Halifax Days

After saying goodbye to Vince at the airport I caught a bus back to Halifax. The, roughly 45 minute journey, cost me all of 3$CAN!

Back in town, my first priority was to get a haircut. The regular price was a pretty steep $40CAN so I opted for an Apprentice at $30 and he did a good job.

Then I went up to the Citadal/Army museum on top of the hill overlooking the city and harbour and had a look around.

Pretty impressive too!

I don't think I have ever read the Japanese surrender speach before. Pretty chilling both because of the words themselves and because of 'what might have been' had the bomb not existed. The price of American victory with peace was clearly horrendous.  What would the price of continued war and possible American defeat have been? 

To my thinking at least, the Emperor's protestations about only wanting to protect his country, ring rather hollow, but ultimately he made the right decision for the benefit of all. But given what's going on in the world today, it seems that many of those in power don't learn by the mistakes of their predecessors.

Then I walked back to the boat.

I spent most of the following day on the boat pottering about - the first day without Vince - it was a little strange and of course I missed him loads.

The next few days however, saw a flurry of social activity. Rhys and Niamh offered me a lift in their Uber to go shopping and the next day to do the laundry. I also met up with Michael and Sabine on their boat  Blaubeere moored in the marina and a couple of days later we had dinner in the yacht club.

Then Rhys managed to get the two of us berths on a boat competing in the Armdale Yacht Club's regular Wednesday evening race around 'the cans' (a short race) in the 'upper arm' (the name of the stretch of water). 

It turned out the boat (a Sigma 36 - Sharon wanted me to buy one when I was looking for a replacement for Arctic Smoke) to which we were allocated, was owned and skippered by one of Rob's sons. Rob being the guy that Fred and Muna (local OCC members who we met Lunenberg) introduced me to. I hope you're keeping up? 😁

The rest of the regular crew comprised Rob, his other son and one of his pals. The race only lasted 20 minutes but we were probably out on the water for a couple of hours and whilst we tried to look like we knew what we were doing, I suspect the regular crew would have been faster without our help.

Fortunately whilst the race was keenly fought, everyone was also very relaxed and the beers and other drinks were passed around even before the starting gun - which we only just made thanks to a temperamental engine!

The Armdale guys were a really friendly bunch. I just hope that any Canadian sailors venturing to the UK, get treated as well as we were by them.

Just before we went off to the races we bumped into Michi and Steffi from T'Aima, who Vince and I met in Shelburne. With their arrival, there were four OCC boats in the Armdale Arm and Rhys (who's a "Roving Rear Commodore" of the OCC) had tracked down two other boats (one Swedish and one Australian) who were interested in joining and so he organised a get-together for us all at the Armdale Yacht Club. John, the OCC Port Officer for Halifax also came along as did Michael and Sabine and so we had quite a gathering, which continued on Rhys' boat when the yacht club closed. However, I'm afraid that once again I forgot to take photographs.

I had made an attempt to leave Armdale on the Wednesday, but the Anchor windless was playing up and so aborted the trip - which was probably just as well otherwise I would have missed out on all the fun. 

It was actually quite a nerve wracking and bruising episode. First the dam thing wouldn't run. Then after prodding and tapping it did. Then the dam thing wouldn't stop. I dashed back to cockpit and inside to kill it with the isolator switch, slipped on the companionway steps and took a right wolloping. Nothing broken but I'm still sore days later, when I pull ropes or wind winches etc. Knocked stupid I forgot where the isolator was for a while! Anyway eventually I found it.

Later I took the deck switch apart and with Rhys help cleaned it up and re-installed it. Problem solved or so I thought!

Stay tuned!