some you can walk on, some not. Roque was/is owned by the Peabody family descendants and is still run as a working farm. Stories abound in this area: Horace Dunbar enjoyed a party ashore and had more than his share of liquor, then got in his skiff to row home. Two hours later some more sober members of his party found him, still rowing steadily, his boat’s painter still attached to the wharf!
And what about Jack Bunker, who during the Revolution canoed down the coast to steal
a British ship full of provisions? They found it unguarded, hoisted sail, and headed
east to distribute the goods to starving neighbours – then chased by the Brits, tucked
the ship into what is now known as Bunker Hole (just behind Roque Island here), took
down the mast and by the time the Brits sailed past had disguised her with pine trees
so she was invisible! Well, it was probably also thick fog!! The ‘tit Manan lighthouse
a few miles away boasts an average of 289 days a year of fog!!!
So since leaving Camden, we’ve been to Perry Creek, Swan’s island, Mistake Harbour,
Trafton Island, Roque Island, and Cutler. If the fog lifts enough, the next step
is to Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy, partly to check in to Canada, and hopefully
take a trip to Macchias Seal Island, a nature conservancy with a huge colony of puffins.
As they only allow 30 people a day on the island, it’s a book-
12th July
Made it to Grand Manan – 18 miles in a total blanket of fog, saw absolutely nothing
except the occasional buoy. Actually we hit one hard coming out of Cutler Harbour,
gave both of us an almighty fright but fortunately no damage either to our prop of
the lobster buoy! We motored into Seal Cove Harbor, Grand Manan in seriously dense
fog, relying totally on radar and the chart plotter and hoping to hell either or
both were working! I find the fog incredibly disorientating – if asked, I would swear
blind we were going around in complete circles. Even sound is difficult: it seems
to come from one side when in actual fact it’s coming from somewhere totally different.
Thank God for modern equipment – how those old guys managed I have no idea whatsoever.
The entrance to Seal Cove Harbor was a nightmare – a very narrow rock wall entrance
(it’s a man-
Great excitement this morning (12th) when we woke up to a clear sunny day, and the
thought was to take a dive out to Nova Scotia. However, the fog rolled in again before
the tide changed, the talk amongst the fishermen out there is that the sea’s running
a big swell, so you know what? We decided to take another day, explore the island
a bit, chat to the locals some more (lady at the convenience store told us how she
had to go to the mainland to find someone who was not related to her to marry-
We’re in no rush.
July 31, 2010
After all the motoring we’ve been doing since we started out this season, and taking
into consideration our increasing ages etc etc, we’ve decided we might go for a marine
zimmer frame soon – here’s our next boat. We’ll join that group of mariners who’ve
opted to change from sailing to power-
It’s been a very foggy introduction back into Nova Scotia – after spending 7 days
completely fog-
We changed our minds about going through the so-
Did I tell you about the rips? Why is it that every time I think I know it all, something
else bounces up and bites me in the butt?? Suddenly we’re in the land of rips – areas
where the sea-
So, I had just got comfortable with the fact that we weren’t going anyway fast, but
hey, at least we were sort of going – when the engine alarms screamed and John was
yelling “Switch off! Switch off!” So, engine shut-
Spent a few delightful days in Yarmouth – no fog! Watched the annual SeaFest Parade,
in company with new friends Dave & Cathy from Dyad (more commonly known as the BigDumBoat
for obvious reasons!!) and Peter & Lucia from Fair Grace – lovely young couple cruising
on a shoestring. Restocked a bit, explored a bit, then left again in tandem with
Fair Grace, heading north. Two nights spent in way-
And another close encounter with a fishing boat, lobster supper care of Delbert, a local from Stoddart’s Point off Cape Negro who came out in his skiff to greet us. We had a long chat with him – we couldn’t understand a word he was saying, his Cape Sable accent was so thick! But we thoroughly enjoyed the lobsters! And we apparently have to look up the Shag Harbour UFOs on the internet, he says very seriously.
