Webb's Cove, Isaacs Harbor, Nova Scotia

Monday, September 1, 2008

045-10.140 N
061-38.700 W

Ahoy from Webbs cove in Isaacs Harbor, Nova Scotia!

Yesterday's log only got posted to the web site as it wasn't particularly exciting and I figured that everyone was out enjoying the Labor day weekend and not reading my logs. In brief, we moved from Maskells Harbor to Cape George Harbor and had a very nice sail. Yesterday morning we headed S and exited the Bras d'Or lake via the lock at St. Peter's. We had very little wind, and what wind we had was out of the SW, which was the direction that we are headed for quite some time. We needed to get moving as the forecast for the foreseeable future doesn't look very good, and that's putting things mildly.

The forecast for yesterday was that a cold front was going to move through the area late in the day. The winds were going to pick up substantially out of the N once it passed, so we wanted to get as far S as possible as the winds lighter the further S we went. We had about 2 hours of sun and then the clouds and showers moved in. We really wanted to get into harbor before the front came through, but that wasn't to be. About an hour and a half before we expected to get in, we saw a line of black, rolling clouds approaching. I hate to see those, as they almost always mean high winds, and that was exactly the case. The winds went from 10 kts to 40 kts (46 mph) in just a few minutes. The seas that had been relatively flat quickly built to 5' steep waves which were crashing right over the bow. I looked at the charts and saw another path into the anchorage that wound behind some islands which would give us protection. I changed course and about 1/2 of an hour later we got some shelter from the seas and the winds dropped down to 25-30+ kts. Then the rain came...We pulled into the anchorage a little after 6 PM and the anchor held well. That was a long day as we had left before 7 AM.

The real problem is that the low which moved through is supposed to become stationary off of the coast of Nova Scotia and remain parked there for days. The only thing that I see moving it along will be when the remains of hurricane Gustav move through sometime late in the week...which will bring us 25-35 kts of wind and lots of rain. Oh yeah!

After raining all night it just cleared and I think that we'll head down the coast to Liscomb Harbor, which is about 25 miles away. We'll run with the jib only as the winds are forecast to be 30 kts out of the NE and very gusty.

-- Geoff & Sue

P.S. The image links will be broken until I can get Internet access and upload the images. Until then you can't the the wonderful picture of me standing at the wheel dressed in rain gear and soaking wet.

For the cruiser:

We anchored in 10' MLW just around the tip of Hurricane Island. Holding was very good. Despite the 20-30 kts of wind, we only had small waves coming down the harbor. The alternative suggestion would be to move further up the harbor and anchor there.

Log ID: 1276