Over the last few posts, you’ll have noticed that we’ve set up work teams to clean the boat and prepare the meals. This morning, it was my team’s turn to make breakfast. Béatrice, Ryan, Alex B and I put a lot of love and bananas into preparing a delicious meal for our fellow sailors to enjoy. However, we had underestimated the work involved in preparing a meal for 21 people... My respects to those women from another era who had to feed a family of 15 children! In the same vein, we’ve set up a rotation system so that we’re entitled to a shower every three days, in order to respect the boat’s water storage and heating capacity. In truth, it’s a luxury, when you consider that we didn’t have access to showers on previous sea kayaking, canoeing or trekking expeditions with the Foundation...
We left Baddeck in the early hours of the morning to take the Great Bras d’Or out to sea. The sky was heavy and the wind relatively steady. Since we were motoring through the channel, we had time for a second knot workshop before Beatrice, Ryan and Tomas volunteered to wash the dishcloths. Meanwhile, the sky is clearing, with azure skies ahead.
Passing under the Seal Island Bridge marks our arrival in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and thus in the Atlantic Ocean. Water as far as the eye can see! Time to hoist the sails! The young sailors hoisted the mainsail and then the staysail, and we sailed for a good half hour before finding ourselves in the middle of a fishing area littered with buoys marking the location of lobster cages. Once out of this quagmire, the strength of the wind allowed us to hoist a third sail, the jib. The pace got faster and faster… and the list was over 20 degrees! While some were cheering and shouting for joy, others (young and old alike…) were even suffering from seasickness… So we decided to lower the sails before the sailors panicked… The situation wasn’t dangerous, but it could be intimidating for beginners… And it was a good thing we lowered the sails, because just as the more daring among us were finishing the job, gusts of 35 knots came our way! The spray was lashing at our faces! The boat was pitching like a rodeo bronco! (OK, there are no cattle on board, but you get the idea…). Facing such forces of nature makes you feel both powerful and vulnerable, but most of all, very much alive! All in all, a wonderful experience… even for those suffering from seasickness, as they had the opportunity to eat a bite, an old sailor’s remedy which, paradoxically, brings quick relief.
The waves died down as we approached the coast and we sailed calmly towards Sydney where we moored at the Dobson Yacht Club. We were greeted by club members as if we were celebrities! We were photographed, asked tons of questions, and given a case of soft drinks… Those Nova Scotians are incredibly friendly! We also felt the ground give way under our legs, as if we were still in the boat. Quite a strange sensation… As if we’d had a little nip!
At the end of the day, supper was rounded off with a game improvised by Michel: it was forbidden to speak French, or you’d have to do the washing up for everyone! In the end, our nurse Naila, Béatrice, and Tomas did the job for all of us… A big thank you to the three of you as it was my turn tonight! Once the dishes were done, everyone got together to play a game of “bananas-bananas/onions-onions”. Listening to them laughing over and over again, you’d never know they’d been up against 35-knot winds just eight hours earlier…
Translated by Lorraine Gagnon