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 are all delighted to hear that the entire crew of 64 aboard the tall ship Concordia, part of Lunenburg-based Class Afloat program, have been rescued off the coast of Brazil. The high school and university age have certainly had an education in marine safety. The lesson should not be lost on other boaters, whether [...]
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! Share and Enjoy:
“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 [...]
My friend Søren just made a lovely video about sailing his catamaran in Mahone Bay. Music is by Drumlin, a local group of 4 very talented siblings from Bridgewater. Here it is: Share and Enjoy:
Is there any boat more beautiful than a schooner? What is it about them that draws the eye? The Schooner Association met in Chester this weekend. We passed a few heading home on Sunday. Some photos, taken from our boat: Share and Enjoy:
After their triumphant sailpast in the sun in Halifax, several tall ships came to Lunenburg for a mini version of the big event. The Unicorn, in this picture, takes teenaged girls on excursions of several weeks with an all-female crew for life-changing experiences. I heard its captain explain to some astonished men that no, in [...]
Since we live and sail on Mahone Bay and have come to know most of its islands by sight, I read Frank Parker Day’s 1928 novel Rockbound with great interest. I wasn’t the only one. Thanks to CBC’s Canada Reads program, the previously obscure novel has been lionized by the Canadian literary establishment and the [...]
It’s a laborious but joyful spring chore for boaters in Nova Scotia: taking off the winter cover, cleaning her, fixing her up, painting her bottom, waxing her sides perhaps, and getting her ready to launch. Owning a boat means using a lot of elbow grease, unless you’re wealthy enough to hire someone to do it [...]
Here’s a lovely account of Rob Dunbar’s adventure, in 2006, of sailing solo along the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia in a sailing dinghy. Took him 8 days. He was going in the right direction; coming the other way you could expect it to be harder with prevailing winds against you. The story is well [...]
