ATLANTIC FRINGES:
SCOTLAND TO LABRADOR AND NEWFOUNDLAND
Iron Bark and I spent the
winter of 2014/2015 in the Outer Hebrides in Stornoway and had a fine time of
it. Stornoway Harbour is safe and convenient, the people outgoing and the music
excellent. Iron Bark quickly became part of the local scenery and we had
some grand ceilidhs aboard, with Friday night a regular event.
Stornoway ceilidh on Iron Bark - the fiddler is Jim McWhirr
One Friday I
counted eighteen people with nine musical instruments (and gallons of whisky)
in Iron Bark’s saloon, quite a crowd on a 35ft boat. It is seldom that a
stranger is so completely accepted into a close-knit community as I was in
Stornoway and it was with regret that I said goodbye in the spring.
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| Iron Bark dried out for antifouling in Stornoway |
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Winter lingered late and the
mainland hills were snow covered when I crossed the Minch to Loch Broom in
April. Through late April and early May I wandered south through the Hebrides
waiting out spells of bad weather at anchor and making the most of the good
spells. It was an easy, unrushed time, pottering between empty anchorages
without seeing another yacht until south of Ardnamurchan Point.
On 20 May I
crossed the North Channel to Rathlin Island to take part in a maritime
festival. Rathlin is a bit like Stornoway; you need to spend a few days there
to appreciate it and to be accepted. The locals were friendly, the music good
and the poteen abundant so I stayed there two and a half weeks.
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| Rathlin music |
My destination for the summer was
Labrador. A westward passage across the northern Atlantic is never likely to be
easy; the obvious route is to stay well north and hope for less headwinds and
contrary current at the price of some unpleasant weather and perhaps ice. After
waiting out a series of westerly gales, I sailed from Rathlin on 8 June. There
was a high pressure over Britain that I hoped would bring a northeast breeze
but it brought nothing but a calm. It took two days for us drift and finally
motor clear of the Irish coast to beyond the 100-fathom line. There was no wind
there either, but we were clear of fishing boats and no longer shuttling back
and forth with the tide. For three days we lay becalmed with fulmars paddling
circuits around Iron Bark before a north wind got us moving. A week
after leaving Rathlin I finally had enough sea room to ride out a gale.
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| Atlantic track with diamonds at noon positions |
In our second week at sea we made slow, steady
progress close hauled into moderate or fresh headwinds, with a day and a half
lost while hove-to in WSW7-8. During this we lay comfortably under deep-reefed
mainsail with our escort of fulmars paddling in the slick Barky left as
she drifted slowly across the wind. A few days later there was short-lived gale
from the southeast, a fair wind, which we ran before under bare poles. Neither
of these gales was more than inconvenient as they barely reached F9 even in
squalls and there was ample sea room.
The third week at sea brought more fair winds than
foul and we made good 636nm aided by a weak favourably current. Any lift from a
current is welcome, but this current was cold and brought a thick, dank fog
that made everything in the boat damp, including my bedding. Generally I do not
light the heater at sea but on this occasion regretted having only half a sack
of peat in the fuel bin. There were pilot whales about, often accompanied by
common dolphins, to brighten the dull days. The pilot whales ploughed along
sedately behind Iron Bark while the dolphins zigzagged ahead, chirping
through the hull.
On 26 July, 600 miles east of Labrador, we crossed
the line marking the extreme limit of icebergs. There is little chance of
seeing ice that far out and even less of hitting any so I sailed on into the
fog keeping only a desultory lookout by day and none at night, but radar would
have been a comfort. Six days later, 75 nautical miles off the Labrador coast
and 135miles from the intended landfall of Strawberry Harbour, the fog lifted
briefly to show an iceberg. Although this was the first I had seen, there had
undoubtedly been others hidden in the fog.
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| Ice in sunlight is a lovely sight |
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| ......but frightening when it looms out of the fog |
I had resolved to keep a proper watch after seeing
the first ice but it was a cold, tedious job in the fog. That night, for the
first time, I hove-to for fear of ice. Iron Bark forereaches at about a
knot when hove-to so it was still possible to hit something, but the low speed
reduces the chances of a collision and improves the odds of surviving one. It
was still foggy the following morning when I let draw. That day I saw six
icebergs and more probably lurked in the mank. By 1700 it was obvious I could
not make Strawberry Harbour before dark so I hove-to for the night. The
entrance to Strawberry Harbour is narrow, crooked and of course unlit; it is
not one to attempt in the dark. The harbour itself is well protected with good
holding but limited swinging room.
