Arms of Gold

The Bras d'Or Lakes (French for Arms of Gold) are indeed as beautiful and sought after as the name suggests. There is a legend that says once you visit, you never want to leave. After being here for a couple of days, there is some truth to that! This area is fabled. Why? The people here are friendly, but that's been the case for all of our Canadian journey. There have been many quiet, secluded anchorages. In many of these, we are the only boat in the cove. The Lakes themselves are expansive, with low-lying hills in the near distant horizon and higher hills to the north and west. Physically, it is appealing. It is also pristine, cared for by many with the shared values of protecting their surroundings. Finally, the number of anchorages, all within 10 or 20 miles of each other, puts this high on anyone's list for cruising. You can see all the indentations and coves on the map below. More nooks and crannies than an English muffin!

We entered the Lakes by the Canal leading from St. Peter's Bay to St. Peter's. That was our first night. Our second night was in Denys Basin over by Orangedale. The third night was at Eskasoni near the circle in East Bay in amongst a group of small islands. On the next day, we went to Baddeck Marina for some mechanical work on Brio, a trip to a pharmacy and a trip to the hardware store. We recovered from that mercantile experience by spending last night at anchor at the head of Malagawatch Harbour, shown in the circle to the left of the name "Bras d'Or Lake" in the center of the area.

To give you a sense of the diminutive scale of the Bras d'Ors, here's a small lighthouse along the Lake just above St. Peter's.

Now out to the open Lake. Here is a picture showing the sense of hills receding into the distance. These are the hills to the north and west on the above map, to the left of the Lakes.

Now head for any of the remote harbors, such as Denys Basin where we stayed after St. Peter's Marina. It is secluded. We were the only ones anchored there.

The view off the port side. And ahead of us:

The early morning fog is just burning off in both of these pictures.

Off we went to fuel up and take showers in East Bay. Brio reminds us of who's in charge:

She continues to turn heads and earns compliments no matter where we go.

That night we spent in an Indian Reservation area, Eskasoni, in amongst several islands.

The following day involved a stop at Baddecks Marina, an obligatory stop for any boater who's made the pilgrimage to the Bras d'Or Lakes. For Brio, she wanted her port fuel filter cleaned after warning us of W-I-F (water in the fuel) for too many days. There was some sludge in the port fuel filter bowl. The other item was replacing the anchor roller in the bow and going to the hardware store to make up a tool for installing the wash-down fitting at the bow to clean off the anchor and chain. (Chain with salt water still on it, if it is stored in the anchor locker, begins to stink due to all of the organisms living and dying in the salt water. So it's good to rinse off the chain as it is stored.) Such mundane tasks!

Once done, we were off again, through the Narrows and back to the southern part of the Lakes. Here is the double bridge in the Narrows, one a turntable railroad bridge and one an elevated highway.

We headed up Malagawatch Harbor to River Cove at the headwaters. Here's the morning scene:

And the still waters:

The next post will cover the harbors we plan to visit in the northern part of the Lakes in the next few days before we head north and east to Sydney.

Cheers,

Brio