Then it was round to Shelburne, where we once again fell into the welcoming hands
of the Shelburne Harbour Yacht Club (Canadians spell things right!) and OCC Port
Officers Alan & Jan Pulfrey. Always hard to drag yourself away when you’re enjoying
yourself, so our stay there extended longer than expected. In fact, if we hadn’t
left when we did, I think we would have landed up buying a house there! Magnificent
property on 82 acres, delightful wooden house – and, John’s dream workshop complete
with huge compressor and a full-
I was up to my eyeballs in a major edit, so spent several days sitting at the anchorage
flat out on my computer: finally finished it on Friday, emailed it off, and we spent
Saturday doing a quick shop before leaving.
But at the bookshop we met three fabulous ladies, Dar, Bernadette & Vita, who took
us to the Black Loyalists Museum just so I could buy The Book of Negroes: they were
off to Lockport for a Women’s Festival Concert – so we sailed there and went to the
concert too! Great fun, all local women, some of them really good.
And then it was up to Mahone Bay: we skipped out Lunenburg this time, as we’d spent
some extensive time there previously, and had the most amazingly fantastic sail –
in clear weather, no fog! A long day, 13 hours, but we sailed in to Young Island
and picked up a mooring (with some difficulty as there was a strong current running
against us) at the home of the Mahone Bay Port officers, Peter Dodd and Terry Follinsbee.
The next day we went ashore to visit them; wonderful little home on this great island,
and another “land home” at Indian Point, they graciously took us around to see several
marinas with the possibility of us hauling out here instead of Dundee in the Bras
D’or.
A dinner of chicken skewers and home-
By the time he came back, we had been invited to drinks and dinner with Ted & Liz
Brainard on Big Gooseberry Island – serious sailor of note, Ted has done a huge amount
of single-
We have finally dragged ourselves away, however, on our way to Halifax this morning
(31st July) – just in time, I think, or we might have been inveigled to join Ted
and his son in their upcoming trip to Sable Island – known as the Graveyard, this
little island has more wrecks around it than the local scrap yard has cars! It is
a seriously remote and unfriendly-
Maybe next time.
August 15, 2010
Prospect Harbour (below left) – Halifax – Owl’s Head – Ship Harbour – Little Liscombe Harbour (below right) – Port Howe – St Peter’s, Bras D’or Lakes: the Nova Scotia coastline is incredibly beautiful, especially now into August, as the fog seems to have burnt off to a large extent and we can see where we’re going.
Of course, it also means we can now see the rocks we need to miss – and also means John’s more likely to try to get into the narrowest channels and through the smallest gaps! Makes life a little hairy at times, to say the least. And every now and then, there are reminders of what happens if you DO hit the reefs or shoals – the wreck (below right) was a much bigger boat than us that missed the entrance!
Prospect Harbour was a case in point, as was Port Howe (below) – both very narrow
entrances, rock-
Prospect Harbour (below) was an absolute delight – picturesque, quaint, no room to swing a cat, so we picked up a mooring (the owner was “away” sailing!): delightful little old houses that would have been fishermen’s cottages but are now weekend homes for Halifaxians. But still olde worlde. Port Howe on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish – I think the Howe here comes from How the hell do we do this?? Again, an entrance to be reckoned with – which led into a fairly large bay – with not a soul in sight and very deep water. Suddenly we were anchoring in 12 metres as opposed to the 3 or 4 we’ve got used to! But we had a great night in each – different, but spectacular.
In Halifax we went up the Western Arm to Armdale – great little yacht club, very friendly folks, and spent a couple of nights there doing the ‘city’ thing. For me, a large part of the enjoyment of sailing is the people you meet – people who do or have done the most incredibly exotic exciting things – like Peter Koz, money man of some sort who was a professional racer, now owns a ‘hobby’ coffee farm in Cartahenga and visits the Amazon and spent weeks with “wild” tribes in Columbia – fascinating. Or JB – fair old derelict who runs open house every Tuesday and collects a bunch of terrific people to swap yarns with! Ne’er the twain shall meet, but what fun it is to meet with both!
