“Be up in five minutes,” I said, as I looked up at Geo in the cockpit, his face ringed with the dew dripping off his black fleece hat. I’d unwrapped myself from the warm quarter berth, put on the kettle, switched on the red light over the nav station, grabbed my foul weather pants, dry socks, and fleece that I’d laid on the settee after my last watch. It’s hard enough coming up for watch after only a few hours’ sleep—I knew by this time that laying out dry gear in a logical place helped ease the process.
It was mid-August, we were at the end of an overnight crossing of the Cabot Strait from Burgeo, Newfoundland, heading southwest, another turning point in a summer cruise that opened and unraveled my life in ways I’m still parsing.
My boat partner—Geo—and I have owned Wildwood for four years. During that time, we’ve torn apart and reassembled most of the systems, mostly for local cruising but in the last year with an eye to an extended cruise from our home waters of Penobscot Bay to Newfoundland.
Designed by Doug Peterson, Wildwood is a one-tonner, the IOR class made infamous in Fastnet, Force 10 because of the squirrelly behavior—not the bluewater boat of many folks’ dreams. Yet, she’s a 36-foot racer-cruiser, and Geo and I had enough faith in our boatwork and ways we’d approach the trip that she’d suit.
As I climbed out of the warm salon into the cockpit for the 0400 watch, mug of hot tea in hand, my gaze scanned the horizon, my body anticipating the slight roll as I slid onto the cockpit bench.
“Calabash is ahead of us. I’ve seen some other traffic. Wind’s more to the west, so I’ve been able to climb us back to the rhumbline,” Geo intoned, clearly weary and ready to lay himself down in the waiting quarter berth.
The slight seas rocked Wildwood’s stern ever so gently—we were reaching across the strait, having timed our overnight passage to avoid beating to windward. I settled in with my tea, adjusted the cushions, pulled my own fleece hat down to ward off the chill.
My least favorite things are being cold, wet, and seasick, so what, precisely, was I doing here?
The autopilot hummed with its slight extensions and retractions, keeping Wildwood on a course for the northern mouth of the Bras d’Or lakes.
My dawn watch on Wildwood unfolded. Astern, the sky lightened. As the dark seeped away, sky and sea danced with movement. Above, the clouds swam and painted and reformed—an ongoing tableau of wind-driven moisture. I slid out of the comfort of the dodger back to the stern rail, nestling my limbs into my chest, tucking into the corner of the lifeline, wanting to get as far aft as I could to feel and watch the magic of Wildwood moving—sails full and by, autopilot humming, the Cabot Strait gently rising and falling under our reverse transom.
My ease, my joy, my overwhelming sense of well-being sang. We’d come a long way.
• • •
Our trip had begun early in July, leaving Rockland, Maine, on a windy, foggy day. We were bound for St. John’s, Newfoundland, planning to go offshore for as long as it took to get there. It was about 850 miles.
We’d made many changes to Wildwood for offshore and long distance cruising. We’d purchased a liferaft, designed and commissioned a dodger, been gifted an asymmetrical spinnaker.
We’d also purchased a radar, building a stern pole mount onto which we also added a new solar panel; the dinghy was stowed on deck with an ingenious set of chocks designed by Geo; we’d stowed a fender board, as well as an extra 25 gallons of water in a collapsible tank under the forepeak. We’d replaced the main and jib halyards, installed lee cloths, and in addition to the electronic charts, we’d stowed paper charts and printed cruising guides to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and information about the Viking Route, just in case we became Moitessier-like, deciding to continue east.
I’d researched and installed an Iridium GO satellite receiver and the PredictWind apps and devices that would let us download weather offshore. I’d also set up a Garmin InReach Mini2 and released the web address so family and friends could follow our journey. (The latter was a nod to my 98-year-old mother, who was not wild about my offshore dreams. The tracking map provided a joyous summer diversion; she’d follow us on her iPad with morning coffee, learning about the far reaches of Newfoundland while we were doing the same.)
I’d consulted the PredictWind departure planning maps. They indicated that our July 11 Gulf of Maine crossing would be wet and lumpy but the seas were due to calm and the skies were to clear within 24 hours. Indeed, the first 24 hours had me in a full fetal position, tucked in the corner of the dodger, looking for some relief from both the dripping rigging and the roiling of my body. I wore scopalamine patches, and had even taken some Stugeron—but neither had yet kicked in. I wanted to die. Needless to say, I wasn’t much of a watchkeeper—Geo had to double up on watches for a bit.
