The Baccalieu Tickle

July 15, 2019

Day 243

Noon Position: 47 54N 52 51W (approaching the Baccalieu Tickle)

Course(t)/Speed(kts): NNE 6.5

Wind(t/tws): WxS 6

Sea(t/ft): NNE 3 and various

Sky/10ths Cover: High fog then low fog/10

Bar(mb): 1013, rising slowly

Cabin Temp(f): 66

Water Temp(f): 60

Relative Humidity(%): 60

Sail: #2 and main, full; motor sailing until 1400; then sailing.

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good (nm): 7:30am departure to noon = 24nm

Miles since departure:  31,843

Leg Newfoundland to Nuuk

Days: 0

Miles: 24

Mo and I departed the Long Pond breakwater at 0730 under power and on a flat calm. Out in the bay, we swung by a grassy point to the NE where new friends Greg and Rick were waving. They were also set to launch a drone that would catch the brave explorer raising sails and pointing his vessel north towards unknown adventure.

As is usual on such occasions, I made a fiddle of it. The main halyard came off the coil knotted and then it wrapped my left boot. This problem solved, I gave the halyard a manly heave only to have the jiffy reef snagged a lower baton.

The drone came in for a close up. I could here Greg’s voice through the speaker, “Need some help there buddy?”

I finally got the sail flying, but it still had a reef tucked in from the ride north. Now it was the reef line’s turn to exit the bag in a knot. That cleaned up, I then tripped over a line on the way back to the cockpit and fell hard on the deck.

The drone approached again. “Let us know when you’ve worked out the kinks and we’ll start rolling film.”

Finally Mo was set. I turned to wave goodbye, goodbye to friends, goodbye to Newfoundland.

—

But not all of them. In the offing was another friend, Alasdair Black on blue-hulled Serenite, who was headed to an anchorage around from the Baccalieu Tickle, and since that was on my way, I decided to follow.

I’ve learned a few new words since arrival. “Yaffle” is one (rhymes with raffle). Jerry, the Marine Insultant from last week, explained this as “an old fisherman’s term referring to the number of cod a man could carry on one arm.” It has since been generalized to mean “a bunch.” “Hand me a yaffle of paper towels,” said Jerry, sneezing. It has been generalized further to become a filler word. “Oh, shut your yaffle!” said Jerry to his good friend Bill when Bill tried to explain that the glasses Jerry asked to be brought from the truck were actually perched atop his head.

“Tickle” is another. It’s defined by locals (and no one else) as a narrow water passage between two pieces of land, as in the tight squeeze between Baccalieu Island and the point of the long promontory dividing Conception and Trinity Bays.

The sun we had gave way to high fog and then low fog with drizzle. A cold wind came up out of the east.

At the tickle, shearwaters, puffins, murres, petrels, and gannets; minke and humpback whales, and one Canadian coastguard vessel, The Earl Gray.

Here Alasdair and I parted. He steered Serenite for her anchorage and I pointed Mo out to sea.