Lance waves goodbye to Isbjorn on arrival in Lunenburg!
Isbjorn finally made landfall in Lunenburg on late Saturday night, following 36 hours of beating into 25 knots of wind. It was a tiring end to what was an eventful passage, and the crew was happy to arrive in Lunenburg, even if it was dark outside.
I had flown up on Saturday morning from Boston. Despite waking early to catch my 9am flight, I felt markedly better than I had in the three days previously since my appendectomy last Tuesday. I was starting to get nervous that I wasn't healing, but there was a definitive sense of betterment when I woke that morning and my spirits were high.
I'd rented a small apartment through Airbnb on the waterfront opposite the harbor. Without any Internet access on my arrival, I felt like an old-timey wife standing on the shoreline and looking longingly out to sea to see if I could see my boat coming in.
I was enchanted on being back in Lunenburg, one of my all-time favorite towns. This was the first time I'd visited by NOT sailing here, so that part was slightly disorienting. Taking a taxi from the airport is not nearly as eventful as sailing into the harbor.
I finally heard from Mia that they'd had very slow progress tacking upwind, but finally the wind had started veering to the east and they could lay the course. They expected to arrive between 10-11pm. I had some dinner and a glass of wine in the apartment, then killed some time until I'd walk over to the harbor to greet them at the Boat Locker dock in town.
Around 10:30pm I saw Isbjorn's running lights coming in past the breakwater. They'd arrived! I had to move around a small runabout and a small sailboat that were taking up too much dock space to make room for Isbjorn, and by 11pm the docklines were secure and the crew was popping champagne to toast another successful landfall!
Thanks to my appendectomy less than a week ago, our two trips up north got compressed a bit. It was a quick turnaround for everybody. The crew for Leg 7 arrived yesterday, but we held them off and asked them kindly to stay ashore for the night, so they all met up and booked rooms at the Bluenose Inn, conveniently located next to the Knot Pub. The Leg 6 crew, meanwhile, had flights to catch on Sunday afternoon, so we had a team breakfast in town and just enough time for the guys to explore for an hour or so before catching a taxi home.
And it's been no rest for the weary for us. Yesterday was spent unclogging the new holding tank (which we realized in hindsight wasn't installed as it should have been), and this morning Mia and I finished up the laundry while Liz cleaned watermaker filters and organized and dried out the boat. She left this afternoon, while my dad caught a flight this morning.
Leg 7 crew got straight to work tightening some bolts on the Watt & Sea hydrogenerator.
The crew for Leg 7 has arrived now and amazingly we've already got the boat ready to head further north! We had to tighten a few bolts on the new Watt & Sea, changed out to the big genoa, added some oil to the engine and tightened the alternator belts and we're ready to go. The forecast looks strong - check the next blog post for that - but with wind from the right direction. If all goes to plan, we'll be departing tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon, or perhaps Wednesday morning at the latest.
Follow us as we head farther north than Isbjorn's ever been!
