Made it to Newfoundland!
Our stay in Havre St Pierre, HSP, lasted a little longer than planned -more boat gremlins continued to plague us. You would think that we had done no prior maintenance on this boat but that is just not the case (in our defense)!
Still, summer arrived in HSP (20C) and a cruise ship arrived !
And so we fix… The bow thruster and windlass are like the starter motor and reverse transmission on a low mileage, late model truck. You know they will die at some point, without warning, but you don’t expect them to die at the same time. In non-nautical terms, losing the bow thruster is really annoying but not a safety risk. Think of losing power steering on your 50 foot truck that drifts in the wind. It will mean that smaller, tighter marinas we be inaccessible to us due to our reduced maneuverability, but we can deal with that. The loss of the windlass is much more important. The ability to anchor (and de-anchor) is a critical safety function that gives us the flexibility to quickly change course and hide out if the weather turns against us. It also lets us find quiet spots to stay. They are made by the same European company, MaxPower, so getting technical support meant getting up REALLY early as their technical support desk is in Greece and operates 8am to 4pm. So we got about 4 questions answered each day, and none on the weekend. The bow thruster main circuit board is fried, so that repair is at least a month away as we try to secure a new board. Technical help on the windlass was useless, which is why you have friends! After dissembling the windlass motor and controls we called up our sailing buddies back home, sent pictures, discussed options. We were able to “hotwire” the system so now the motor can pull the anchor up, and we will just use gravity to let it fall. An immense thanks to Drew and Peter for saving our summer.
Tuesday, June 24
For the next leg, we decided to do a straight sail to Port Au Choix, Newfoundland, ¾ way up the west coast. We watched weather/wind, then made the call to depart Tuesday 8pm in order to arrive in daylight. Seals and Minke came out to see us off, and Puffins flew around the boat! We were able to sail downwind for 24 hours, with following seas, full main and genoa! Yes… it was cold as the water is 9C. Wind died as forecasted once we hit the Strait (Wednesday midnight) so we set our heading and motored until 10am then the wind picked up and we sailed, broad reach to Port Au Choix! The trip took 44 hours and included some of the best sailing we have enjoyed so far this trip!
Thursday, June 26
The Port Au Choix Harbour is really quite small and busy (on the map it didn’t look so small). We arrived to find the docks full of fishing boats and two transient sailboats (American and Finnish). Ten points to Ali who stuck our landing, (and 10 points to Steve for letting her), landed 50 feet of boat onto 45 feet of dock in a 15 knot crosswind! A quick nap and off to the Anchor Café for Seafood! Early night and a long sleep!
Friday, June 27
Hiked the peninsula – 10km – around the archeological site, the lighthouse and the caribou! More seafood (shrimp sandwich), milk and hardware store; then able to buy fresh lobster from the fisherman on the dock! Yippee!
Our sights are on crossing to Labrador, to visit a couple of harbours there before heading back to the north shore of NFLD.
Sailing Tikaani 
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