The fleet departed on mass, but decided to separate at Iona. Joe and Wendy were ready to head back and Brian had only joined Gaila for a few days. Friday's weather forecast was concerning to the crew of Gaila who made the call to head back.
All four boats, plus Mon Ami (Tony) out of Pictou headed out into Great Bras D'Or towards Iona. Winds were steady and it was warm and sunny. It was one of those "one in a thousand" sailing days with long close hauls towards the bridge, averaging 5 knots per hour.
We raised the sails again after the Barra Strait Bridge and made our way down the coast on a close haul on auto pilot. We watched Gaila with Willet close behind make their way to St. Peter's. As I relaxed on deck while the boat cruised on auto pilot, Jude prepared a great lunch of peanut butter and jam sandwiches (my first in years) and highbush blueberries for desert. It was a spectacular sail.
As we made our way into little harbour we noticed there were already 3-4 boats on anchor. After a nice shot of screech, a quick swim and a "toweling off" we rowed ashore to the Cape Breton Smokehouse for supper.
The Smokehouse is a two person operation, run by a german couple out of a beautiful log house. The food was excellent (I had the smoked salmon and Judy had pork tenderloin). We met 2 couples from Pugwash who knew Jamie and Andrea Adams. They store Kittiwake at BHYC for the winter.
The bugs were very bad as we rowed back to Exploits, but the night was absolutely beautiful...warm, quiet and lost of stars. There was a huge steel hull boat, without sails, anchored in the harbour which we assumed belonged to the German couple. They seemed stressed running the restaurant by themselves, which may explain why they don't have time to get the sails on the boat.
It was an early night to bed and both of us slept like logs.
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