AWAY FROM IT ALL IN NEWFOUNDLAND

Andrew Gantt

Late in June the 'Matthew', a replica of Cabot's ship, sailed into Bonavista Bay on the East Coast of Newfoundland to re-enact the 500th anniversary of Cabot's (re)discovery of the island. Some 150 yachts jammed the harbour -- but we were not there. Our Pearson ketch 'Clotilda' was in Baddeck, Nova Scotia and Digna (wife), Rebecca (fifteen year old daughter), and I (Captain) had just completed the 1500 mile drive from our home in Virginia to get the boat ready for a summer circumnavigation of Newfoundland.

Newfoundland brings to mind images: fog, icebergs, great down-drafts from high headlands, Scandinavian-type fjords, fishing harbours called `outports' connected with the outside world only by water, lonely sailing in a desolate area of the hemisphere. Surely, though, the image is not of hundreds of yacht jamming small ports with few facilities.

And thus, while all this panoply rushed to fruiting 800 miles away, we contentedly prepared 'Clotilda' for our own voyage, our own discoveries. Baddeck, located in the lovely complex of inland lakes called the Bras d'Or, is a jumping-off place for northern voyages. 'Belvedere', John Bockstoce's motor-sailer of Northwest Passage fame, was being readied for a counterclockwise circumnavigation of Newfoundland and a cruise down the lower Labrador coastline. 'Talisman', a Tartan 41 owned by Vernon Merritt, was scheduled to leave on an attempt to reach the Arctic Circle via the west coast of Greenland. Grosvenor Blair, grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, was leaving in 'Orsa' for an exploratory sail up the middle coast of Labrador, north of Newfoundland.

As new members of the OCC we hopefully flew our out-of-the-box burgee. Within days, John and Jane Gibb aboard 'Honey Jar' out of Plymouth hailed us as fellow voyagers, our first serendipity of membership. They were the only OCC members we met in the next six weeks though. Where were you all this past summer? Keeping the 'Matthew' company?

After the normal preparations, frustrations, blues, finally, `Oh, the hell with it. Let's just leave!'. We journeyed out of the Bras d'Or and into the Cabot Strait on 2 July. Usually, and wonderfully this time once more, there was that untied, let loose, free to roam surge that arrives as the bow lifts to the first ocean wave of the season, the sails fill and pull, and the course is laid for somewhere else. We planned for the first night's stop at Ingonish on the Nova Scotia coast, but the wind was a strong southerly and tropical storm 'Anna' was threatening to arrive, so we took the beam reach given and had a fine overnight to Codroy on the southwest tip of Newfoundland. A good thing too, as the gale arrived soon after we did, bottling us up in Codroy. Not a bad idea to pause anyway, as we were still doing `getting the boat back in shape' chores. We had our first contact with the most friendly and welcoming Newfies, watched 80lb halibut being packed for shipment at the fish plant, picked up boat-building lore from locals building wooden fishing boats, and saw no other sailboats.

Independence Day did not arrive for us on 4 July, our normal date: the lightening and thunder caromed about, the wind heeled us on our lines and the rain poured, but it cleared during the early hours and we headed northwards up the west coast of Newfoundland. The west coast is not a comfortable one -- it's a long haul between harbours along a lee shore. That day we made ninety miles by nightfall, just making a coastline indentation with breakwater called Blue Beach Harbor before dark. A few fishing boats arrived, some boys strolled about without shirts in the 50øF weather, and a couple of teenage girls didn't seem to shiver in their shorts. My daughter remarked on it.

Entering our intended landfall in the Bay of Islands next day we were hit by terrific down-drafts of perhaps 50 to 60 knots coming off the sheer 800ft headlands. Spume blew off the water as we struggled to lower the main and even under bare poles 'Clotilda' heeled 20ø. At last we settled down uneasily in Wood's Island harbour, after resetting the anchor in the continuing strong blow. Low and thick clouds looked like a dirty comforter without a cover. The `best protected harbour on the west coast', according to our cruising guide, did not live up to its billing.

The general rule for sailing up the west coast through the Straits of Belle Isle is to do it as fast as possible. We took a less hasty course, making some overnight passages when the weather window opened but stopping to explore and visit. We were finding, though, that Newfoundland weather was not particularly friendly. Winds were either nonexistent or quite strong and we averaged a gale a week during the voyage. Lows seemed to pass through every couple of days, as compared to every five days down at home in Virginia. Within day weather was quite inconsistent. It was something like our experience a few years back around the Channel Islands, but even colder!

After an overnight sail Port au Choix was a welcome sight. It gave the impression of a frontier town, with dusty streets and coping inhabitants, but we have never been to a friendlier place -- so much so that I penned a letter to Newfoundland's Prime Minister to compliment it.

In the United States there is a chocolate-covered ice-cream bar called a Klondike. We decided that the first person to see an iceberg would get the `Klondike award' of an ice-cream bar at the first opportunity. Up near Red Bay on the Labrador coast at the top of the Straits of Belle Isle the Captain saw the first one and won the Klondike. But we still had not seen another sailboat in some 500 miles of sailing.

To enter Red Bay, a previously thriving whaling town established in the 16th century, we pulled out one of the seventy charts we had purchased for the circumnavigation -- only to find neither latitude nor longitude inscribed. This chart, as many others in our collection, is based on a British Admiralty chart of the 19th century. Surely by then the mysteries of latitude and longitude had been solved sufficiently to put them on charts? We have recovered from the surprise of not finding latitudes and longitudes on these charts but have not solved the mystery of why they are not there.

