St.John’s NL

Sunday, July 27

We departed RNYC on a calm, sunny morning and motored back up the coast 20nm with light winds on the nose to round Cape Francis. The geology of the local islands in Conception Bay are a stunning display of sheer cliffs with clear geological layers.

Once around the Cape the winds swung west and built to a healthy 16-22 kts, so we hoisted the sails and enjoyed a sporty 4-hour ride upwind to St John’s Harbour. It was sooo nice to be sailing after all that motoring from Fogo.

Entering St John’s harbour is exhilarating! You almost miss the harbour entrance until it is are right there as the harbour is protected by “The Narrows”…which is exactly as it sounds.

They are busy enough to have a 24/7 Marine Traffic Control Centre, VHF11, primarily for traffic over 65ft; but it is also wise to radio in to try and avoid ‘sharing’ the Narrows with a Tanker!  We radioed in and, sure enough, a large tanker was outbound in 10 minutes.  We hovered outside the entrance x 10’, watched the AIS that showed no tanker moving, then watched one of the tour boats enter at 8knts without hesitating. So we requested clearance, agreed to a speed of 8knts and fell in behind the tour boat…except perhaps a moment too late as we did share the Narrows! But it was no closer than in the St.Lawrence Seaway and he didn’t have a bow wave!

St Johns is the “spiritual” capital of Newfoundland, and neither of us had ever been there, so it was a must stop for both the experience of sailing into it and the town itself. Also predict wind indicated a blow on the Tuesday. The stop was worth it.  It’s touristy, funky with bright houses, and unique. The harbour is a bustling commercial harbour that also supports the offshore supply boats, the Coast Guard, the Navy, and a large fishing fleet.  As a transient boat, we just had to find a gap on Pier 6 or 7 to tie up to!

It was different from anywhere else we had docked as we were adjacent to the waterfront road and 1 block down from Water Street – St.John’s main hub. We stretched our legs with a hike up to Signal Hill, in time for the noon gun!, then down to the neighbouring cove of Quidi Vidi, to the famous brewery and restaurant. We had been enjoying Quidi Vidi beers since our arrival to NL.

What to do in St John’s:

• Walk until your legs die  -there are three directions in St John’s: up, up and down,
• Walk Water Street (a pedestrian walkway in summer), JellyBean Row, George’s St,
• Check out all the museums – Johnson GEO and The Rooms,
• Replace some clothing and footwear that had reached the end of its life,
• Act like a tourist and cruise all the tacky shops, buy souvenirs, hang out in old bars,
• Eat food you cannot make/keep on the boat – eg. Fish&Chips at Duke of Duckworth!
• Get your first haircut in 4 months – and get local knowledge too!
• Watch the harbour activity – loading ships, tourists, cruise boats, transients…

Studying Predict wind daily, it looked like Friday would be a good ‘SW wind break’ so we could head the 70-80 nm south and Round Cape Race. There was to be no upwind motoring…Steve’s right eye started twitching, and his hands trembled…  We needed a stretch of “relatively benign” weather to make the rounding of the Avalon Peninsula and beyond.  The weather window was Friday. We decided to sail through the night clear around Avalon and to St.Lawrence at the tip of the Burin Peninsula. In order to arrive there in daylight, we set sail at 11am, cleared the Narrows with little traffic and headed south in sunny weather. What a trip!…and that is for next week’s blog!

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