Blogs from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, North America - page 5

Elisa’s Log Entries Below is my personal account of her preparation for the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race. As you will read below, the path to becoming a global sailor started long before becoming a Clipper Crew or even hearing about the race… Early Account of Sailing Growing up on Cape Breton Island, I spent plenty of time by the ocean. My family always went for walks along the Baddeck harbour to check out the boats, and I even remember the Tall Ships visit back in 1984. I was thinking back to experiences that might have lead me to dream of sailing around the world… My first time on a sailboat was around age 11. A school friend, Heather French, invited me to go for a sail on her Dad’s boat. We were ... read more

Saturday, September 6 When we started out on Saturday morning, everything was wet from showers in the night - the first bands of rain going out ahead of tropical storm Hannah. We ate breakfast at a Perkins just across the line into New Jersey. In New York, we drove through the Bear Mountain State Park. The clouds were sitting on top of the mountain, so the road to the lookout was closed. We took the Bear Mountain bridge across the Hudson River. For a while we drove through the countryside - with forest and large lakes. In Carmel, NY, we stopped for lunch and ran our errands - an optician to put the lens back into Mother’s glasses, a Radio Shack for an electrical adapter, and an A&P for Mother’s grocery store fix. Most of the ... read more

Hi Everyone Well a lot has happened since our last entry. Sorry about the long wait. We decided on a 2 day trip to see Niagra Falls to get out of the city for a few days. Part of the trip included a wine tasting session we tried the red the white then the Canadian delicacy 'iced wine' which is locally called (liquid gold) sweet and tasty, YUM! We did the maid of the mist and got soaked despite the poncho's provided. This is a boat that goes really close to the falls, you don't see much of the falls cos of the fierce spray, but well worth doing a brilliant experience. We walked closer to the falls to get a better view. At this point realisation kicked in "OMG we're actually in Canada" it's a ... read more

The is a certain amount of excitement as you approach a "treasured" location that you've heard so much about and have been wanting to see for yourself. Perhaps this is why the drive up to Ingonish seemed a bit long. Or perhaps it was the roundabout route that the highway takes, first heading north and then coming back south down the inlet to the inland sea before crossing over at a narrow point. Joining the circular Cabot Trail at this point, the road north is less of a highway and more of a two-lane twisting scenic route. This suited us just fine, because the Cabot Trail scenery was what we had come for, along with good food and good maritime music. I would imagine that this road is extremely frustrating to drive in the summer when ... read more

On a Sunday afternoon threatening rain, we attended the Broad Cove Scottish Concert. For 50 years, St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church has hosted this summer music festival on their church grounds. We joined several thousand concertgoers, where from mid-afternoon until dark, a succession of Scottish music was played for our enjoyment. We enjoyed bagpipe, fiddle, bass, piano, guitar, vocals, and even dance. It was a toe-tapping good time, and thankfully the rain never came. We also visited the Margaree Salmon Museum. A salmon museum, you say? Well, the Margaree River was one of the great salmon runs in Nova Scotia. We learned that young salmon leave the river after 2 years and swim all the way to Greenland. When they return to spawn, they don’t die like Pacific salmon, but return to open water all ... read more