Within an hour of heaving-to the wind had increased
from SE6 to gale force. The poorly charted, rocky coast was 15nm to the
southwest, too close for safety if this wind backed at all. I dragged the storm
staysail forward and got soaked hanking it on and hoisting it. The water was
cold, unsurprising given the amount of ice around. I crashed off towards deep
water under storm staysail and deep-reefed mainsail with the wind just forward
of the beam. As the wind was now SE9, this put a lot of strain on the gear but
the alternative was risk being jammed against the coast.
Three hours later in the last of the daylight and
with 30nm of sea room I was preparing to heave-to for the night when a large
iceberg with a train of bergy bits appeared close ahead. Stopping near that lot
was not an option so I sailed blindly into the darkness for another
nerve-wracking hour before heaving-to. When I went below the temperature in the
cabin was 2°C, but it was a haven of warmth and quiet compared to the cockpit.
Keeping watch was pointless as visibility was nil so I dozed fully dressed. If
we hit something there would not be time to pull on boots.
By morning the wind had eased to SE7 and visibility
was about a mile with no ice in sight. Closing the coast in those conditions
had no appeal so I remained hove-to for another 24 hours. On the morning of 4
July we set off for Strawberry Harbour, now 62nm away, under reefed mainsail
and working staysail in SE6 and, inevitably, fog. Several times during the day
we had to dodge ice that loomed out of the murk. As I closed the coast the wind
increased to gale force and the fog thinned. I deep reefed the mainsail then,
when an island two miles off Strawberry Harbour gave a little protection,
handed it and closed the harbour under staysail and motor.
The entrance to Strawberry Harbour looked horrible
but I had no desire to turn back into the fog and ice offshore so dropped the
staysail and went in under engine only. At times the motor was barely able to
hold Iron Bark’s head into the wind as we crept in against gusts
funnelling down the entrance channel. Once inside I let the anchor go on the
minimum scope I though feasible. It held, but bullets of wind from the
surrounding hills sent Iron Bark sheering dangerously close to the
harbour’s rocky shores. As quickly as I knew how, I stocked and set a second
anchor to reduce our swinging arc. Then, between gusts, I launched the dinghy
and rowed out a warp with a chain sling and got it around a rock. Once safely
moored in the middle of the harbour I went below and lit the heater using the
last of the Irish turf.
The passage from Ireland to Labrador had taken 26
days. It was straightforward until the last three days, but those days made up
for the earlier ease. Ice, fog and a rock-studded shore are an unpleasant mix
at any time; in a gale they make a fearful combination.
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| Strawberry Harbour in flat, misty light |
Strawberry Harbour is a lovely
spot, uninhabited and named for the colour of the rocks rather than any
profusion of fruit. The land is too bleak for that. Ashore there were still
snow banks in protected nooks and it was too cool for mosquitoes to be a
nuisance. To seaward half a dozen icebergs were in sight whenever the fog
lifted enough to see anything. I spent several days there enjoying the
pleasures of port as offered in Labrador - all night in, unlimited firewood for
the labour of cutting it and water for the labour of hauling it.
On 9 July I motored to the
village of Makkovik to clear customs.
The police in Makkovik called the Canada Border Services in Goose Bay
who immediately ordered me to sail there for an interview. I demurred at
sailing 250nm to windward in fog and ice with a gale forecast, backed up by the
Makkovik Mounties and together we eventually prevailed. The CBS have no
procedure for clearing a vessel at ports other than those serviced by one of
their offices. As there are no CBS offices between Goose Bay in Labrador and
Prince Rupert in British Columbia, separated by thousands of miles of Canadian
administered coastline, this allows considerable scope for bureaucratic
silliness, some of it dangerous.
Labrador is a big place and the
sailing season is short. The choice is either push hard whenever the weather
permits to cover as much territory as possible or choose an area and
investigate it in detail. This year I wanted to do the latter and hoped to
explore some of the maze of uncharted, uninhabited bays on the mid-Labrador
coast between 55°N and 57°N.
