Standing besides majestic "Golden Leeuw" had also some funny side effects since we had to explain to visitors of the big ship that we are not a dinghy of Gulden Leeuw but indeed another tall ship that also has crossed Atlantic.
On July 1st we had some Latvian visitors onboard living in Canada and together celebrated Canada day and started our Latvia 100 program.
Our youngest visitors paid most attention to Spaniel talisman - "Bamsis" who is sitting at Our compass. This almost resulted Bamsis to accept offered Canadian citizenship to him in family of two years old Jasmine.
In the evening Sintija and Jelizaveta visited our new latvian friends frm Canada - Ilze and Mark in their farm 40km from Pictou. There they felt like almost at home in Latvia.
On next day we finisfed our preparations to continue our passage towards Sep-Iles. Cpt Ivo surprises crew with sunday breakfast. Then there was shoping centre visit resulting new temporary crew member - lobster Timoty, who were sitting in bucket of water and posed for some photographs before beeing sent for SPA procedures in our kitchen.
In the aftermnoon three of Spaniel girls - Sintija, Liga and Jelizaveta visited mast of Golden Leeuw to assist in untying of their sails.
The feelings being on top of Golden Leeuw are great. At 16:50 the motor was turned on and Spaniel opens undocking procedure followed by Guayas and Golden Leeuw.
Just before undocking we were presented another new crew member by city of Pictou - inflatable pirate Hulio who now replaces Laura in watch A and took his first steering lessons while leaving Pictou.
Three girls without any assistace rise our jib - 15 seconds and that's all, Liga comments the process. Well girls always want it last longer.
Our initial plans to make short stopover in Summerside and explore Prince Edward island were overturned by security. The fleet has already left Summerside and we come in to find that Geronimo already has been requested to leave pier and to anchor in harbour in 20kts of wind which is unsuitable to us. Therefore we had to continue our sailing until the morning of July 4 when we finaly found another small and welcoming marina Paspebiac who was glad to see the real and only tall ship.
While approaching Paspebiac we have some clouds with heavy rain and winds raising up to 30 knts while under them. Rain allows us to see also some rainbow and Jelizaveata demonstrates some sailing yoga under sails.
Paspebiac lies in french part of Canada - most people speak only french here.
Here we got some more Timoty family members that results in tasty pasta with lobsters. Jelizaveta, Sintija and Ginta performs session of acroyoga on pontoon. In the evening there were also some violin and guitar concert performed by neighboring local sailing boat one of crew members is also real native american.
Now we are heading towards Sept-Iles initially going downwind with 3.8 kts that allows everyone with less experience to fine tune their steering skills under close supervision of Reinis (cpt Grinch) But currently we allready leaving Chaleur Bay flying with 9.5 kts reaching while having minimal set of sails.
Jelizaveta
(Translated by Ivo)