L'anse aux Meadows

L'anse aux Meadows

Terje was very excited at the thought of visiting L'anse aux Meadows, being a Norwegian of Norse descent.
To be fair so was i, it certainly is one of the places to visit on my "bucket list".
 As i mentioned before we had sailed passed it earlier on our trip from Ship Cove to St. Anthony.
The site is run by the Canadian National Trust, or their equivalent.
Only rediscovered by Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad in 1960, after a they did a great deal of research into the Norse sagas.
The archeaelogical digs carried on until 1967.
It is now certain, Norsemen were in the area (they called it "Vinland", because they found wild vines growing in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from around 900 to 910, the first Europeans to land on the North American continent.
They only stayed for a short period, there are a few theories for this, the most accepted being, that the Norse came into conflict with the indigenous peoples in the area.....the "Mik Maq" and others.
It is thought they made the hazardous journey (the first boat took 87 days to find Newfoundland) from Greenland to "Vinland" to find a new source of timber............they certainly found plenty of that !!!!!!
Approaching the visitor centre we came across a bust of the two site founders

Then we were into the centre.
I noticed it was £20 to get in (for all of us), some dispute followed......we carried on walking into the centre and started looking at the exhibits. I have to say at this juncture, the lady behind the desk at the entrance was being harrassed by  a stream of noisy school children. Onward and upward .......we casually moved on deeper into the centre. A large sign said......"Guided tour starts at 13:00 with Clayton". A discussion followed, should we....... should'nt we ??? ( i must add here our friends from Adventure - Brad & Lorraine had kindly lent us their hire car for the afternoon to visit the site, but wanted it back by 16:00).
We decided no, we have'nt time......especially as we wanted lunch on the way back from L'anse.
So, of we trundled, out of the doors down onto the timber decking that leads to the site by the ocean. Next minute up pops a Moose and her calf wandering through the bushes.

Carrying on through the scrub it opens out on the re-constucted bulidings they believe were here in 900 AD. A large amount of objects and artifacts have been discovered over the years, some of these have been copied and placed into the display.

The Settlement

Inside the reconstructed dwelling covered in turf

 A statue on the beach near the settlement

Along every road in this part of Newfoundland are these massive stockpiles of logs.Speaking to our friends on the Whale watching boat, these piles are owned by individuals, they just pick up some more up whenever they need them. They never get stolen !!! Tim eat your heart out ......LOL

St. Anthony ......AGAIN !!!!!

St. Anthony ..........AGAIN
Soooooo......where were we, argh yes, on the way back to St. Anthony to fix the steering gear. I must say, we were all a bit jaded by this set back, thoughts of missing the transit of the passage this year passed by all our minds; but we soon rallied ourselves and started to plan the way forward when we eventually anchored back into St. Anthony.
The weather worsened as we approached the Belle Isles strait and headed towards Cape Bauld on the top of Newfoundland. That Belle Isles Strait !!!!............she's a little tinker........strong winds, horrible short seas, bad currents, fog and if that's not enough, icebergs to boot !!!!! All this with an emergency steering gear...........
As we progressed down the East side of Newfoundland the sea lifted and it became quite hard to hold the emergency steering aginst the swell, however, it worked very well despite having to hold the force back with your leg sometimes. With more time , we could have rigged a pulley system to impove things, but, we were in a rush........the ice was melting and quickly.
St. Anthony at last.............yes..............we've cracked that bit.
Next morning Steve and Terje went ashore and started to look for help in the local community. Steve Sheppard, the crew on the "whale & iceberg watching tourist" boat met them at the dock and soon had them in the right direction to find help to strip and clean the gearboxes...............oil and grease everwhere.
They found a local workshop and Steve asked if we could use their degreasing bath to clean all the parts............all good came the reply.
While all this was going on i had begun stripping the top and bottom gearbox bevel gears...............my heart sank.............mangled bits everywhere. One of the splines on the trunion bar at the base of the steering shaft (ooooooops sorry girls.... this could get a bit boring....skip this paragraph, or two if you like .........arf arf arf :-)) had sheared and forced the bottom bearing into the bevel gears............streuth there were ball bearings and bits of bearing casing everywhere..........teeth missing off the bevels and bent bits everywhere !!!!!
I set to with a couple of good files and a small set of fine engineers files. Dear me, some bevels were in a real mess, they should be trapezoidal  (wow thats a good word), quite a few were like knife edges..............most like Toblerone....anyway after i finished they did look better, though not perfect.
We took all the bits to the workshop cleaned, inspected themwhat a mess, we all looked at each other with concern. The quadrant gear had an arm welded to the top shaft which we had to grind off to gain access to the gears. Luckily a grinder and welding set were at hand. Just as i was trying to remove a stubborn nut from one of the shafts with an air tool, the workshop boss walked in and looked in disbelief at his sudden increase in grease monkeys by 4 No. Unfortunately, Steve had not asked the boss for approval, but one of his minions. He was mainly concerned about insurance and any claims we might make if we hurt ourselves. Steve put on his best diplomats act and soon poured oil on stormy waters. In the end he realised what we were about and told his staff to help us as much as they could......................what a star.............great guy.
Steve had been in discusions with Lewmar (maunfacturers of the steering gear) for spares to be flown out. They promised us all the parts by next Wednesday, though not good, it was reasonable.
During all the goings on, we had neighbours in the harbour, Brad & Lorraine in their Nordhavn 55 super yacht and a young family Carl and Carly on a Bruce Roberts 65 ' steel yacht with their children Caprice (4), Carla (2) and Crew (4 months). We soon had them over for drinks and got on famously with them all......great people.
Sunday, we all go for a road trip to see the L'anse aux Meadows heritage site.............see next post
Luckily Steve had guessed Lewmar might struggle to get the parts out to us so quickly, so he ordered some more from Montreal through our friends at the workshop. These duely arrived on Sunday morning at the Hotel North............our watering hole and restaurant.
We set about rebuilding everything we could in preparation for the main parts arriving from the UK. Yep, you guessed it, on Monday 21st July Lewmar called to say the parts were now due in on Wednesday 30th July. Steve, did his famous impersonation of Captain Shouty............gloom again descended.
Thats it....we'll rebuild what we have and go, Steve blurted out !!!!
I have to say, i had some trepidation about going through the passage with only a partially fixed steering. Anyway, we set too and had it all back together in about 5 hours........now the acid test....turn the auto pilot on.......woooooooooow it works !!!!!!!
23rd July..............we're off

