The Mist of Avalon
Sailing over Venus’s silvery veil under a bright night bursting with a billion stars, I keep my eyes on the horizon.
The nose of the Mist of Avalon bobs and weaves on the Atlantic as the lights on distant Roseway flicker. The waves and wind push our 100-tonne tall ship off course;
I adjust the wheel to keep our sister ship in view. The captain and most of the crew sleep below deck, having left me with the instructions to sail toward the light.
Shortly after 3 a.m., a wave sends the Mist’s nose high into the starry night and when she lurches back to the black water, Roseway is gone. I spin the big wheel to the left, then to the right, eyes popped wide and heart pounding as I scan the lightless horizon. The sails flap high overhead as the boat zigzags through the water, aiming at the unseen shores of Nova Scotia, then Ireland. I’m trying not to panic, but the Mist is 100 feet tall, 100 feet long, and evidently in the mood to sail clear across the Atlantic. The last vessel I commanded was a paddle boat.
“You’ll want to turn left,” suggests a voice in the darkness. It’s my fellow midnight watcher, Tom, a thin, bushy-bearded sage of the sea. Our third, Darren, is aloft somewhere, adjusting the rigging.
I spin the wheel hard, churning an ugly fish tail in our wake.
“You’ll want to turn left,” Tom repeats.
“I know!” I answer, trying to sound calm.
“Then why are you turning right?” he asks, gently.
Waves slosh against the bow. Jupiter hangs brilliantly in the infinite night. A spectral seagull catches the boat’s light before returning to darkness.
“I don’t know,” I finally say.
I slow the wheel’s revolutions, find its neutral setting. The compass and red-glowing navigational tools help guide the blind vessel. It takes time, and patience, to change course on a boat this big.
Roseway returns to the horizon.
I breath a sigh of relief so deep it puffs out our sails, pushing us closer to Louisburg.
***
The Mist of Avalon has sailed these waters for decades. Born the Liverpool Bay in 1967, she was crafted by the expert hands of MacLean Shipbuilding in Mahone Bay. For two decades, the motor vessel worked the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, searching the seas for cod. When the fisheries collapsed, she was abandoned in Sambro harbour. For five years, she lived in chains as the water rotted her planks.
“You don’t decide to buy a boat like this; you kind of fall into it,” explains her new captain, George Mainguy, a grizzled, Ancient Mariner of a man, as we sail along the eastern coast of Nova Scotia. We left Halifax with the Parade of Sail, bound for Cape Breton. In the early 1990s, Mainguy found the Mist in a lonely hearts ad in Wooden Boat magazine: “Schooner hull; needs work.” He flew to Nova Scotia to meet her; it was love at first sight. He spent years resurrecting the dying boat into a spectacular sailing schooner and named her after Avalon, the Arthurian island of rebirth.
With Mainguy at her helm, the Mist and her changing, volunteer crew have sailed Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Bermuda and the Great Lakes from her new home at Ivy Lea, Ontario.
“Roads are almost two-dimensional. You get out on the ocean and it becomes three-dimensional,” Mainguy observes. Having spent the rest of a restless night rolling around my too-short bunk in the boat’s bow, I understand: it’s bigger out here, offering a better perspective on life from its compact world.
The fortress of Louisburg solidifies out of the fog, deploying the well-tested defenses that have deterred attackers for centuries: crappy weather. The rain soaks the sails as we fire the canon to greet the few souls lining the harbour. The crew is ready to leap ashore: a critical supply shortage has fostered a mood of mutiny on the Mist, and we’re ready to sack the town to get what we need.
First published in the Chronicle-Herald Aug. 2, 2009.