It’s also interesting to see what’s happening in the cruising world – how things
are changing. For the better? Who knows. But whereas previously every single boat
had paper charts, sextant, etc etc, now a lot of cruisers rely totally on their electronics
and computers – great until things go wrong...go wrong...go wrong. As we found out
on the way: 3 separate VHF calls for help on the same day. The first was to us hailing
“that boat going north just past us” (which was us). When I convinced John that it
WAS us – he was waiting for lat/long position etc – the guy came back with “Can you
help us please? Can you give us a course for Halifax (at this stage some 8 hours
sail away) because all our electronics on board have crashed and we only have a small
road map to us” – needless to say, not much help when you’re offshore, in some fog,
with lots of shoals and rocks and reefs in your path! The other an hour or so later
was a guy crawling along inshore, trying to pick his way visually through the rocks
and shoals because he had lost his computer. And the third was a woman in a power
boat who had gone aground and couldn’t tell them specifically where she was – other
than that it was on a shoal somewhere near an island! – because her systems had failed.
So back-
The other thing we enjoy here in Canada is the Canadian CoastGuard. What a difference
to the US!! The US guys have a competition I think, to see who can give a message
in the shortest time possible, so all you hear is “mncbkjefliu1g3ej,hcm\ndsbc.kwjehf
OUT”. Bad luck if you were wanting to be rescued!! The Canadians however, are very
laid back: they not only speak slowly enough that you can hear every word, they give
all the details – lat/long, place name, boat name, problem etc etc – and when dealing
with the panicking client (as per the woman who ran her power boat aground), are
very caring “Ma’am, we have a vessel coming out to you, take a couple of hours, but
I’ll call you every half-
Finally it was through the lock at St Peter’s (above) and into the Bras D’or Lakes, beautiful, warm, only slightly salty – fogless!! And it was just as well – when I flaked the mainsail down in preparation to going through the little lock, we discovered a huge rip down the luff. Looks like sun degradation, the cloth is just disintegrating as we tug it. So I guess that puts paid to going over to the Magdalenes, some very isolated islands off the western coast of Cape Breton, above Prince Edward Island.
Even if we can get a patch, the sail is just too delicate to face major weather (which could happen out there), and we still have to get back to Mahone Bay early Sept to haul out. So, we’ll potter around the Bras D’or for the next couple weeks – not a bad idea, as I see by the pamphlets I’ve picked up that August is back to back ceilidhs and Gaelic festivals – stirs the blood a bit!
Ceilidhs – and eagles – what a combination!
20th August, my mother’s 95th birthday – looks like John and I will be together for a long time, judging by Va at 101 and Mom at 95!! Born 1915, grew up with candles and kerosene lamps – and here we are talking to each other by satellite phone.
Anyway, we’d celebrated last night by joining in one of the dozens of ceilidhs on
the go here in Cape Breton at this time of the year – boy, if you ever wanted a Scottish
fix, this is where to get it. The street signs are in Gaelic, many of the locals
speak Gaelic – I’ve felt more Celtic here than I did in Glasgow! And the memories
still run deep here, Culloden and such was such a short while ago: walking to a ceilidh
the other night, an old chap striding away down the road looked at the 6 of us coming
off the boats and remarked dourly “Looks like the Campbells are coming!” “Well,”
I replied, “you have to beware, behind every bush there’s a Campbell!” I was being
smart (I thought), but when we arrived at the ceilidh it was to be greeted with stares
and chatter as the old man regaled everyone with his story of our meeting – in Gaelic!!
We’ve had great fun though, everything from a full-
The Mac lady at the door (MacDonald, MacNeill, MacGilluvray – lots of Macs here) did try to inveigle us to stay by telling us “there’s a bar out back, you know” – well, no we didn’t, but it wouldn’t have made that much difference anyway! Enough’s enough. Although we do plan to go across to St Ann Gaelic College this weekend – they have a 100 Fiddlers concert – now that sounds fun!
