The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
Poem by Carl Sanburg, 1916
We spent a day at anchor off of Carter’s Beach near Port Mouton, NS, surrounded by thick fog. Even the intermittent rain squalls that pounded through all day long weren’t enough to clear it. As previously mentioned, this beach is sometimes compared to the Caribbean because of its fine white sand. Well there was nothing Caribbean-like about it yesterday!
Incidentally, Port Mouton was named as such because a sheep (mouton in French) fell off of Samuel de Champlain’s ship here, and was rescued while trying to swim ashore. Or maybe ‘rescued’ isn’t the right word. After all, the sheep probably wasn’t on board as a domestic pet.
We dinghied out to greet African Queen IV and Amuleto as they emerged from the fog after their trip down from Lunenburg. That turned out to be the highlight of the day as we saw a large pod of dolphins, maybe 20, making its way across the anchorage. The anchorage also provided us encounters with loons, the bird featured on the Canadian one Dollar coin, the Loonie. These birds have a unique, mysterious call.
What do you do when you’re stuck at anchor for a full day in the fog and rain? It’s an opportunity to catch up on reading, which Sandy loves. We make business and family calls. We study the weather and plot the next legs of the cruise. We play boardgames, cook, watch movies, and relax, in contrast to long days sailing from sunup to sundown, when rest is an elusive luxury.
Dan practices his guitar and rope skills. One of his hobbies is making soft shackles for the boat or as gifts to other sailors. Soft shackles are made from Dyneema rope and replace metal shackles for various rigging applications.
Edwards variation of the soft shackle.
Our “fleet” agreed to hold another day here, for a more favorable weather window, and to enjoy the beach when the sun comes out today as promised. Hopefully we’ll have some nice pictures for the next post.
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