Hello world, this is Talia, back behind the keyboard of saildogbark.com for the first time in FIVE years. I am delighted to tell you about our remarkable experiences in the small town of Burin, Newfoundland (pronounced like Bjorn, they like to get rid of syllables in their words here).
Newfoundland
Oh dear, Oderin!
Our first notable stop was at Oderin Island (pronounced “odeern”) on the west side of Placentia Bay. Oderin is a gem of an island with rocky outcrops, green rolling Sound of Music hills, and a small protected harbor just (barely) big enough for Dogbark. The shoreline is dotted with the colorful homes of the fisherfolk who used to live here. In the heat of the summer, the place looked idyllic, but imagining living here through the cold winter months battered by North Atlantic storms definitely made us shiver.
Our first 48 hours cruising in Newfoundland
Hi! Savai here. Our family is cruising Dogbark for the next two weeks along with my friend Juliette. We have been having a BLAST in our first few days. After flying into St. John’s and touring the local universities, we sailed to Ferryland Harbor. We came with a bucket list of animals to see, but somehow have already checked all of them off the list. Wildlife we have seen so far:
Quidi Vidi
We said goodbye to Ted and Monica in St. Johns. But before they left, they drove us to Quidi Vidi, a very cute town, and from there we walked back to St. John’s along the coast with a stop at Signal Hill.
St. John’s
From Bay de Verde, we had a relatively easy sail to St. John’s, the capitol of Newfoundland. It is a wonderful city to visit with lots of restaurants and live music. They wharf is right in the downtown, blocks from their main street, Water Street, which is closed to cars and only open to pedestrians in the summer. The pictures below is the historic railway station, which travels all the way across Canada. The second picture is the Provincial Supreme Court, one of the oldest buildings in Canada. The last picture is of Jelly Bean Row, where all the houses are painted different colors.
Bay de Verde
We had a long way to go to Bay de Verde the next day so we left early. We stopped to fish and Monica was caught her limit in cod in just a few minutes. We also saw two orcas along the way. Bey de Verde is a well protected harbor, with one of the largest processing plants in Canada. Snow crab season had closed a few days before so we were not able to purchase any fresh crab. There is a historic walk and a longer walk to the coast. We stopped at a couple places and bought bread baked that morning by Madona.
Sydney Cove
We left Valleyfield the next day and went to Sydney Cove, 20 miles to the south. Recreational fishing is allowed on Saturday, Sunday and Monday so we planned to do some fishing on the way. We ended up catching 3 mackerel that made a very good dinner that night. There is a trail connecting the coves that we went on after exploring the cove with our dinghy. We enjoyed a restful night watching the sunset in a well protected anchorage.
Bona Vista to Valleyfield
While in Bonavista, we met a couple traveling by bicycles in Newfoundland. Jani and Sam were from Cambridge Mass. and were looking for a ride across the bay. They had never been on a sailboat before, but they were excited to do so as this would save them days of biking and their son had done many sailing adventures. We had a perfect day for sailing almost 30 miles, but even so, Jani got seasick, which was not unexpected. She felt better part way through and we all enjoyed seeing a large pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins.
Bonavista
From Trinity, we sailed to Bonavista, 45 miles away. We went past Puffin Island that has 45,000 breeding pairs of Puffins. There were lots of bird life, but they don’t like to get close to the boat and we could barely see the puffins through binoculars. We did see several whales though, 2 came very close and one circled us, checking out the boat. We wanted to stay an extra day in Bonavista as there were high winds predicted. We went on a hike to the end of the cape as Jerry, the dockmaster, highly recommended it and he had beautiful pictures of Puffins. We did get to see lots of puffins and gulls. With the high winds, it was especially fun to watch the puffins taking off, flying, and landing as they are awkward flyers and the high winds made it even harder for them. Again, most of what we saw was through the binoculars – this picture was taken using the binoculars. But when we were leaving, there were three puffins that landed within 20 feet of us. We felt especially lucky to get that close to them.
Trinity
From Carbonear, we went to Trinity East and anchored. Monica had read about a wonderful hike, Skerwink Trail which has been rated as one of the most beautiful hikes in North America, and we believe it! We made a quick stop at the town of Trinity for breakfast before heading on to Bonavista. The town is one of the cutest we saw, unfortunately we don’t have that many pictures to illustrate that!
Carbonear
We had a week to prepare Dogbark to cruise. When the mast was down, we replaced the track as it had taken 3 people to hoist and pull down the main! We had worked with Ballard Sails but getting things through Customs wasn’t easy and unfortunately some of the order was wrong. So we carried the slides on the plane and Al had to handsew all of them on the 65′ main. But we were finally ready to go when our friends, Monica and Ted arrived. Ted is an avid fisherman, so we had several wonderful dinners with cod and mackeral. Our first harbor was Carbonear, 20 miles from the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club. Carbonear is one of the oldest continuous settlements in Newfoundland. It has been a multiple winner of the “Tidy Town” award and the Mayor, Frank Butts, plans to win it again. Frank Butts welcomed Monica and Ted and showed them around his gas station and sold them a jar of marinated moose which later became a fantastic shepherd’s pie. We had dinner at the Stone Jug, one of the oldest buildings in Canada, built in 1860 from hand carved stone. When it was renovated, they tried to keep it as authentic as possible. The town center had a large pond in it’s center with a boardwalk all around it. There was a mother duck and ducklings.
Traveling to Newfoundland through Boston
Shauna and Al on the Freedom Trail in front of Benjamin Franklin Statue and Park. Al looking at Charlestown Bridge History on the Freedom Trail. Al in front of Ventura, a twenty five foot Wianno Senior. This boat was given to JFK for his 15th Birthday and he taught Jacqueline to sail on it. Al raced against this boat when he was 8 years old. This was Al’s very first sailboat race. He was with his Uncle Chad and friends on Varuna and the race took place at Martha’s Vinyard. This sparked Al’s love of sailing and racing!
Emerging into Civilization and a New Home
Champagne sailing for our last day and Dogbark finds a new berth at the Royal Newfound Yacht Club.