With the advent of GPS, pilotage
in a surveyed channel with a known datum has become simple even in poor
visibility, but nosing into the unknown requires good visibility, moderate
winds and patience. My first foray into the blank part of the chart failed. The
weather was fair when I set off to look at the unsurveyed part of the Bay of
Islands, but the fog rolled in as I groped my way across six miles of
unsurveyed water with one eye on the depth sounder and the other staring into
the murk. The uneven bottom suggested unseen hazards close by but I saw none.
The bay I had hoped to use as an anchorage had a rocky shoal in its entrance
but the fog was too thick and the wind to strong for me to leave Iron Bark
untended at anchor while I sounded ahead with the dinghy to find a way around
it. I retreated towards Roses Island
where I knew there was a safe but unsurveyed anchorage. I drew a chart with
soundings of Iron Bark’s track across the Bay of Islands but discarded
it as misleading; there were almost certainly unseen rocks close to her path.
The southern approach to Roses
Island along Lillian Island Tickle follows a line of soundings on the chart.
Soundings are a rarity in this area and usually indicate a safe channel at
least a cable wide, hence my shock when I nearly hit an uncharted barely-covered
rock almost on the line of soundings. The rock is on my sketch chart.
I spent a night in the Roses
Island anchorage and sounded it for a sketch chart, then two days of fair
weather allowed me to sail 100nm to Tom Gears Run, with a night in Shoal Tickle
along the way. The area around Tom Gears Run is lovely and I intended to spend
a week or two exploring the blanks on the chart around it. Initially I anchored
in a well-protected cove on Tikigatsiak Peninsula that Annie Hill and I found
and charted in 2002 but it had several black bears apparently permanently
resident on its shore, which inhibited my daily walk. I shifted camp to a less
attractive bay, but without bears.
Tunungayualok Island
(unpronounceable to we kabloona), which forms one side of Tom Gears Run,
is indented by a large unsurveyed bay named, equally unpronounceably,
Nuvudluktok. From a hilltop I could see the entrance to Nuvudluktok was nearly
closed off by a moraine bar but there appeared to be a channel on its southeast
side. The next day was calm enough to take Barky around to the bar and
leave her at anchor while I sounded with the dinghy to find a way across. Then,
following the channel I had delineated from the dinghy, I took Iron Bark
into Nuvudluktok and spent two days exploring and charting it. Nuvudluktok is a
land-locked lagoon with deeply indented shores providing a new view around each
headland, numerous seals, a trout-filled lake and two attractive,
well-protected anchorages. If it were closer to a yachting centre, Nuvudluktok
would be a celebrated cruising destination; as it is, a few Inuit skin boats
and Iron Bark are probably the only vessels to have ever been there.
I quickly fell back into the
familiar routine for investigating an uncharted area. Each evening I drew an
outline chart of the area I wanted to look at the next day, usually an
enlargement from the appropriate chart. An image from Google Earth would be
better but is beyond Iron Bark’s technical capability. The main part of
the survey is done by motoring slowly along with Barky, recording
soundings as I go. When we get to a shallow or narrow section, I anchor and row
ahead to sound it from the dinghy then continue on with Iron Bark. Each
evening I transfer the day’s work to a fair copy of the sketch chart, write up
the notes and prepare a working chart for the next day.
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| Nuvudluktok |
I have two new gadgets that make
things easier. One is a hand-held echo sounder that makes sounding from the
dinghy easy. It lets me get the depth before the dinghy loses way between oars
strokes without having to deal with a lead line that habitually tangles around
oars, bailer and rowlocks while the dinghy drifts off station before the lead
gets bottom. The other gadget is a chart plotter with an integrated depth
sounder display. Its screen is too small for its advertised purpose but it
allows me to quickly and accurately record the position and depth of soundings
as I motor along with Iron Bark. With these new tools I can chart an
unsurveyed bay in a fraction of the time that I would formerly have taken.
