Before we left Paul’s house in Norman
Bay, we asked him if he had any suggestions of where we should stop next
and he surprised us by saying William’s Harbour. We had read about William’s Harbour
in our cruising guide an although it said the harbour offered good shelter it
discouraged people from stopping there since a fire destroyed the docks in 2007
and insisted the bay was too deep to anchor. We knew Paul wouldn’t lead us
astray and on closer examination of the charting we realized the average depth
in the bay was 30 meters, a perfectly anchorable depth if there wasn’t a
suitable dock.
In the morning, we pulled anchor in
the pouring rain and motored to William’s Harbour. Between the rain, low cloud
and fog there wasn’t much to see along the way. As we approached the entrance
to the harbour, we could see the new wharf was full of fish boats and decided
to check out the anchoring depths instead. There was plenty of room to anchor
in 30-35 meters if needed but after a bit of poking around we anchored in 25
meters near one of the islands protecting the harbour.
A friendly couple in a local boat came
out to greet us and invited us to tie up at the wharf. We were happy with our
anchor spot but it was nice to know that the community was willing to make room
for visiting yachts. Before they left to go out fishing they asked if we wanted cod to which Krystina answered, “Yes, please,” knowing that though she doesn't often eat fish, Frances would enjoy it.
We took
our dinghy over to one of the smaller docks where another local was preparing
to go out fishing. He was surprised to see just 2 women and wondered what we
had done with the men. After we told him we left Alaska in 2007, he shook his
head and said, “I guess you must know how to sail by now”. For some reason many
of the people we met in Labrador could not get their head around the idea of 2
woman being able to handle a boat.
While we
were walking in the rain we noticed the couple come back in and turned around
in hope of catching up with them to thank them for the fish we knew they were
about to deliver. They had kindly delivered 2 fresh cleaned cod to our dinghy
and returned home before we got a chance to thank them. Instead of tracking
them down in the rain we though we would have a chance in the morning to
express our appreciation and headed back to Snow Dragon to deal with the cod.
The fish
had already had their head’s removed and Frances set about filleting them. Next
thing Krystina knew, Frances was standing by the pilothouse door, shaking and
pointing her large knife at the sink saying “there is something alive in the
bag, can you check?” Sure enough the headless cod was jumping around in the
sink still constrained by the plastic bag it was in. After Krystina got used to
the idea of a headless fish trying to jump out of the sink, she picked up the
bag and put it out in the cockpit to let it finish its gymnastic routine out of
sight. Frances composed herself and resumed work on fish number one. Once the
cod in the cockpit settled down, Krystina brought it back inside and said, “maybe
we do need a man to deal with headless jumping fish”.
In the
morning the northeast wind picked up to 20 knots, pushing Snow Dragon a little
too close to shore for comfort. Instead of re-anchoring further from shore in
the wind and rain, we decided to take advantage of the good sailing wind and
make our way to St. Mary’s Harbour. Next year we will have to return to
William’s Harbour to thank the couple for the cod and tell them how much
entertainment and culinary enjoyment their gift caused on Snow Dragon.
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