Friday, July 25, 2008

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 (Brimball Harbour, Bay D’Espoir, Newfoundland)

We cast off from Harbour Breton with a forecast expecting mostly heavy cloud cover and rain headed for Hermitage Cove, around the head point of Burin Peninsula. Student workers warned us “there’s not as much happening in the next few towns as there is here in HB.” It’s all perspective my friends! As the day went from early to mid morning, the skies went from gray to blue. We had a lovely sail with engine off by 8:00 am traveling at a respectable 7.5 knot average. Once in Hermitage Bay proper the engine was back on with the wind on our nose, and we marveled again at the magnificence of this geology and its absence of most human imprint. We circled in to Hermitage Cove for an on-board “look see” and circled right back out to take full advantage of the now pristine sky and the penultimate scenic extravaganza of Little Passage. Little Passage connects Hermitage Bay to Bay D’Espoir (locally pronounced Bay Despair – gotta love ‘em). The passage was narrow (like Route 3 to Boston seems narrow) and deep, with waterfalls, tree-lined cliffs, fishing eagles, and tiny tuck-ins throughout. We never saw one other boat, despite the small penned aquaculture farms. We eased our way out of the passage, and into Brimball Harbour to set anchor about 12 feet from a granite cliff with two waterfalls. Head-in to the wind and anchorage was a small spit of sandy beach, to starboard the cliffs, to port a few rocks and the 100-150 ft passage. Hot showers with good sun and some all natural air drying, a lovely dinner and reading in the cockpit to a sunset which turned from rose to purple to golden. The only sound other than the waterfall and birds was the occasional hum of our refrigerator. A hard day to beat.

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