Brad & Lorraine's yacht "Adventure"

A container ship call's in to pick up shrimps for China

 A few more fishing vessels back in port

The jetty we landed the dingy at, also the berth for the whale watching boat

Far end of the harbour with the radio mast

Labrador bound..............

Well all was going well, the sail from st. Anthony was going great.

More icebergs meandered past

Then the fog rolled in !!!!
2 minutes later the steering gear failed....................no pictures of that i'm afraid !!!!!

Steve on the "Emergency steering gear"................setting course for Schooner bay Labrador to hopefully fix the steering gear.
After a day of stripping it down, we realised it was fruitless.......we needed spare parts..........back to St. Anthony !!!!! Such a disappointment..............

St. Anthony

St. Anthony's - Newfoundland
13th July 2014, we enter St. Anthony's harbour, unknowingly this was not to be our one and only entrance to the harbour !!!! More later !!!
Just below Cape Bauld on the north east peninsula of Newfoundland, St. Anthony, is a very important bustling modern fishing town with a population of 3,500. The airport is 60 kilometers away, with daily flights to St. Johns.
L'Anse aux Meadows is about a 30 minute drive away, the earliest / original Viking setlement in North America.
The harbour from the boat at anchor. I know i've said this before, but, the people in this region are just brilliant. Walking in the town we have been stopped by passing cars asking us if we need a lift anywhere or if they can do anything for us...........so friendly, just brilliant.

Sunset over the stern of the boat

The harbour early next morning

moonrise.............

We met the sister boat to this in Baddeck, "Shear Madness" owned by Bradley and Kathy a Nordhaven 72. This is another called "Adventure" owned by Bradley & Lorraine. They very kindly asked us over for a few sherbets...............beer and wine !!!!! mmmmmmmm
This inside of this boat is amazing.

Second visit

Ship cove

Ship Cove & Onion Island,Newfoundland

This harbour / safe anchorage is at the top of the North west coast of Newfoundland, on the Belle isles Strait. Once a major area for whaling. As we approached the harbour a humpback whale broached about 1 mile away from us...............holy polony, i've never seen anything like it, i got quite emotional, it was just staggering.
 It proceeded to do an an incredible sequence of rolls, side broaches, flipper slapping and more full broaches...............and yes, i never got chance to get the camera in time !!!!! DOH !!!
 I'm sure we'll see plenty more of this most magnificent beast

Ship Cove

 Onion Island

We actually saw our first iceberg in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the Quebec side................we did'nt realise it was a berg at first...................we thought it was a ship on the radar !!!!
We soon got a glimpse of some more as we left Ship Cove.........we reckon these are just off the coast at L'Anse aux Meadows. The historic site only recently discovered as an ancient Viking settlement.

Onto St. Anthony to refuel and take on provisions.

Beach Point

Beach Point  - Newfoundland
Behind a massive spit on the west coast of Newfoudland in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Beach Point is a very safe haven and a local harbour for the haddock and lobster fishermen. By pure coincidence we arrived on the last day of the lobster season.
As you can imagine when we arrived and took up half of the harbour we were as welcome as another thick fog. Despite this the boats piled in and drove around and around while we moved our warps and tried our best to become small. :-)
They were in good spirits though and made us welcome, typical of all the people we have met on this voyage..........the locals are just fantastic, welcoming, friendly, generous..........just brilliant.


We followed "VOLO" (owned by Max and Sandy) into the harbour after following them all the way up the coast. Hard to believe, but "Ding" met in them in French Polynesia in 2007, he even had made a note in his log that they had no wind generator at that time............they could'nt believe it. The world cruising fraternity is extremely small !!!! Max & Sandy have been cruising since 1979...................have been everywhere.........an amazing couple !!!! Soooo cool !!!

next morning ..............and the fog rolled in......ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh joy !!!

Entrance to Beach Point harbour, Steve nearly had a fit ......it was tiny.......not really for a 60 foot yacht.

Next stop Ship Cove & Onion Island after passsing through the Belle Isles Strait