Day 27 – Brooklyn to Lunenburg
We left Brooklyn and sailed out of the harbour on a run, with clear skies. Our sailing was becoming routine, and we took turns at the tiller as the other smeared sunscreen, ate peanut butter and banana sandwich, brushed teeth, filled water bottle, and donned hat and sunglasses. We sailed through a stream of podcasts until hunger, or boredom, called for more food. We passed trail mix back and forth across the cockpit, and turned the motor on when the winds died.
Passing boats and houses, or the lack thereof, gave us something to audibly acknowledge from time to time. Caly sat in one place, another, and another, still unsure where to settle on the boat. Inevitably, she was in the way of the tiller, the main sheet, or our feet. She often tried to sit directly on our cockpit clothing, which we kept at ready for changing conditions.
The hours passed smoothly enough. We turned north to head up for Lunenburg and worked our way towards the harbor while the wind changed direction. A huge three masted schooner, Marconi rigged sails, dropped anchor outside the mouth and we sailed past to find our own place to drop the hook.
We found a gap in the growing field of boats south of the channel and let out the rhode between a three deck motor yacht and a smaller Canadian schooner. Lunenberg was settled by the French, German, and Swiss; the town has a mix of dated European architecture with especially colorful houses and shops stacked on the hillside overlooking the waterfront.
We rowed The Dingy a great distance into town and wandered around the docks. The Bluenose (II, a replica of the original, which wrecked in Haiti) sat proudly in her berth, massive rigging towering over the surrounding boat houses, restaurants, and shops. Bluenose is a moniker for a Nova Scotian, and a likenesses of the graceful gaff rigged schooner can be found on the provincial license plate and every Canadian dime.
We covered the grid of roads in town, happy to be walking around something other than lobster boats. We walked up to Lunenburg Academy, perched on the hill, and admired the bizarre Second Empire building.
On the way to Isla we picked up a large pizza and replenished our beer supply, despite the prohibitive Canadian prices for the latter.
We decided to spend another day in Lunenberg, anchored among the many well traveled visitors. Transoms from Germany, the Cook Islands, and South Africa were visible from our perch above “Pete’s Island”.