We’ve also really enjoyed the bird-
And a bird of a different kind – coming out of Orangedale the other day, we were
strafed by a Hercules!
Tusker 307 called us on VHF radio – first time we’ve ever talked to a plane from the boat, but there’s always a first these days – who told us they were conducting a search and rescue training mission and dropping smoke flares – would we please just stay where we were and out of the way. We did!
The Bras D’or is a lovely area, not least because it’s warm. Warm enough for John
to swim anyway (see below) – although the leap into the water did require a huge
yell of shock as he hit (it’s not THAT warm!), and he didn’t stay in very long, I
noticed. But the weather’s been great, really hot. And there are umpteen little coves
to visit, umpteen little areas of interest: the Railway Museum, where the old guy
caretaking the place kept us for 2 hours over the closing time telling us stories:
the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, where I learnt Bell did a hang of a lot more than
just invent the telephone! Did you know he also put together the world’s fastest
hydroplane – 1919, he was doing 100 kms an hour on the Bras D’or! www.pc.gc.ca/bell
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And of course I’ve indulged myself in buying Cape Breton books – great pioneer stories
– like the one where the fisherman with impacted infected molars tied his tooth to
a line which was tied to his horse, slapped the horse on the rump – and of course
had his tooth pulled! Can’t imagine a dentist doing that today. Where the immigrant
from Scotland who had to walk 100 miles to get the papers for his homestead from
the official offices – mind you, it’s taken me five months, and I still don’t have
my deeds back from the Deeds Office in Pretoria, so I’m not sure much has changed
there!
Once again we’ve met up with all sorts of people; too many to mention, although I
do keep a rigorous tally of who we meet, where, when – and of course the name of
their boat! It’s great to keep bumping into people – sometimes it’s only a week or
so since you met, like with Taonui (solo round the world non-
Or it’s a complete unusual, as with the folks standing on the dock in Baddeck – who
would have expected to see an old green dusty dirty Land Rover, plastered with stickers,
whose map on the side proclaimed their 2008-
And I thought WE were adventurers!
18th Sept 2010
Sailing season’s over for another year! I can’t believe it’s gone so fast – it feels
as if we’ve just got on the boat, and here we are getting off. But that’s the way
of it when you sail in northern latitudes – it gets cold, and the storms come in
– and us sun-
Gold River Marina has been an absolute pleasure to deal with – from Cindy in the office who remembers everyone’s names (not an easy task) to Darren the yard manager and Johnny his assistant – great people to work with.
It all looks a bit scary at first – what seems to be a real old rust-
But, with the expertise and hard work of Darren and Johnny, it’s a slick haul-
So she’s got a slight tilt aft – all the better for the rain and snow to drain out!
Next job was the mast lift-
The mast is to be stored indoors, Al Shaheen is shrink-
Peter and Terry (OCC port officers for Mahone Bay) have been incredibly gracious,
and we have spent the de-
And we’ve been able to do lots of socialising, meeting up with so many of our friends here, meeting new ones.
Hmmm – Nova Scotia gets a definite tick in all the right boxes for a permanent summer home. Great sailing, fantastic people, wonderful scenery – crappy winters, but there’s always Africa for that!!
Talking of Africa, we’ll be signing off this webpage, starting our new Africa blog
soon – link to be posted as soon as we’ve worked it out. We’re off beginning of November
on the Soutpiel Safari – Sevenoaks, Kent to Broederstroom, NWProv, S Africa – November
to March/April, 17-
24th Sept.
Sad sad end to a wonderful season. I travelled straight back to South Africa to visit family etc, and my beautiful little 7 month old grandson Matthew died most unexpectedly the day after I arrived. We’re all devastated – sometimes life is just so unfair.
But we’re taking Huggy, his favourite stuffy, with us on the trip down Africa, so Matthew will be with us in spirit.