It is so much fun for us to get your comments, encouragement and prayer support. Thank you for writing back. The day started by again fueling up but this time the truck drove on a road behind the dock and we passed the nozzle by tying a line to it and pulling it across. No matter how we do it, the fuel is costing more than we anticipated by a lot. But then isn’t every one saying that?

The parts for the water maker arrived and Walt was able to fix it after one false start. So now we can again make fresh water from the salt water surrounding us at a rate of sixteen gallons an hour. Our neighbor on the dock, Gavin, helped Walt with fueling and the repair, then gave us a tour of Corner Brook and fed us a steak dinner after all this. Talk about hospitality! He and his wife, Val, live on their 41′ sailboat with their nine month old son in the summer months. They will lend us their car to pick up Skip, Pat and Shane tomorrow at the Deer Lake Airport.

The refrigerator compressor arrived and we have an 8:30 am appointment to get it installed. Then we will do the final provisioning before departing Wednesday.

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Did you know that Newfoundland is one half a time zone east of Nova Scotia time?  When we got here we set our watches ahead 30 minutes.  Walt said he did the same thing in India last year but I have never moved through half a time zone!  Newfoundland is also the 10th largest island in the world.

We were off early again this morning and did another 100 plus mile day which took us 13 hours.  We were so grateful that the seas were calm and wind less than 20 knots all the way.  We saw three boats all day so we really felt we had the sea to ourselves.  The west coast of Newfoundland is unlike anything we have ever seen with rugged cliffs 1000 feet high dropping to the sea.  On the way into the Bay of Islands we had four whale sightings!  One surfaced and dove seven times in a row much to our delight!  It took us two hours to motor through the bay and arrive at Corner Brook; it is huge.  We had made arrangements with the Bay of Islands Yacht Club to stay here until our crew arrives Tuesday. We were greeted by many friendly folks who were expecting us.  A  phone call revealed our water maker parts are here and we hope to hear the refrigerator parts arrive tomorrow. The club is nice with laundry facilities, showers and wifi!  We have been offered the use of a car already and are planning to do the final provisioning for the trip Tuesday.

I had purchased most of our fruit and vegetables in Halifax and put them below the floor boards.  The 97 degree days in Baddeck caused about a third of the apples and oranges to rot so there is more to get now. We are ready to get to bed!  We find we now get woozy being on land and feel like it is moving all over the place!

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We awoke at sunrise in Ingonish and said goodbye to John. The sunrise was fabulous and the day was gorgeous for a crossing; virtually no wind at all and in fact sometimes the sea was like glass. After 11.5 hours we pulled into the Government dock at Codroy, Newfoundland. The end of the wharf had silted in so I almost ran aground. Immediately we met Dean on the dock and shortly thereafter his fishing buddies. His wife, Carol Ann drove us to the local lighthouse and then to a restaurant for dinner. Kip had an interesting dish called fish cakes which was a combination of mash potatoes and cod – very good. We presented them with a pound of Peets. They will be shocked as they are used to instant. We are impressed by the beauty of this island and we haven’t yet seen much. Once again the people are warm and friendly.

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We’ll we finally left Baddeck behind & are “on the road again!” after a week. We didn’t leave until 4 PM because they located our much needed refrigerator compressor and got it shipped to Corner Brook that day! Praise God! We had our credit card rejected twice with the paying of the Baddeck bills, buying groceries, paying for the compressor….; after two calls to the Chase Bank fraud department later we were set. They were just doing their job wondering what a California boy was doing buying all sorts of things in Baddeck, NS. I had told them in advance but they blocked the card never-the-less.

The trip up the Great Bras d’Or was fantastic and we went past the Alexander Graham Bell mansion and under the beautiful Seal Island suspension bridge with a vertical clearance of 119′. We then went past Bird Islands and saw two whales on the way to Ingonish weaving between thousands of lobster pots. Kip took a million sunset pictures – fabulous. The boat is running great.

We have a second part shipment coming to Corner Brook to fix the remaining boat issues. We were to  meet up with our new friend John in Ingonish and hailed him on the radio. He guided us up a very narrow channel and we rafted up to his boat for the night. Surprise! Another new friend, Clark (Tartan 35) was there with some of his friends (John & Deborah) who own the mooring we rafted to. The next thing we were on their deck joining a party that was underway. Also there was Peter who owns Straight-MacKay, a commercial boat supply company here; the supplier of our much needed refrig compressor! He was so happy he had indirectly helped us. We had hamburgers on the grill; a great time. Did I tell you how wonderfully nice the people of NS and Cape Breton Island are?!

I am writing this at 6 AM the 12th and we are underway to Newfoundland. We awoke to an amazing sunrise so coming and going from Ingonish was in Technicolor. Today’s trip will be a long ocean passage; 12-14 hours we think. So far calm seas and the boat is running fine.

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