Close Encounters

On Saturday we advanced from Yarmouth by "The Inner Passage" around Cape Sable to Shelburne. On our way, we met a very nice Canadian Border Patrol officer ... about 5 miles offshore. And that wasn't the last of our encounter "with the law."

Good morning, Yarmouth. Yarmouth is a working harbor whose economy is a bit rough. The Shark Fishing Festival was underway and the shark fishermen had been offshore for a couple of days. Peter, the marina manager for the town, warned us that the dance music would be loud until 10:00 pm and the shark fishermen would be really loud until 2:00 am.

Here are the fishermen's boats. Pretty quiet for 6:00 am! Ahead of us is The Cat, a huge catamaran ferry that runs across the Gulf of Maine from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth overnight. It carries autos and cuts hours off the same trip by land.

You can see the scale of the Cat compared to the ocean-going fishing boats next to it.

And then there are the sharks themselves! These are blue and Mako sharks. They look as scary as Great Whites, but they are smaller. The record was set a few years ago. The shark was 1084 pounds. Length 11.2 feet. It was a mature female short-fin Mako shark.

We cast off around 8 am. Peter had us sandwiched in with inches to spare between the boats. Our neighbors watched with mouths agape as Brio moved sideways out from her tight berth and into the harbor.

Off we went towards Cape Sable that divides the Gulf of Maine and the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Sable receives the brunt of many hurricanes moving up the East Coast, but today all was calm. Navigators debate the wisdom of taking the Inner Passage, through many islands interlaced with small channels versus the Outer Passage, longer but without the thrills of rock-strewn thoroughfares. Given the advancements in GPS, charts and the clear weather, it was obvious that we should take the more direct Inner Passage. We were not disappointed.

Once around Cape Sable, we headed northeast up the coast to Shelburne. As we passed by Cape Roseway, the AIS system detected a boat headed right at us. It had no identifying name, just a series of numbers. That was not too unusual. Coast Guard training ("turn to port, I'll see you in court") had us steer to starboard about 15 degrees. Darn if the boat didn't also turn to follow us. AIS estimated that our combined speeds meant we would collide in a couple of minutes since Brio was going 22 knots (25 mph) and the other boat was probably going the same or faster.

As the boat approached, we slowed. It did, too. It was a police boat of some sort. As it got closer, it was clearly a CBP high-speed inflatable like the one below.

As fast as Brio might be, we decided to prepare for boarding as the CBP boat came up on our stern. Instead, the senior man leaned out his door and began a conversation about where we had come from, where we were going and whether we had a CBP Report Number? (Yes, we did.) Here we were, bobbing offshore about 5 miles in a placid sea, thank goodness, passing the time of day with a couple of CBP agents.

By the time we were done, we had had a thoroughly enjoyable encounter. If we had met in a bar, several beers would have been consumed. But we couldn't even share a bottle of water! So, we bid adieu and we headed off to Shelburne. They stayed behind, filing their report.

Shelburne was founded in 1793, populated by Tories who fled the American Revolution. It is filled with streets with names such as King Street, William Street, George Street and Charlotte Lane. Charlotte was the wife of George III. Here's the proud local sentiment on display.

Thomas Courtney was an early settler, building his home in 1783.

You can see the architectural influence of the colonial-aged buildings clustered along the waterfront. There's a bit of a time-capsule feeling about the town. The citizens are proud of their heritage.

We were sitting on Brio Saturday night at the Shelburne Yacht Club docks, just relaxing before dinner. Suddenly there was a knock on the hull and the same CBP agent who had stopped us on the high seas was right there on the dock! He had his same winning smile. We popped up and joined him on the dock for maybe a half-hour conversation about everything from harbor facilities up the coast (where could we get diesel pumped dockside rather than from trucks?) to whether the Bluenose II schooner might be in Lunenburg. We shared work histories, in part because he was curious about how we could afford Brio. He started working as an engineer in the Middle East in oil and gas. He and his wife wanted to come back home to Canada after 15 years or so and he was able to find employment in CBP. When he learned about our past, he said we had worked hard for her and he respected that. We finally had a chance to share those conversational beers we had missed at sea!

Here is Steve and our agent, Bryan Webber, enjoying each other's conversation.

We have been so impressed with the quality of people who work in CBP and we are grateful they have treated us so respectfully and kindly.

Cheers,

Brio