Our next stop, and a mecca of sorts for the Captain, was L'Anse aux Meadows, a Norse base established around 1000 AD possibly by Lief Ericsson himself. But was he the first European to discover the western hemisphere? Recent archaeological finds have identified Caucasian-type remains dating back some 10,000 years. Apparently, Cabot and his ilk were newcomers! Nevertheless, as we walked the old mounds of the Norse and looked out over a cold and foggy sea dotted with icebergs in late July, we marvelled at these early voyagers in their open boats with no navigation instruments. By now water temperature was in the low 40øs, with similar air temperatures. We were wearing our ski clothes in July!

Rounding to the east coast through an inland passage under Cape Bauld, we had barely tied up in St Anthony before the most severe of gales engulfed, or rather `enpiered', us. But we took the opportunity to sample Newfie fare, or `Newfie scoff' as it is called: cod cheeks and tongues, moose and even seal flipper pie were on the menus. Cod, long the staple of the Newfoundland economy, is now scarce. The Canadian government has limited fishing for cod to very small quotas for the past few years and those who were fishing have been put on the dole. This subsidy caused an unusual occurrence -- the fishermen apparently went 'en masse' to the local banks with this newly guaranteed income, borrowed money, and fixed up their houses, most notably with vinyl siding. This caused a minor building boom simultaneously with the cod fishing moratorium, and a subsequent collapse of the economy as bank loans began to be repaid. The widespread new appearing houses co-exist with an obviously depressed economy.

In St Anthony we found our first sailboats, those returning home from the Cabot-linked festivities in Bonavista. This was on 13 July, two weeks after our departure from Baddeck. Several `fish delivery boats', ones which journey up to the Arctic Circle to pick up fish harvested by others, waited out the gale.

After three days we departed, with the tail-end of a northeasterly blowing us down the east coast on a sparkling day, among the icebergs floating south with the Labrador current and whales migrating north for summer rendezvous. After a fifty mile run we pulled into L'Englee to find John Bockstoce in 'Belvedere' heading the other way. L'Englee and the other east coast ports to the south, although as small as the ones on the west coast, did not have the same pioneering feeling about them. On both coasts, though, the Cabot festivities were providing an opportunity for Newfoundland to show its appeal to the tourist trade, hopefully a future antidote to the lack of fishing opportunities.

On 23 July we finally came on a sailboat under sail, three weeks and some 900 miles after leaving Baddeck. We wondered how many other coastal cruising areas in the world would have so little activity. The east coast of Newfoundland is rife with inland passages, secluded anchorages and small villages with sporadically operating fish plants. The water was getting warmer too and every now and then we swam, usually with a gasp as we hit the water. In Seldom-Come-By, on the south side of Fogo Island, we saw a luxurious wolf pelt nailed up on an outside house wall to dry.

We skipped a lot of inviting places, trying to maintain an average of forty miles each day. We found time to stop in Bonavista, where Cabot had landed, but the recent flotilla was nowhere to be seen. Bonavista is building another replica of the 'Matthew', though, so when you come to visit you will be able to see it -- a very high-sided 73 footer that we were told by a Newfie `crew for a day' rolled like a pig. From Cape Bonavista we were awed by scores of whales spouting, by thousands of puffins on the offshore island, and by a lighthouse that before electricity required round-the-clock maintenance to its sixteen reflectors and flames to beam forth.

In Long Pond, across the peninsula from St John's, the capital of Newfoundland, we luxuriated in the hospitality of the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club. After several days we left on a southwesterly wind which conveniently veered to the northwest just as we rounded Cape St Francis. St John's is an actual city! We took walking tours, enjoyed the restaurants, museums and large grocery stores, and even found a 'New York Sunday Times', the first international paper we had see in a month. We took a long hike up Signal Hill, from the top of which Marconi had communicated the first transatlantic wireless message. To be truthful, we delayed facing what looked to be a long beat south down the coast to the notorious Cape Race.

Ducking into Ferryland at nightfall on 1 August we were most surprised to see the Maryland state flag flying from the museum flagpole! It turns out that Lord Baltimore was given Ferryland in 1610, a fine little harbour with direct access to all the best fishing spots, but one winter there convinced him that warmer was better and thus he was given his second grant -- what is now the state of Maryland.

By 5 August we had rounded Cape Race in the fog and tied up at St Pierre island, a Department of France some forty miles off the south coast of Newfoundland. From moose and cod tongues we had an instant transition to 'baguettes' and 'chateau briand'! We all got to practice our French, with varying degrees of success.

The south coast of Newfoundland is most dramatic, but unlike the west coast there are many harbours and ports of refuge. And, if need be, one can always find sea-room to the south. Here we discovered a fjord called Hare Bay which we agreed was the most beautiful anchorage that we had seen in 23,000 miles of ocean sailing. The quarter-mile wide entrance stretched up in sheer cliffs 1000 feet high, beyond it a long, protected passage opened with waterfalls cascading down, eagles flying above and no human sound. The next day we entered a cirque eight miles to the west in which dwelled the little outport of Francois: two hundred souls, no road access, with sporadic fishing the only non-governmental support.

Finally, on 13 August, we returned to Baddeck, completing our circumnavigation of some 1700 miles and six weeks. Newfoundland is a rare cruising ground these days, with very little sailboat traffic, wonderfully friendly people, the most dramatic landscapes and a history which is well worth delving into.

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