Canadian Power & Sail Squadrons is a non-profit organization that has been connecting boaters for 70 years and continues to play a major role in Canadian boating culture. This winter, our local Bluenose Squadron of CPS is offering the CPS Boating Course in Bridgewater. (Other squadrons across Canada will be offering this course and others. [...]
We woke early to the sound of the wind, and the news that Hurricane Earl is tracking more easterly than predicted last night, and should pass us directly overhead. Right now it is just south of Yarmouth and has not made landfall yet. Environment Canada calls it a marginal category 1 hurricane, though some other [...]
It’s a bit surreal preparing for a hurricane. If it weren’t for the weather forecasters and mass media, we’d have no idea that anything was coming. We take it on faith that they’re right, and act. We aren’t going camping or sailing this holiday weekend. Instead we’ve battened down the hatches and stocked up on [...]
It is unusually hot here in this part of Nova Scotia (near Mahone Bay), for early September. Knowing that we’re going to be experiencing the eye of a hurricane before things cool down is not a great comfort, at least not when you own a boat. Some people are taking their boats out of the [...]
The wooden gaff-rigged sloop was on its way from Lunenburg to Mahone Bay. But the cable used to raise the centerboard had broken. So the sailor ran her up on Bachman’s Beach, on Second Peninsula, hoping to fix her at low tide. The team of draft horses was in training, as usual, and was pulling [...]
The Mahone Bay Classic Boat Festival, formerly known as the Mahone Bay Wooden Boat Festival, isn’t happening this year, but a new group has come together to present the Mahone Bay Regatta on the same weekend. So if you’re used to making a trip to one of Nova Scotia’s most scenic towns at that point [...]
We moved to the South Shore of Nova Scotia for the sailing, essentially. Lots of folks here have boats. There are kayaks, runabouts, sleek motor cruisers built for speed, a few “trawlers” (non-planing motor cruisers), fishing boats converted into pleasure boats, “personal watercraft” (sea-doos), small and medium-sized sailboats of all vintages, some wooden, and more [...]
My husband just spotted this video about Chester Race Week. We sail but we don’t race, so this video gives me a feeling about what it’s like to be involved in this event. It’s Canada’s largest keelboat regatta!
Nova Scotia has so many beautiful lakes. Some of them are lined with cottages. In Cape Breton family cottages are called “bungalows”. Other lakes are in wilderness areas and may hide traditional camping spots known to a few fishermen, hunters and back-country campers. I camped out last weekend next to the cottage of friends on [...]
“Batten down the hatches” – it’s an old expression from the days of “wooden boats and iron men” and describes perfectly what Nova Scotians are doing as Hurricane Bill approaches our shores. Memories of 2003′s Hurricane Juan, which hit Halifax hard, are fresh in our minds. There’s a sense of anticipation in the air, weighted [...]
