Otter Island, Bras D'Or 46:13N 60:32W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Wed 17 Sep 2008 12:37
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I like Ike and Hannah as well. They may both
have been hurricanes once, but over Canada they give sunshine and good sailing
winds. I am wearing shorts and bowling along, across the Bras
D'Orr lakes in northern Nova Scotia. The forecasters here talked earnestly
of "ex-hurricane Ike not losing his identity" and winds of 20 to 30
knots.
20 knots is fine by me. We came across all
the second night on a close reach, with (technical bit here for Tony: Can
someone explain it to him?) the storm jib up and 3 reefs in the main. We
were all ready in case the 30 knots talked of happened. As the wind
was still only 20 knots, I had half the genoa rolled out as well. There is
no difficulty rolling that away in the dark, if the wind had got up.
The genoa stayed out all night, which was not
even dark, as a full moon shone all night too. Very
different to fogs and dark nights before this interuption to normal weather
patterns. We only saw more than 22 knots briefly coming into the
entrance to the Bras D'Or lakes and we were motoring in a narrow channel with
the tide pushing us along. The spray hood was
needed then.
In under a bridge to a little anchorage behind
Otter Island. Three o'clock, time for a big meal of the remains of
the hake I was given in Francois. After that I thought "I will have a
couple of hours sleep before supper" and woke up this
morning.
People have asked for photos of the otters and
eagles. I saw no otters at otter island but this came across:
 It looked big enough to be an eagle but the
photo looks more like a crow to me.
The scenery here is very scenic (!) but low lying
wooded shores are difficult to make a good photo. Well here you
are:
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