| DAY 3 – McNUTTS ISLAND –
Wind Var.1-4,
fine and sunny.
The day dawned cold with a heavy dew, but as was normal, the temperature climbed during the morning to its daytime norm of the mid seventies. We set off at 10.00 a.m. into a gentle breeze, which soon dropped to nothing. Ralph and Allan got out the oars, whilst Jim and I preferred to sit and wait for something to happen. We were rewarded by a school of Harbour Porpoises, the smallest of the whale species, who lazed their way toward us and played around the boat for half an hour. |
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| We sailed past Western Point and
into Lockeport
Bay, where we made an unsuccessful attempt at landing on the beach by
the
town. The wind, which had picked up considerably from the south had
caused
the surf, rolling into the bay from the Atlantic, to look much less
inviting
when seen from close to. So we sailed round to the well-protected
harbour,
where we landed on a small beach close to the fish packing plant.
..  I was deputed to find water. I climbed the harbour wall and walked toward the place where the fishing boats unload their catch. It was deserted except for an old man eating his lunch out in the sunshine. “Can I find water round here?” I asked him, expecting there to be a standpipe nearby. "Nope" he said, "but Dave'll surely take you into the town, where there'll be some." Dave was driving a forklift truck in the warehouse. He seemed quite content to have his working day interrupted by an English dinghy sailor and an old man who ate lunch out of a paper bag. He descended from his forklift and guided me toward an enormous pickup truck. Being English, I headed for the left-hand side. "You wanna drive?" he said, tossing me the keys. Who were these people, who trusted total strangers so absolutely? Dave, it transpired, had little idea where England was, no ambition to travel outside Nova Scotia and had only twice been to Halifax. He was a genuine nice guy and the water came from his brother-in-law, who made a living smoking salmon in the town centre. We continued our journey after lunch, working our way eastwards past the tip of Gooseberry Island and Black Point, into Little Harbour Lake. The entrance to Little Harbour Lake is barely ten yards wide, but the lake itself stretches inland for over two miles and is a mile wide for most of its length. It is lined with coniferous trees and much of it drains at low water. There is no access by road, which makes it a peaceful and significant saltmarsh, used by the thousands of migrating waders and waterbirds every fall and spring. We arrived around 17.30, which gave us time to pitch camp, secure the boats, build a fire and prepare supper before dusk took over. |
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