Iron Bark’s motor may not
be large but it is extremely useful for this sort of work. It allows me to nose
into dubious spots and back out when its gets too shallow, something I cannot
do under sail. In less mechanised times such survey work was done from a cutter
under oars with the main vessel safely anchored elsewhere, but you need a big
crew for that. Being single-handed has
other limitations. With a second person aboard, one can keep the mother vessel
standing off and on while the other sounds ahead from the dinghy. Alone, if it
is unsafe to anchor and explore a difficult channel from the dinghy, it goes
untried or uncharted, as happened in the Bay of Islands.
I spent ten days looking at the
bays to the west of Tom Gears Run. Apart from two lines of soundings near a
long-abandoned Moravian mission at Zoar Bay, the chart of the area is blank. I
started with Takpanayok Bay, which I found to be free of hazards but with only
one anchorage that would be tenable in strong winds. However Takpanayok does
have a sand beach where a yacht could careen for repairs, something
sufficiently rare in Labrador for me to mark it on the sketch chart. There is
another large unsurveyed bay in the area called Tasiuyak. I tried to get into
it but the ebb was running at eight knots from its narrow entrance so I left
Tasiuyak for someone with a RIB with a big engine.
One morning I was drifting down
Tom Gears Run in light airs, shifting to a bay with a stream to do the laundry,
when a yacht came around the corner, sensibly motoring given the lack of wind.
It was Francis B, Nancy and Tom Zygler, friends who have done much
enterprising voyaging without ever a fuss. We yarned for a while before they
continued north. We met again several times during the summer for some pleasant
evenings together.
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| Yarning with Francis B. Photo copywrite Tom Zygler |
On 28 July, having achieved most
of what I had hoped around Tom Gears Run, I sailed 39nm miles to Kauk Harbour,
with a couple of miles of motoring when we lost the wind in a protected tickle.
Kauk is uninhabited but stone tent circles and the more recent ruins of two
cabins show it to have been occupied at least temporarily in the past. The
harbour is well protected with wooded shores and a stream so I spent a couple
of days catching up on the domestic chores of firewood, water and laundry, and
of course sounded the harbour for a sketch chart. The evenings were still cool
enough to appreciate a fire at night but on the few days the sun shone, the
bugs were out in force. There are some good walks around Kauk Harbour with
extensive views from the bluffs, but it is worth watching out for black bears.
On 2 August in light airs I
motored 16nm north to look at an unsurveyed bay on Base Island that might offer
a sheltered anchorage. I anchored off the bay and sounded it from the dinghy
but found a shallow bar across its entrance, so prepared to return to Kauk. As
I reattached the throat halyard to the gaff after using it to hoist the dinghy
aboard, I discovered several fatigue cracks on the gaff jaws that rendered the
mainsail unusable. With no mainsail and little wind, I motored out to the main
channel. At that point the engine spluttered and died, leaving us drifting with
the tide. Fortunately there was just enough wind to give steerageway with the
jib as the water was too deep for anchoring. The engine problem was clearly a
fuel blockage so I dived below and tore into the fuel system, leaping back to
deck every few minutes to steer away from one or other shore. I was watching
rocks not the clock so do not know how long it took for me to find which filter
was blocked, replace it and bleed the system, but the tide carried us two miles
before the engine fired. A few miles from Kauk the breeze freshened allowing me
to sail in to anchor, watched by a bear.
In Kauk I
fabricated reinforcements for the gaff jaws but needed a welding machine to
finish the job. Fortunately we were only six miles from Nain, the northernmost
village in Labrador, where I could undoubtedly borrow or rent one. With no
mainsail and the water along the way too deep for anchoring, I waited for a
quiet day before motoring to Nain. Thus do uncrowded waters make us cowards. A
yacht motoring from its marina berth places greater reliance on its engine with
no nonsense about bending on the trysail because the mainsail is unusable. By the
time I had the repairs completed, I thought it time to turn south.
On 12 August I
slipped on the icy deck, something I though unseasonable in such a moderate
latitude (57°N). The summer of 2015 will be remembered in Labrador as
exceptionally cold and foggy with an almost complete failure of the berry crop.
In mid August the black bears, which should have been scattered inland gorging
on berries to put on fat for the winter, were still looking lean and foraging
along the shore. I doubt if many of this year’s cubs will survive the winter.