The sail to Cape Sable past Brazil Rock was interminable, broken only by a tanker calling, 6 miles astern but wanting to let us know they’d overtake to starboard.
As we left Cape Sable astern the new AIS continued to pop up vessels on the chartplotter, a welcome distraction during the next three days as we sailed the length of Nova Scotia. Rounding the eastern tip seemed almost as unending as the west end—that is, until we started crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Each time I woke up for watch during those nights—occasionally starlit, but more commonly damp, with dripping fog—I swore we must have been going backwards; 850 miles takes a while when sailing at 5 or 6 knots (and yes, sometimes 4).
The fog for the last three days of our passage to St. John’s wore a thickness I could almost measure by the size of the droplets on the dodger, mainsheet, lifelines, mainsail, and boom. It was as if the air were a wet sponge wringing out into Wildwood’s rigging and cockpit. Or maybe just on to her watchkeeper.
The bottom fell out during my evening watch the night before we arrived in St. John’s.
As that afternoon began, we were about 15 nautical miles east of Cape Race, the foggy, forlorn headland at the southern base of the Avalon Peninsula. I had gotten the fear of the Bantam and Ballard banks in me from Where the Wind Blows, a weather book that our chart purveyor had suggested. Each part of the Canadian coast the author analyzed had some catastrophic issue: intense funneling of wind; dangerous piling of wind against sea, etc. He made the whole cruising area sound horrendous.
As to rounding Cape Race, the author urged utmost caution: “Many shoals and banks just offshore can make for very rough seas. The shallowness of these banks, 7 or 8 fathoms in some places, helps create steep-breaking seas, even during moderate easterly winds. When winds become south to southeasterly, conditions worsen, because the wind opposes the strong southward arm of the Labrador Current.”
The accompanying sketch suggested the cautious solution was to navigate well outside. So there we were, well east of the banks, sailing in confused seas, with wall-thick fog. And right in the path of a line squall booming thunder in surround sound, dumping a hard rain just as Geo handed up my dinner plate. Our new dodger didn’t have enough length to allow me to get fully out of the slanting, frigid downpour. I remember sitting there, with the following sea and wind pushing us along in a corkscrew motion, our autopilot pushing and pulling with a whir, wondering if I could get any wetter. My eyes followed the waves up and under Wildwood’s stern while my hand brought the fork to my mouth, my rapidly cooling dinner peppered with rain drops.
Aside from the thunder, we were a wet island unto ourselves. The only saving grace was that St. John’s was within reach. And sure enough, we got there eventually—a place that had been merely an idea, a spot on the chartplotter and planning maps, came into view. First the large bay outside, where we watched with delight as the fog opened up and we saw our first land in three days. I could barely wait for the chance to call the St. John’s harbor traffic control.
St. John’s was a blast—literally. We docked in the small boat basin, astern of a shipyard being sandblasted, showering Wildwood’s cockpit with a fine black powder—we only rid ourselves of it days later as we sailed south along the Avalon peninsula (staying close to Cape Race, with no ill effects).
Wildwood and her crew enjoyed 50 more days of Newfoundland cruising and exploration—a dream that had taken years to achieve.
• • •
And now? As the dawn light grows around Wildwood on this morning approaching Nova Scotia, I think about what these days have taught me. They’ve tested me enough in regular breezes of 15 to 20 knots that the small craft and high wind advisories that once would have kept me pinned in port are no longer fear-inducing.
I have a new appreciation of sea state. Cruising Newfoundland means each day’s sail starts with a transition from safe harbor into the proclivities of an incoming ocean. At first this frightened me—into the big ocean, what will it be like? Now I am looking forward venturing out from our protected home bay even on swelly days and wondering what it’s going to be like outside in the Gulf of Maine.
The other shift in my sailorly consciousness came when I realized I no longer dreaded picking up the anchor (or dropping dock lines) and moving along each day. I slowly realized that Wildwood was like a magic carpet, bringing me to new lands, new sites, new weather patterns. My only limit was within—my fears, my lack of imagination.
Now I’m more likely to wonder, “Where to next, Wildwood?”
Molly Mulhern lives in Camden, Maine. She had retired from her career in nautical book publishing and now focuses on local climate action, writing, and her next adventures.
May 2025
