Is there anywhere the in north western Northumberland Strait where a lobster could survive the month of August?

Day 38 remained beautiful all day. The sun shone and the wind and water were wonderful for sailing.  We looked forward to everything we had been told about sailing in the Northumberland Strait.    As we had been told, the weather pattern was stable with 10 -15 knots of fair south westerly winds and the  visibility was perfect making for an enjoyable day of sailing.  We left Escuminac with the intent of reaching our destination of Bouctouche in the early evening. We knew it was a 50 nm run and all that we read about it was wonderful.  We had read that it was a beautiful spot to visit but that the channel in was impassable at night so we had to make it there during the daylight hours.  Judy and Jeanette had told us that it was one of their favorite stops but they had gotten stuck in the silt.  The couple from Vermont reported that they had been stuck there in the silt for 2 days before they were able to get free.  (But they had 6 foot keels under them.)

 The shoreline of New Brunswick is absolutely beautiful. The waters of the Northumberand Strait are warm; they are the warmest waters in Eastern Canada.   They are warm because they are shallow; shallow all the way from the sandy beaches of the NB  and NS coastlines across the Strait to Prince Edward Island.  There are so many beautiful remote beaches ; we were shocked to see them from the water’s view line.  And the sun heats that shallow water quickly. In fact, Captain Cheryl Barr writes in her book,  Down EastCircle Route, that some claim that the waters that” lap against the  sand dune beaches that front the bright red bluffs and green rolling hills of the 3 Maritimes provinces “ are the warmest waters north of Virginia.

 I remember hearing one of the fellows at the wharf in Escuminac tell the captain something about the four  local fishermen who had licences to fish lobster during August this year and to be wary of the traps as we sailed. Wary was not the right word!  By the time we rounded the tip of Pte. Escuminac we were into it.   Because the waters here are so shallow the area is perfect for lobster fishermen.  It affords them the opportunity to lower and retrieve their traps easily and cost effectively since they do not need hundreds of feet of line for each trap to reach the bottom.  We were tried everything to stay clear of the traps.  We changed our course to head further offshore and closer to PEI but that did not suffice.   We tried to stay closer to shore but that was even worse. The waters wherever we sailed were overcrowded with traps.  We had no choice but to sail through. 

The huge lobster fishing vessels line up  in lines around the outer limits of their submerged traps. They hover there and then move about the traps.  Traps are set in rows in the water so that the vessels can make their way up or down the rows so that the fishermen can check them.  And that is what we travelled through all day long , nervously picking our way through 40 nm of rows and rows of traps trying to avoid floating lines and hundreds of thousands of bouys marking all the traps below.  It was a horrible trip – the captain finally decided that he was lowering the sails and motoring so that we could make some time knowing we had to arrive at our destination by a certain time that night.  I remember thinking of the devastation of the cod industry. I wondered how on earth a single lobster could remain untrapped on the seabed  beneath us, at all,  with so many obstructions so close together  in their path.

We had been slowed down by the traps.  Drastically.  The captain was concerned we were not going to reach the Sawmill Point Boat Basin in the Bouctouche harbour before darkness set upon the Strait but I kept trying to reassure him we would be fine.  But he was right again and before we even rounded the sandbar at the mouth of the channel leading into the basin we were in total darkness.  The waters were calm but we now faced the dreaded low water factor and knew we could easily run aground.  The channel into the marina is well marked but not lighted and it silts easily with the shallow water and shifting beach sands.  The markers are moved as the sand shifts so the channel changes.  Local boaters move them to point out the new channel as the sand shifts and there are no charts to identify where they are located.  In the dark they are not even visible thus the warning not to attempt this entry during the dark. The markers to the approach of the channel are green and red buoys but as you get further inland toward the basin, the last nautical mile,  they become wooden sticks that have been placed upright and are offset one another in the water. 

But “we were in it, so to speak” as our favorite musician, Leonard Cohen sings.  And we were going in. It wasn’t a scary sound when we ran aground. It was a soft sound as our keel slid into the sand, a scratchy smooth sound and then nothing.  We came to rest knowing exactly what had happened and without any stress. The captain gunned the engine numerous times in effort to pull us out but to no avail – we were grounded.  In the dark, in Bouctouche harbour, in less than 5 feet of water, and we were not moving.

The captain huffed! He put on his jacket and he walked out to the bow of his vessel. He sat down on the front of the house of his boat and he looked inward toward the brightly lit little town. He did not speak. I knew he was thinking and I did not interfere.  Minutes later he called our boy Ben.  I don’t know why. Perhaps he just needed to hear his voice, perhaps he was going to ask for advice, perhaps he just wanted to say hello. 

 But I know he told him of our grounding because Ben called back 10 minutes later. Ben called to tell his dad not to worry. Ben had gone into the internet to research the tide times and status of the same for the Northumberland Strait, specifically the Bouctouche harbour.  He reassured his dad that we were in mid high tide and that within two hours the tide would rise by at least 3 more feet and that would lift Bridlewilde off the bottom with enough room for him to drive her into the marina. True to the information that our boy Ben had reassured his dad with, that is exactly what happened. We tied safely to the floating dock in the marina at 11 pm that night. Not with an easy entry I might add but we had arrived!

The following morning, we were a spectacle in the marina.  The harbourmaster talked with Keith to tell him that no one arrives there at night.  Ever.  He was amazed to see our boat secured to the fuel dock in the morning. It had not been there when he had departed for home the night before. I guess its because the mariners there just do not know the captain.

Two boats sailed out of the Bouctouche channel  later that morning both on our way to Shediac but I suspect that the boys about the marina there will be talking about Bridlewilde and her captain for  days to come.