For three weeks
I wended my way south, anchoring each night and where possible avoiding bays
that I had previously visited. The weather remained unpleasant. I can haul on
sheets and halyards while wearing mittens but cannot tie in a reef with them on
and my hands suffered. The dominant summer wind along this coast is from the
southeast. Not only is this a headwind when heading for Newfoundland, but it
also brings fog, with visibility sometimes less than 100m. Consequently our
progress was slow with a lot of motoring. Navigating in thick fog between the
numerous rocks that stud the coast is difficult enough under engine when I can
go hard astern if something looms up close ahead. Under sail, the risk of
hitting a rock increases considerably. Without the engine I would have missed
going into many of the smaller, more interesting bays.
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| Wyatt Harbour |
My first stop
was Wyatt Harbour, trumpeted in the Canadian Government Sailing Directions as
‘among the finest on the coast of Labrador’, but I thought it had too little
swinging room if it should blow hard. The next night was back in Tom Gears Run
at Tikigatsiak Cove in company with Francis B. There was a black bear
with two cubs on the shore, and still no blueberries. I spent a night in Shoal
Tickle and the next in Blind Mugford Tickle before pushing on to Meshers
Harbour. Meshers Harbour is unsurveyed and has a rock ledge partially
obstructing the harbour entrance. I anchored off and went ahead with the dinghy
to find the way in. A gale gave me an excuse to spend two days in Meshers
Harbour, which is well protected with good holding, surrounded by wooded hills
and has a convenient watering stream. Water and firewood were low so I filled
up on each then sounded the harbour for a sketch chart. Firewood is scarce in
much of Labrador and there are surprisingly few good watering places, so I
never let pass an opportunity to get either.
The southern
part of Labrador is relatively well surveyed but there are still many small
bays and natural harbours that are uncharted or inadequately covered by the
Canadian Pilot or CCA Labrador guide. I tried to anchor for the night in
bays where there was scope to make a useful addition to the pilotage
information. The night spent in Webeck Harbour did not fall into this category.
Webeck is a roadstead open to the north and unattractively exposed no matter
how well it is charted. The next stop in Edwards Harbour was more to my taste.
It is a landlocked bay with a narrow, reef-constricted entrance. Although there
is a sketch chart of Edwards Harbour in the CCA Labrador guide, the best
way around this reef is not clear. I sounded it and drew a sketch chart that I
hope shows the best channel.
I took the gift
of a rare fair wind to make a 125nm overnight passage from Edwards Harbour
around Cape Harrison to Penny Harbour. Between Cape Harrison and Quakers Hat
Island, a distance of 20nm, we passed over 50 bergs and bergy bits plus
innumerable growlers. By dusk we were 20nm south of Quakers Hat with only two
distant bergs in sight so I took the risk of carrying on through the night
rather than heaving-to and wasting the northeast breeze.
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| Penny Harbour |
I spent a night
in Penny Harbour, drew a sketch chart and left early the following morning in
fog so thick that I saw neither side of its narrow entrance. Later the fog
burnt off and we had a gentle, sunlit sail to Duck Harbour down a narrow
channel glorying in the name Squasho Run. There were no ducks in Duck Harbour
but I saw a bear and heard coyotes yipping and howling in the night. Duck Harbour
was the last unsurveyed harbour that we visited on this voyage and the last
place that I drew a sketch chart. The following nights were spent St Francis
Harbour and Fox Harbour, both well charted. Fox Harbour is a village of 150
people and the first settlement I had visited since leaving Nain. From Fox
Harbour we sailed overnight across the Strait of Belle Isle to Newfoundland and
anchored in St Anthony Harbour on 29 August 2015, bringing this voyage to an
end.
St Anthony is a
town of 3000 with more supplies and services than I had seen since leaving
Stornoway in April. Most things not locally available can be ordered in so I
set to work provisioning and preparing Iron Bark for her next voyage.
This year’s venture started and
finished on the Atlantic’s Celtic fringes with good company, good music and
abundant whisky of quality varying from fine single malt to pretty rough
poteen. In between we had an interesting ocean passage and two months exploring
an intricate, uncharted coast. There was everything that first attracted me to
voyaging in small sailing vessels; it was ‘a complete thing’.
