Fall nipping at our stern: Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia 2017
Irene fought her way back across the Davis Strait to North America. The strait in late September was cold, dark, plagued with icebergs, and nasty rough. A couple of gales hammered us, but they were expected given the time and place. The unpleasant surprise was the constant rough sea of Irene’s least favorite wave length. Even between gales using the motor was out of the question because the propeller was out of the water almost as much as it was in the water! Progress was slow. Our Raymarine radar really came through for us here, as the color display helped us spot the difference – life and death important - between waves and ice. We became fatigued partly due to the motion and partly because we needed to shorten watches to two hours because of the cold. And of course with only two of us aboard, we could only sleep in two hour increments. So when we approached Labrador, we were hyper aware of the extra care we needed to take to safely work Irene through the coastal islands to the tow