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We are nearing the end of the third port visit in Nova Scotia in a two and a half-week Canadian cruise of six maritime ports. Lunenburg, NS, was our first Acadian/Cajun port stop after Halifax. Lunenburg is a renowned fishing and vessel maintenance port that has been making a reasonably successful conversion into a tourist town. This is sad really since the maritime/commercial/ technical aspects of the town's history will be an unfortunate thing to lose.

This is the town that brought to the sailing industry the famous fishing schooner Bluenose and her reproduction Bluenose II. As fishing technology modernized, so, too, did Lunenburg while still preserving the base of sailing technology it had created. This is also the town that brought to the modern world the reproduction HMS Bounty for MGM Studio's Mutiny on the Bounty made in the 1950s. If I recall correctly, Lunenburg also built the reproduction HMS Rose that was recently used in the movie Master and Commander. So, Lunenburg represents a great resource for traditional sailors. I think it will not serve Lunenburg at all well to completely loose her traditional and modern commercial capabilities in the interest of converting the town into some picture postcard Nova Scotian town. Successful tourism can often exist because of a sense of authenticity while an idyllic façade can have a surprisingly short life span. As I look at the town as a visitor, I fear for the future of Lunenburg. It would be so easy to strip the town of its commercial maritime history under the shortsighted notion that new/old looking is better than combining a serviceable maritime commercial capability with a partial and thoughtfully considered redevelopment of areas not in as much maritime commercial demand.

Our transit to Shelburne, NS, included the first real sailing we have had for it seems like forever. The weather was actually clear as we left Lunenburg. When we moved from Halifax, the coastal areas were again shrouded in a dense fog just as it has been for most of our time in Canada. Fortunately Pride II is equipped with several modern navigation aids and in the calm but limited visibility conditions we faced, we were able to proceed in the dense fog with careful confidence. Between digital charts and radar with both north up and true motion capability, it is surprisingly easy to maneuver in conditions of very limited visibility. To add to this, we are equipped with an Automatic Identification System (AIS) that both receives and transmits to similarly equipped vessel position (POS), course (COG), speed (SOG) and provides calculations of when the point of closest approach will be (TCPA) and what that distance (CPA) will be. Also transmitted are the vessel's name, size, and type as well as what it is doing (i.e. motoring, sailing, anchored etc). Since AIS is used by all the big commercial vessels, it is easy to identify them by name and know what they are likely to be intending to do. If there is still a need to speak to them, you can call them by name rather than by identifying them by calling out their position ("...calling vessel in position X miles from such and such a place..."). Still, moving about in fog is a very concentrating exercise. One must still be looking out and listening for the vessel that is not equipped with AIS and may be moving about in its own confidence using its own radar and not blasting its fog horn. In light to calm fog conditions, one is able to hear a vessel long before one can see it. So the horn can be superfluous, especially in vessels moving at less than 10 knots. But if the wind were to be blowing strongly at the same time it is very foggy, the sea and wind noise can be so loud that a horn is not only necessary but may not be enough to overpower the noise of the wind. So one keeps an ear and an eye tuned to the outside of the ship in order to have earliest warning of any possible surprises the radar did not warn of.

While the sail to Shelburne was well received by all, especially as we were sailing in company of a fine 1939 Alden schooner called When and If, it was marred at the end by lots of rain. But before the rain, these two vessels of widely different size, design, and eras were sailing alongside each other companionably throughout the late afternoon, evening, and sunset. When and If is the yacht commissioned by General George Patton and named in a demonstration of pragmatic realism of "when and if" he would ever be able to go on that world cruise he contemplated after the war. She is about 61 feet long on deck and is a vessel I commanded for a summer back in 1982. While Pride II is a lot larger than 61 feet on deck, both boats were neck and neck as they went to windward. Pride II was flying all of her sail including the top-gallant while When and If was sailing without the use of her fisherman staysail. This side by side sail was a small demonstration of the major advancement in hull design and hull construction that has taken place between 1812 and 1939. In fact the similar performances of this sail together belied the differences between the vessels considering Pride II has steel wire for standing rigging that did not exist in 1812. Still it was interesting to note that a small vessel could easily keep up with a larger vessel where the larger vessel had to fly all of its available sail merely to keep up while the smaller vessel that was not sailing with all of its sail.

Shelburne's recent claim to fame was the making of the movie Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moor. Beyond that, it is a much smaller town than Lunenburg located on a harbor reach that offers more protected sailing than is available at Lunenburg. But Lunenburg is closer to the 'big city' of Halifax and that may be part of the reason Shelburne has remained small. We got in yesterday morning and had open house all afternoon. We will be open to the public till 3 PM. Today, then it is off quickly for Yarmouth, NS, to be on show there tomorrow. We have 95 miles to go and a weather pattern that is breezier than it has been for a while due to a complex double low pressure system moving by and overhead from the southwest. So we have little time to dawdle and still arrive Yarmouth on time between the harbor movements of two large passenger ferries that ply the waters between the USA and Yarmouth.

Cheers,

Captain Miles